Jung, Gods, and Modern Man by Antonio Moreno, O. P. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 549 Jung, Gods, and Modern Man. By ANTONIO MoRENO, 0. P. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1970. Pp. Q74. $7.95. This book examines Jung's concept of religion as an explanation of modem man's loss of religious orientation and it uses insights that are philosophical and theological as well as psychological. In his Introduction the author warns us that the philosopher or theologian may not be able to understand Jung's depth psychology; the implication is that such people are in no positieon to judge Jung's contribution to religious discourse . Despite this caveat, this review is written from a philosophical and somewhat theological point of view. The Jungian psychology of religious belief does raise both philosophical and theological questions that must be faced by those who are studying, writing, teaching, or simply working in the area where religious values are given special attention. This book raises a few questions of its own by virtue of the author's interpretation and presentation of the views of Carl Jung. A starting point might well lie with the title itself. Jung, Gods, and Modern Man does not seem to involve what we think of as "modem man" today. Present-day thinkers are influenced by a wide variety of intellectual forces such as existentialism, behavioral psychology, process philosophy, linguistic analysis, and sociological perspectives as well as the philosophies and ideologies of the past. The value of Jung's insights might well be lost to the contemporary thinker unless they are formulated in a context that is open to the major spheres of intellectual influence at work in society today. From this point of view, Fr. Moreno's book is found wanting simply because it is too remote from contemporary intellectual experience and thus seems to betray Jung's own emphasis on experience. A more basic philosophical and theological question arising from Jung's religious psychology and Moreno's interpretation of it centers upon what might be called the ground of religious faith or the realism of religious experience. A repeated theme of both Jung and Moreno is that myth, primordially, and dogma, consequently, are the objects of faith. So we read on page IIO: "The psychology of religion, Jung points out, is not a question of God at all, but of man's ideas of God." The basic question to be asked about any ideas is whether or not they are realistic, and this question would seem to be just as important to the psychologist or psychiatrist as to the philosopher. One way of identifying the psychotic personality is by judging that his thoughts are out of touch with reality. This does not require that a single philosophical answer be given to the question of just what reality is, but it does require that each of our judgments include some relation to the individual's notion of what reality is. The implication of this is that the basic question about God is not 550 BOOK REVIEWS whether we think that there is such a being but whether the existence of such a being is demanded by our understanding of our own experience. Since this review is to appear in a Thomistic journal and Fr. Moreno makes much use of St. Thomas to support his notion that "Dogmas are the object of faith," (p. 112) it is reasonable to discuss the authenticity of his claim to be simply applying the ideas of Thomas Aquinas. This reviewer has always been irritated by Thomists who shift from the concrete to the abstract in their metaphysical discussions of the transcendentals , not that they have not understood what is involved in such a shift but that their readers and students are often confused. Even St. Thomas made such shifts, but it is clear in his texts (especially in the Summa, I, q. 16 and I-II, q. 1) that he is referring to a concrete being when he uses the term "Prima Veritas." It has been characteristic of Thomism to view reality in the concrete rather than in the abstract, and this is just as true for the realm of faith as for views of this world. The Thomist fundamentally believes God...