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Note: This piece was originally written for UAF course ENG213X, “Academic Writing on the Social and Natural Sciences,” in September of 2001. It is posted here as part of an assignment for AIO course SS100, “Strategies for Online Learning.”

In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually, but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.
-Carl G. Jung

Christian theology teaches the doctrine of prevenient grace, which briefly stated means this, that before a man can seek God, God must first have sought the man. We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit. “No man can come to me,” said our Lord, “except the Father which hath sent me draw him….” This impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the out-working of that impulse is our following hard after Him; and all the time we are pursuing Him we are already in His hand.
-A.W. Tozer

Throughout history, peoples of the earth have sought God. Some have found Him, others have been deceived by Satan. The deceived have been misled by false prophets, and told that the god to worship is, for example, Allah or Buddha. Jung himself could not see past the lies that Satan whispered quietly in his ear. For the duration of his life, he sought an answer explaining the void that he sensed in every person. Jung was searching for an answer; that answer was and is God.

His theories were correct insofar as saying that each person has an inherited collective unconsciousness of “pre-existent forms, the archetypes.” A quick glance at history books can tell you that much; every people group on Earth has at some point created a god or idol of some sort. However, as Tozer said, “We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit.” Satan knows this. He has taken advantage of this urge within us by possessing the minds of certain influential people all through history.

Desperate people are prone to acting irrationally and following the first possible solution. We have seen a perfect example in politics: in the midst of a famine, politicians win votes by promising the people increased food supply and production; in economic troubles, they gather support by pledging the existence of new and better jobs for workers. Politicians will not like this analogy, but in the same way, Satan has capitalized on humans’ desperation for God in their lives. He created models of God in such figures as Allah and Buddha, essentially promising them, by acting as the puppeteer of his possessed prophets, to fill that void within them. He convinced people that these idols and icons were real and true gods. His sole purpose, however, was to impede their discovery of God.

In the New Testament of the Bible, the apostle Paul writes that we are complete when we have spirit, soul, and body (1 Thess. 5:23). The soul is apparent in our mind, will, and emotions; the body is apparent to the senses. Man in and of himself, however, cannot gain the spirit. The spirit is the completing part of the puzzle of our being, and grows through intimate, personal fellowship with God.

According to Genesis, the first book of the Bible, Adam and Eve lived in harmony with God, walking with Him “in the cool of day” (3:8). Each evening, the first couple would talk to God freely and openly, without pretense or façade. They were complete in every aspect. After the Fall, unfortunately, this desirable and necessary fellowship was obstructed by man’s impurity and sinful nature, and the spirit that lived within them dwindled. All of their posterity, including you and me, has this spiritual chasm to fill.

Therefore, those who do not know God have a void in their being; they are incomplete because their spirit is inadequate. In an attempt to fill this hole, many have tried to cover it with false gods and idols. All of creation testifies to the fact that unseen powers exist in the universe, and, sensing this awesome force, humans have created gods to whom the credit is given and towards whom their worship is directed. Through all history, the idea of a creator who is to be worshiped has never been disputed; only the true object of that worship was often hidden.

In a video documentary entitled Transformations II: The Glory Spreads, an Inuit Eskimo relates a tale from his village’s tradition. Many years ago the clan had a spiritual leader, Aguatiswak, who helped the people “to form their thoughts.” An Enuk visitor came from the south and told the tribe about “Jesusi,” who was the Son of God. Aguatiswak had to make a choice-whether or not his people would follow Jesusi. If he was able to catch and kill a seal, this would be the sign to follow Jesusi. While he was waiting on the ice, he had a dream where he could see his shadow on a moonless winter night. Then he momentarily saw three silent beings in the sky that looked as though they had wings. When he awoke a seal emerged from the hole in the ice. He had received his answer. The tribe would follow Jesusi. They acted upon their collective unconscious knowledge of the archetypes. Aguatiswak saw that God existed, and led his people to worship Him.

Missionary John Turner and his wife began their ministry on Baffin Island in the early 1900’s. The ancient story of Aguatiswak laid the groundwork, according to George Otis, Jr., the film’s narrator and director. The people of Baffin Island had already known God for many years. John Turner showed them the European name of the God they knew and worshiped.

A Mohawk Indian from Ontario’s Tyendinaga Territory, and personal friend of mine, Jonathan Maracle, related a story of his people. They worshiped one God-the Creator of the moon, sun, stars, plants, animals and the Mohawk people. They understood that He was to be worshiped, and diligently did so on a regular basis, thanking Him for each animal harvested for food and every rain that watered the crops. These people knew without being told that a Creator existed.

Long before the Pilgrims traveled to the New World, a native prophet told the people that “white men” would come carrying “many leaves” on which the truth was written. Centuries later, the gospel message arrived with the Pilgrims, carrying their Bibles—the “many leaves.” The name the white men gave to the Creator was God. Prior to the Pilgrims’ coming, however, the Mohawk people had never heard the names of Jesus or God, but worshiped Him nonetheless. What Jung called the collective unconscious was simply a yearning to fill that hole, a desire for God in their lives. They knew it, and responded to it.

Margaret Johnstone, a psychotherapist and writer, calls the collective unconscious “…a Jungian term for the many symbols, chiefly religious, which are collective and not individual in nature. These collective symbols are natural, spontaneous products that cannot be made by an individual person. A religious person might see these symbols as accessible to people who accept God. An atheist might think that they are invented; but they are impossible to invent. We are not able to place invention dates, times or authors for symbols. They seem to have no human source.” Indeed, it does not have any “human source.” We are “…not able to place invention dates [or] times…” on the symbols of the collective unconscious because they have no dates or times of creation. God is everlasting (Genesis 21:33, Isaiah 9:6), and designed us from the beginning with a love of His presence and a desire to know Him; human kind has never known a time without this collective unconscious because there never was a time that it was not in us.

While Jung wrote many books and papers and gave numerous lectures on the topic of the collective unconscious, he perhaps never fully realized-or did not acknowledge-that God was the author of and answer to that inherent understanding. Without identifying the pursuit of God as such, Jung realized this aspect of human nature, and gave it his own name-the collective unconscious.

Works cited

• Bible. Ryrie Study Bible, expanded edition. New American Standard translation. Chicago: Moody Press, 1995.
• Johnstone, Margaret, et al. Bloomsbury Guide to Human Thought. Bloomsbury Publishing. 1993.
• Jung, Carl. From the “Definition” portion of the lecture “The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.” Vol. 9.i, par. 110.
• Kazlev, Alan. Home page. 5 Oct. 1999. http://www.kheper.auz.com/topics/psychology/Jung/collective_unconscious.html.
• Maracle, Jonathan. Personal interview. 21 Mar. 2001.
• Tozer, A.W. The Pursuit of God. Harrisburg: Christian Publications, 1948. 11-12.
• Transformations II: The Glory Spreads. Narr. And Dir. by George Otis, Jr. Videocassette. Sentinel Group, 2001.