For the consciousness that reflects on the presence of Evil in the world, it is impossible to believe that God can identify with the ‘Sovereign Good’, the Summum Bonum, with which Christian philosophy associates Him, as a matter of course. According to Isaiah, YHVH says of Himself that He is « creator of evilⁱ  » and that He « makes all this [evil] ». However, on this thorny question of Evil (is it « created » by God or not?), almost all Christian theologians tend to devalue the authority of Isaiah out of hand, or of the prophet who is supposed to be the author of chapter 45 of the Book of Isaiah. But in his seminal book, Answer to Job, C.G. Jung offered some stimulating views on this subject, based on the idea of conjunction or union of opposites. « Clement of Rome professed that God ruled the world with a right hand and a left hand. The right hand meant Christ, the left Satan. Clement’s conception was clearly monotheistic, since he united opposing principles in one God. Later, however, Christianity became dualistic to the extent that the part of the opposing elements, personified by Satan, is dissociated, and Satan is banished in a state of eternal curse. This is the central problem. It is of essential significance, and lies at the root of the Christian doctrine of salvation. If Christianity claims to be a monotheistic religion, it cannot do without the assumption that opposites are unified in one Godⁱⁱ. » The resources of depth psychology can indeed be mobilized to explore (heuristically) the question of Evil in the divine project. But first we need to reread the Jewish and Christian Scriptures that deal with it, such as the Book of Job, the Book of Enoch (and the other books of Jewish Apocalypticism), certain Prophets, and the Gospels. Logically, a God who is both the ‘creator of the world’, ‘omniscient’ and ‘omnipotent’, naturally has an undeniable responsibility for the presence of Evil in this world he is supposed to have created with full knowledge of the facts. His supposed omniscience should have informed him in advance of the particularly harmful role of Evil in the economy of his own creation (at least, from a human point of view). Moreover, God’s (supposed) omnipotence could (should?) have enabled him to eradicate a priori any future presence of Evil in the world, even before creation. Had he really wanted to, God could have created a world devoid of all Evil, couldn’t he? But he didn’t. Why didn’t he? Moreover, why does He reveal to Isaiah that He « creates evil », not once and for all, in the beginning, but ever continuously, as acknowledged by the use of a verb in the imperfect mode of Hebrew grammar (« vore’ « ) ? How could a « good » God voluntarily create evil, allowing it to enter His creation and develop at will? How could an omniscient God, capable of foreseeing the perverse role of Evil, allow it to arise and subsist? We have to choose. God cannot logically be « good », « omniscient », « omnipotent » and « creator of evil » all at the same time. Taken together, these attributes are intrinsically contradictory. Solutions to the dilemma have been proposed over the millennia, such as dualism and Manichaeism, which differentiate between « good » and « evil » Gods. But this is too easy a solution, and incompatible with the monotheistic paradigm of the « One » God. The only remaining possibility is to envisage the idea of a « One » God who unites opposites in Himself, including good and evil. Since He cannot consciously unite them in Himself (if He is « good »), this means that He unites them in His own Unconscious.

Further questions arise. How can such a God demand that believers both « fear » Him (as a God who chastises, and can let Evil loose on the world) and « love » Him (as a God who saves, and brings souls to life)? The fear that the biblical God is supposed to inspire in the believer is a further element of incomprehension for a critical consciousness. Why should we fear at all a supremely good God, the God of Summum Bonum?

The theory of the saving Messiah, who sacrifices Himself to save sinful mankind, is also difficult to understand. How can a supremely good God let His own ‘Son’ be sacrificed to save mankind from the Evil that the same God has knowingly allowed to flourish in the world? How can a ‘good’ and ‘just’ God let men put His Son to death, precisely in order to save mankind from His own wrath, and from the punishment He intends to inflict on mankind? A ‘good’, ‘just’ and ‘omnipotent’ God could have eradicated Evil by His almighty power, or He could have unilaterally erased mankind’s faults. We can’t evacuate these questions with arguments of authority. A critical consciousness cannot be satisfied with theological decisions. But we can also assume that this question is neither theological nor philosophical. Rather, it is anthropological and psychological. Moreover, it’s important to stress that the paradigm of divine sacrifice for the benefit of Creation is an anthropological constant, spanning millennia and cultures. We also find this idea with Prajāpati in India, Inanna in Sumer, Osiris in Egypt, Dionysus in Greece, Jesus in Israel … a long litany of various Deities sacrificed for the benefit of mankind.

The most important thing is to realize that, in the case of the biblical God, capable of blatant injustice, anger, jealousy and even unfaithfulness to the promises He Himself made, the injunction to love and praise Him as a « good » God is a contradictory injunction. How can we love a « good » God who constantly creates evil, on His own admission? How can a truly critical consciousness understand a God who is essentially, ethically and logically contradictory?

To all these questions, Jung proposes this rather paradoxical answer: God is actually « partly unconscious ». He is unconscious of who He really is (and how He affects His creature). Only an unmistakable lack of « reflection » in « God’s consciousness » can (logically) explain His inexplicable behavior (from the particuliar point of view of human consciousness). The consequence of this unconsciousness is that God can only suffer a « moral defeat » when confronted with the critical consciousness of his creatures, revolted by the injustice of their lot. The paradigmatic example of this revolt is Job. Through this « moral defeat », man finds himself subjectively and unexpectedly elevated to a new level of awareness of God. Simply by being aware of being confronted with an unconsciously immoral God, Job, or for that matter any other critical consciousness, can in fairness take Him to task, and push Him to His limits. God’s such « moral defeat » provokes a profound upheaval in humanity’s (collective) unconscious. Man acquires greater ‘moral value’ in his own eyes. This new ‘moral’ status invades man’s unconscious, filling the ‘void’ left by the ‘unconsciousness’ (or the ‘absence’ ) of God. Unconsciously, man feels morally « grown up » in relation to the conscious, devalued self-image he continues to have. In these circumstances, other latent potentialities of the unconscious are just waiting to burst into consciousness, in the form of dreams, visions, revelations and prophecies. In the first half of the 6^th century B.C., the prophet Ezekiel had visions that were symptoms of the fractures between human consciousness and the collective unconscious, in very troubled times. At the same time, Siddhārtha Gautama (b. 562 B.C.), also known as the « Great Spirit », the « Awakened One » or the « Buddha », introduced the world to new possibilities for human consciousness, judged capable of going beyond brahman itself, and reaching parabrahman (the supreme, absolute brahman)… The brahman, which is the origin of All, is also referred to as the ātman (the Self), and as sva (the Sanskrit word that gave rise to the word « self » in English and « soi » in French). Another of his names, in the Vedic tradition, is Prajāpati, the Lord of Creation. In Hinduism, brahman is the cosmic consciousness present in all things, the immanent Self in all being, the Absolute, both transcendent and immanent, the ultimate principle that is, without beginning or end. But it’s important to stress that, above brahman, consciousness can find an even more absolute parabrahman. The race of consciousness towards new heights seems endless. Ezekiel didn’t go that far, however. But he did grasp, in his own visions, that in a sense YHVH had come closer to man. Yet neither Ezekiel nor Job seem to have consciously realized the disturbing fact that their own consciousness (and potentially all human consciousnesses) could turn out to be ‘higher’, in a way, more critical, than YHVH’s own.

It is particularly significant that Ezekiel was the first prophet to quote the expression ‘Son of Man’- Ben-Adam, which YHVH uses on numerous occasions to designate Ezekiel. In the Jewish canon, Ezekiel is the only prophet to be named Ben-Adam by YHVH, with the exception of Daniel who is also called in this way – but by the angel Gabriel. Later, Jesus of Nazareth used the expression « Son of Man » several times, but he innovated by using it to designate himself and to make it a messianic title. For the first time, Jesus formally established the identity of the « Son of Man » and the « only-begotten Son » (of God). One of his disciples, Stephen, exclaimed when he was stoned to death, in the presence of Saul (the future Paul), an accomplice of his torturers: « Ah! » he said, « I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God ». It is important to note that the image of the « Son of Man », seated or standing « at the right hand of God », which is also found in the Book of Revelation, was not a Christian innovation. It had already been used for several centuries in Jewish apocalyptic texts, most notably in the three books of Enoch. Today, we can interpret this name, Ben-Adam, as a kind of testimony to God’s awareness of his own unconsciousness.

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iIs 45:7וּבוֹרֵא רָע ; אֲנִי יְהוָה, עֹשֶׂה כָל-אֵלֶּה (vou-vore’ ra‘ ani YHVH ‘osseh koul-’élêh) « And I, YHVH, am the creator of evil, I make it all » (Is 45:7)

iiC.G. Jung. Answer to Job. Buchet/Chastel, 2009. See also C.G. Jung. Mysterium Conjuctionis. Albin Michel, 1982.