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How can Christian spiritual growth incorporate Jungian ideas?

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(If we need to specify denomination, Catholic works, but I think other Christian perspectives will work too.) C. S. Lewis said "The bad psychological material is not a sin but a disease. It does not need to be repented of, but to be cured." So at least one of us thinks psych and Christianity can be compatible, and in areas that don't quite overlap. I can go with that, but it seems to me Christianity and Jungianism or depth psychology do overlap, and have different approaches to changing one's character. Christianity takes every thought captive for Christ; discards the old man for the new; buries one's sinful nature and is raised in baptism; puts off works of darkness. How can Christians incorporate Jung into their practices? (Not doctrines !) Talking to the part that wants to sin and asking it what it wants and can it get that a better way doesn't sound a lot like Jesus or St. Paul! It almost feels like Christianity shoves things into shadow from a Jungian perspective, and Jungianism tolerates sin from a Christian perspective. Yet Jesus tells us about projection well before Jung was on the scene (the "mote in your brother's eye" thing), and Jung reminds us to extend the mercy God calls us to offer to each other, to parts of the psyche.
Asked by Maverick (1286 rep)
Mar 23, 2026, 01:40 PM