The significance of man is enhanced by the incarnation.
We have become participants of the divine life and we have to assume a new responsibility, viz. the continuation of the divine self-realization, which expresses itself in the task of our individuation.
Individuation does not only mean that man has become truly human as distinct from animal, but that he is to become partially divine as well.
This means practically that he becomes adult, responsible for his existence, knowing that he does not only depend on God but that God also depends on man.
Man’s relation to God probably has to undergo a certain important change:Instead of the propitiating praise to an unpredictable king or the child’s prayer to a loving father, the responsible living and fulfilling of the divine will in us will be our form of worship of and commerce with God.
His goodness means grace and light and His dark side the terrible temptation of power.
Man has already received so much knowledge that he can destroy his own planet.
Let us hope that God’s good spirit will guide him in his decisions, because it will depend upon man’s decision whether God’s creation will continue.
Nothing shows more drastically than this possibility how much of divine power has come within the reach of man.
~C.G. Jung letter to Elined Kotschnig, 1956
There is a shift happening in the very image of God, not just in culture or individual consciousness.
In a 1956 letter, Carl Jung outlined something most people would never associate with psychology: a theological evolution that demands human participation and partnership.
Jung dares to say what many mystics have whispered across ages: that God is not finished. That the incarnation, the divine entering the human, is a continuing process. The divine continues its unfolding through us.
Individuation, in this light, isn’t merely psychological maturation. It is a sacred responsibility: to live out the divine potential placed within us. To carry, consciously, a spark of that mysterious process Jung calls “divine self-realization”, and both terrifyingly and beautifully he says that God also depends on us.
We are no longer children praying to a father in the sky. Nor are we slaves to an unpredictable king. We are individual consciousnesses that contain the divine in the very center of our being. We have been given a share in divine agency. With it comes the burden of freedom and morality.
This is why individuation matters, not merely for self-improvement and realization, but for cosmic integrity. The world does not need more controlled, well-behaved people. It needs more whole individuals. More conscious, balanced, empowered individuals. People willing to embody the divine will – not by projection, but by conscious choice.
Jung acknowledges the shadow of that cosmic mission: that with knowledge, we also inherit power. Power to create and destroy. He writes, “Man has already received so much knowledge that he can destroy his own planet.” What greater sign could there be of how far divine potential has entered human hands?
Will we meet this responsibility?
Will we continue the divine work?
Or will we, as a result of fear, ignorance, and pride, fail this process that seeks to become conscious through us?
It’s for each one of us who hears this faint whisper of soul, to embrace this psychological and existential path toward becoming more whole. For each of us who knows that simply living as we are isn’t enough.
Because something greater is asking to be born through us.
And it needs us to say yes, consciously and wholeheartedly.
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