Facing The Other:a Comparative Study Of Tillich’s Concept Of The Demonic And Jung’s Concept Of Shadow

Paul Tillich and Carl Jung,one as a theologian and the other as a psychologist,both stand at the boundary between religion and psychology.The question that concerns this paper is how they arrived at this boundary,and what dynamics within their thinking led them to keep moving between different fields?How does this help us to advance the dialogue between religion and psychology?This paper attempts to answer this question by exploring the central theme that both men share,namely,the problem of the Other.By "the problem of the Other" I mean:how do we confront something that is different from ourselves,irreducible to ourselves,even excluded,rejected,claimed to be eliminated,but at the same time connected to us in some sense?What this paper tries to argue is that it is their sensitivity to and reflection on the Other in a different sense that "drives" them to the boundary of encounter with different spheres.At the same time,it is in their sensitivity to the complex relationship between man himself and the Other that they see the problem itself as a split between the self and the Other.It is also because they are aware of this problem that they try to combat this split by exploring the possibility of renewing the relationship between themselves and the Other at the boundary.The key concepts chosen as entry points for this paper are Tillich’s concept of the demonic and Jung’s concept of shadow.This paper is divided into three main parts,the first of which discusses the demonic as an imbalance in the dual relationship with God:first,it introduces the dual religious and cultural roots of the concept of the demonic,second,it clarifies its ontological structure and its realization in reality,third,it explores the confrontation of the demonic,and finally,it concludes and shows the relevance of the demonic to the problem of the Other.In Tillich,it is the imbalance of our dual dialectical relationship with God as " the wholly Other" that leads to the fragmentation and brokenness of life,which can only be overcome in divine grace.The second part discusses shadow as the immanent Other:first,it clarifies the dual indefinability of shadow and the origin of shadow,second,it examines shadow in detail from the personal to the archetypal level,then it emphasizes the involvement of the problem of shadow with the problem of morality,and finally it discusses the confrontation of shadow on the basis of the previous discussion.Through his elaboration of the concept of shadow,Jung shows that the problem does not lie in the shadow itself,but in the splitting and isolation of the interaction between the self and the shadow.Therefore,to address this problem means,first of all,to reconstruct the dialectical relationship between separation and interconnection of shadow.The third part,based on the first two parts,focuses on the reconciliation and mutual criticism of the demonic and shadow,and tries to point out the possibility of a new gesture of mutual wrestling between the self and the Other.Their common insight is,first,that the problem of the Other points to an intersubjective relational imbalance and rigidity rather than a physical division;second,that the problem of the Other is inevitable and that avoiding it can only deepen the division;and third,that the problem of the Other can never be solved in a reductive synthesis.This tension compels them,on the one hand,to go beyond their own sphere and engage with the Other,and on the other hand,to always reject a reductionism and triumphalism with a sense of caution and restraint.But even with this sensitivity,they still have a tendency to be reductive.In a kind of mutual dialogue we find that,just as Jung had to confront the fundamental importance of the dimension of faith in the question of the Other,so Tillich had to confront the two-way relation of responsibility between man and God,between the self and the Other.On this basis,this paper attempts to suggest the possibility of a new posture of mutual wrestling between the self and the Other.It is in the gesture of wrestling,as Jacob wrestled with the angel,that man is on the border between the demarcation of the self and the Other and the crossing of the border.On this border,we do not engulf each other,but we perceive each other,we touch each other,we exchange temperature with temperature,force with force.On this border,we do not ignore the Other or put the Other under our control,while never giving up our place,but rather we are in a living life process of mutual limitation,mutual exchange,mutual responsibility,and delimitation and border crossing.The dialogue between religion and psychology should also be in this posture.