Privato Boni: Evil Through The Eyes Of Carl Jung And Victor White

• Author: Mary Stefanazzi
• Position: PhD, Independent researcher
• Pages: 67-83

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PRIVATIO BONI: EVIL THROUGH THE EYES OF

CARL JUNG AND VICTOR WHITE

Abstract: Psychiatrist Carl Jung and Dominican theologian Fr. Victor White engaged in a lengthy dialogue

about how evil is understood conceptually. They scrutinised the traditional Western account of evil as a

privation of good – privatio boni – from various angles. Jung was polemical in his argument against the

concept, while White set out to explain the soundness of privatio boni based on centuries of thought in the

Aristotelian/Aquinas tradition. Although consensus was never reached, Jung and White, both pioneers in

their own right, have left us a considerable legacy - a template for dialogue on difficult matters of considerable

ethical importance.

Author: Mary Stefanazzi, PhD, Independent researcher, accredited psychotherapist (Irish Council for

Psychotherapy) clinical supervisor, ethics consultant and guest lecturer www.marystefanazzi.ie. Her doctoral

research at Trinity College Dublin considered the Jung-White dialogue. Her publications to date include

articles relating to that research and on contemporary ethical issues from an Aristotelian perspective.

Introduction

History provides ample evidence of what human beings are capable of. It tells of battles,

wars, murders, rapes, torture and genocide among a litany of evil acts that have been

perpetrated down the ages. This fact is not in dispute. But what is less clear is how evil is

understood conceptually. The traditional Western philosophical account holds that evil is a

privation of good – malum est privatio boni. The aim of this paper is to introduce the concept

of evil, traditionally understood as a privation of good. In doing so, it expands on some

material from an earlier article published by the IJSJ.

1

The context for this consideration is the well-documented dialogue about evil between the

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) and the English Dominican theologian Fr.

Victor White OP (1902-1960). White’s anthropology is grounded in the Aristotelian/Aquinas

tradition. The liaison between Carl Jung and Victor White is the main subject of two

monographs: In God’s Shadow: the Collaboration of Victor White and C.G. Jung,

2

and Fr. Victor

White, O.P.: the Story of Jung's ‘White Raven’.

3

Their correspondence is published in The Jung-

White Letters.

4

Jung and White spent many years discussing the subject of evil without

reaching a consensus. In spite of this, they agreed that the topic most certainly demands

concentration and careful consideration. Many of the challenges they faced are still relevant

today.

Background and context

To place our subject in context we need to go back in time to ancient Greek philosophy, in

particular to the Aristotelian/Aquinas tradition of thought. The work of Aristotle (384-322

BC) had effectively disappeared from scholarship in the West until the eleventh century when

there was a substantial translation movement from Arabic into Latin. This made his works

1

Peter Charleton, ‘Carl Jung, Father Victor White and the Book of Job’ (2020) 4(2) Irish Judicial Studies Journal.

2

Ann Conrad Lammers, In God’s Shadow: the Collaboration of Victor White and C.G. Jung (Paulist Press 1994).

3

Clodagh Weldon, Fr. Victor White, O.P.: the Story of Jung's ‘White Raven’ (University of Sc ranton Press 2007).

4

Ann Conrad Lammers, Adrian Cunningham and Murray Stein (eds), The Jung-White Letters (Routledge 2007).

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available to Western scholars for the first time. The more significant of whom were St. Albert

the Great (1206-1280) and St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274).

5

In this ancient mode of philosophical thought, all propositions are considered through first

principles and an appeal to the universal experience of mankind in an attempt to reach what

can reasonably be said to be true. It follows therefore that any conclusions reached must be

applicable to all of humanity, irrespective of whether people believe in a deity, and also be

able to accommodate the concept of the transcendent without seeking to prove it. The

following quotation tells how Aquinas thought about this matter:

Aquinas thought that in any kind of true knowledge, any scientia, there must

be certain first principles that are simply taken for granted; they are not part

of the subject of the scientia itself. The statistical study of economics is

permeated by the truths of arithmetic but it is not about them. Economics is

done in terms of arithmetic, it does not seek to establish these truths.

6

This brief background is relevant because it serves to set the foundation stone of our enquiry.

The first principle – that humankind is good – forms the basis of our enquiry into evil

understood as a privation of good. Thus, although our consideration is done in terms of this

principle, it does not seek to establish this truth.

Against this backdrop any notion that some people are intrinsically evil can be ruled out

because it contradicts the first principle that humankind is good. This brings to light another

first principle in the Aristotelian/Aquinas tradition of thought – the principle of non-

contradiction, a principle that similarly cannot be proven but it does not need to be proven

because it is self-evident to reason. It is impossible for the human mind to think coherently

about something that contains a contradiction. Thinking about a square circle serves to

illustrate this impossibility. Whenever people contradict themselves in their line of thought,

they are proved wrong by virtue of the principle of non -contradiction. Thus, being proved

wrong is a matter of critical analysis, not of opinion.

The traditional understanding of evil as parasitic on good, or as a privation of good, is in

contrast to evil having existence – being – in its own right. The context for this statement is

rooted in Aristotle, who discusses the relation between being and truth in Book II of his

Metaphysics (993b), where he writes that ‘as a thing relates to being, so also to truth’, for being

is that which is first known.

7

Likewise, regarding Aquinas and the teachers and schoolmen of the Middle Ages, McCabe

states: ‘for St. Thomas, the meaning of the word ‘evil’ depends on the meaning of ‘good’,

and an understanding of this depends, in its turn, upon an understanding of ‘being.’

8

The significance of the line of thought we are about to consider is that it allows for the

possibility of redemption from evil for all human beings, whether believers in God or not.

5

For more on the translations of the Greek philosophers from Arabic into Latin and the subsequent

collaboration between Christian and Arab see: Mona Baker and Gabriela Saldanha (eds), Routledge Encyc lopedia

of Translation Studies (2nd edn, Routledge 2009) 481.

6

Herbert McCabe, ‘Aquinas and Good Sense’ (1986) 67 (798) New Blackfriars 425. L ater published as Herbert

McCabe, God Still Matters (Continuum 2002) ch 14.

7

Rik Van Nieuwenhove, Thomas Aquinas & Contemplation, (Oxford University Press 2021) 50.

8

Herbert McCabe, God and Evil in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, (Continuum 2010) 15. McCabe’s work

focused on ‘key areas of Aquinas: the nature of human a ction and thinking, and the question of how to live

well.’ Herbert McCabe, On Aquinas (Continuum 2008) xii. See also Herbert McCabe, The Good Life (Continuum

2005).