- Home
- philosophy
- religion
- God’s Autopsy and the Living Truth of Soul
God’s Autopsy and the Living Truth of Soul
A History of Western Consciousness
by Hal Childs
Imprint: Wipf and Stock
The Grand Narrative of Christianity that the Bible created is dead, and the Bible is silent. Does the Bible have anything relevant to say to our modern circumstances? We ask, where did God come from? What happened to God? God's Autopsy reinterprets soul and God as historical-psychological phenomena related to the cultural structure of consciousness, the invisible shared context of thought, which has changed dramatically over the past three millennia. This book offers a new way to understand the trajectory of Western civilization by making the implicit foundation of Western consciousness--soul--visible and conscious. Our modern Western consciousness is radically different from that of antiquity when the Bible emerged. Jung's psychological-philosophical insight that whenever we speak about the psyche it is the psyche speaking about itself, leads to the realization that today consciousness has come home to itself. Beginning with preliterate polytheism, the emergence of the transcendent god Yahweh and Christ, which led directly to the Enlightenment, objective soul continues to unfold itself. How did late modernity become a topsy-turvy, quantum, virtual, digital, impersonal, and abstract world that appears to be running away from us? The answer is unexpectedly and shockingly in the Bible itself.
Hal Childs is a psychotherapist (halchilds.com) with an MDiv and PhD in San Francisco, California. He has been a seminar leader with the Guild for Psychological Studies (guildsf.org) for over forty years. He is the author of The Myth of the Historical Jesus and the Evolution of Consciousness (2000).
“Hal Childs examines the history of Western consciousness in relation to key texts from the Bible which reflect that development. Soulfully informed by the death-of-God experience that has been at the heart of our modern times, the book is highly recommended for its deep interpretations, clarity of thought, and questing spirit. A gripping, immensely readable tour de force!”
—Greg Mogenson, author of Jungian Analysis Post Mortem Dei
“God’s Autopsy and the Living Truth of Soul requires a new way of thinking that, at the same time, feels familiar. Although the book’s scope is immense, it remains grounded in the particulars of biblical and Western history. The author’s repetition of ideas feels like poetry in song from a person helping us find our way in a world whose foundations seem to be crumbling, giving the book a sense of integrity and truth.”
—Timothy A. Sanderson, MD, Jungian analyst
“This extraordinary read helps us understand the truth of the soul by way of a series of sublations (changing the form but not the essence) that have been occurring throughout history. Using the Bible as his platform of explanation, Hal Childs shows how consciousness has developed and expanded throughout history, guiding the reader with poignant intimacy as he weaves the psychological differences that brilliantly bring biblical accounts alive in refreshing, vibrant ways.”
—Jane Smith-Eivemark, Jungian analyst
Related Titles
