The Apostle Paul's owning of the shadow in Romans 7:14--25: A Jungian reading and missiological implications

This study presents a Jungian interpretation of the Apostle Paul's shadow in Rom. 7:14--25, and finds the text's missiological implications for Christian maturity. The shadow is an in-divisible part of becoming a whole person. In light of Jung's view that there is no wholeness without shadow,1 Paul's owning of the shadow reveals a crucial movement of becoming a mature Christian. Paul's ultimate mission goal is to be transformed into the image of Christ (2 Cor. 3:18), and Rom. 7:14--25 is an example of the ongoing dynamic journey of integrating the shadow and Christ in the transformation process.; 1"There is no light without shadow and no psychic wholeness without imperfection. To round itself out, life calls not for perfection but for completeness; and for this, the 'thorn in the flesh' is needed, the suffering of defects without which there is no progress and no ascent." C. G. Jung; quoted in Jolande Jacobi, C. G. Jung. Psychological Reflections: A New Anthology of his Writings, 1905--1961. Selected and edited in collaboration with R. F. C. Hull. Bollingen Series XXXI (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974), 315.