In our most recent episode (Awakening in the Dream with Paul Levy), we speak extensively about the nature of evil—how it operates within us, how it projects outward, and how confronting it can be a path to awakening. Paul draws on Carl Jung’s idea that we must develop an imagination for evil—not to indulge in it, but to see it clearly enough that it no longer controls us from the shadows. This idea resonates deeply with me, not only because of my interest in Jung, but because I grew up in a theological framework that also took evil seriously: Calvinism.
I grew up Presbyterian, and while the Presbyterians I knew weren’t exactly full-throated Calvinists, the fingerprints of John Calvin’s theology were everywhere in the spiritual environment that formed me. One of the most enduring marks he left was the doctrine of total depravity.
I never heard the words "total depravity" until I was probably in high school, but I felt its influence long before that. Maybe the best illustration of this is a recurring nightmare I had between the ages of 9 and 12.
In the dream, I would wake up in the dark, close confines of a coffin. There was no confusion about why I was there—I knew. I had been sealed inside because I was so bad, so repulsive, that God couldn’t bear to be near me. In the dream, I understood that God had placed me as far away from himself and others as possible, buried beneath the earth, locked away from love, from light, from life. The dream was terrifying. I would wake up in a claustrophobic panic, gasping for air, clawing my way back into a world where I still had a chance to be good enough.
This was Calvin’s doctrine of total depravity, not as an intellectual concept, but as a lived experience. Calvin taught that human nature is so deeply corrupt—so broken by original sin—that even what appears to be goodness in us is just a twisted form of evil. We are incapable of true virtue. We are not merely flawed, we are totally depraved, so warped by sin that there is no escaping it except through the intervention of an entirely external force: the grace of God in Jesus Christ. And even this salvation doesn’t heal us—it simply excuses us for the sake of securing our inclusion in heaven after death.
In my experience, this theology takes evil seriously—more seriously than most people today. And while that doesn't make it any more appealing to me, perhaps that's why it hasn't completely lost its grip on our spiritual imaginations. It acknowledges the darkness within humanity in a way that modern religious and secular culture often refuses to. But it takes it too seriously. Calvinism leaves no room for goodness within us. No space for the possibility of real virtue or character. No pathway for healing, only the thin hope of pardon. It tells us we are powerless, worthless—entombed in a coffin we didn’t build with our own hands, nailed shut on us by John Calvin.
A Recovering Calvinist and the Jungian Imagination for Evil
And yet, for all its spiritual abuse, growing up with a little bit of Calvinism may have given me a gift: an early initiation into the reality of human darkness.
In a culture (both religious and secular) that prefers to outsource evil—casting it onto the enemy, the other, the damned—Calvinism made me see it within myself. This is where Carl Jung has been a kind of antidote. Whereas Calvinism overwhelmed me with the greatness of my sin, Jung taught me that my darkness was not just condemnation—it was also instruction.
Jung spoke of the shadow, the unconscious parts of ourselves that we refuse to acknowledge. The more we repress our shadow, the more it controls us from beneath the surface. But if we turn toward it, if we look at it squarely, it becomes a source of transformation.
Jung argued that we must develop an imagination for evil—not so we can indulge in it, but so we are not owned by it. Without an imagination for evil, we remain naive, susceptible, and blind to its movements within us. We project it outward, convinced that evil belongs only to our enemies, never to ourselves. Calvin’s doctrine of total depravity might be a distortion, but at least it recognizes that the battle between good and evil runs through every human heart. As Michael and Paul discussed in our latest episode when discussing "love and light peddlers" (46:48), that’s more than can be said for a lot of modern spiritualities, which seem to think we can cleanse ourselves of darkness simply by ignoring it.
What Jung offers me that Calvin couldn’t is a way forward. Not a coffin, but a confrontation. He suggests that evil is something to wrestle with—not to be buried alive beneath. In his vision, transformation isn’t impossible, and grace isn’t just a cosmic legal loophole—they can both grow within us. I'm not necessarily saying that we save ourselves. But Jung has taught me that grounds on which the battle is truly waged and the place where the grace is created is within myself.
It took me years to pry open the lid of that childhood coffin and see myself—and my darkness—with different eyes. The full story of the mystical experience I had in relationship to the coffin dream will probably come out in an episode of the podcast at some point. Of course, I still wrestle with what it means to take evil seriously without drowning in it. But if I’ve learned anything, it’s this: The best way forward is through an honest confrontation with my self—one that is tempered by love and compassion, both for myself and for others, especially those I am most tempted to condemn as irredeemable.
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