In analytical psychology, reality is ordered by a paradoxical movement of archetypal polarities. Individuation is the process by which these polarities are integrated. In this process, the ego, the center of awareness, differentiates from the Self -the center of wholeness- and reintegrates with the Self over the course of the life history. Jung maintains that it is in mid-life that we are mature enough to take on the arduous task of integrating the negative and contrasexual opposites of the personality.

The test of healthy religion, then, is its ability to assimilate the psychic antithesis of good and evil in the imago Dei and in human nature. Christianity's paradox is that the one who embodies the wholeness of God becomes the victim of humanity's dark side. In redeeming humanity, the unblemished goodness of Christ shows up humanity's dark side. But, according to Jung, since Christ is fully human and fully divine, Christians should acknowledge the polarities of good and evil in the Christ archetype. Instead, Christians have spiritualized Christ and excluded the instinctual, bodily aspects of Christ from the Christ image.

According to Hebblethwaite, the genius of Christian faith is its proclamation that nothing is beyond redemption. The gospel is not about integration of opposites but about their transformation and redemption.

In summary, Jung's emphasis on archetypal wholeness leaves us in search of the hidden God (deus absconditus) in the psyche and nature?' The either-or paradoxes of the moral life are sublated to the both-and paradoxes of archetypal wholeness. This leaves a serious lacuna in the formation of Christian faith and identity. The cross of Christ is "an icon of paradox."" It embraces both-and and either-or. It symbolizes God's identifying with the weak and bringing strength from weakness. Christ, in his crucifixion, fully embraced the darkness of sin and evil but in his resurrection gave to humanity a clear choice of new life over death, the profundity of which Nicodemus could not comprehend (John 3: 1 - 10). The either-or paradox of good and evil impressed upon us by the resurrected Christ places moral choice at the center of our becoming formed in the image of Christ. The eschatological hope is that in the end all humanity will choose the new life given by Christ. Until then, the Christ image will reflect a perfected creation or wholeness that is yet to come.