The term ‘Form of God’ occupies a compelling crossroads in the depth-psychology corpus, drawing together Christological theology, Sufi theosophy, and the phenomenology of religious vision. In John of Damascus, the phrase carries its Pauline weight precisely: Christ ‘emptied Himself of the form of God’ (kenosis) and took the form of a servant, with the corollary that to be in the form of God is identical with equality to God — a claim that underwrites both Trinitarian doctrine and the theology of the icon. Henry Corbin’s readings of Ibn ‘Arabi introduce a radically different but structurally parallel problematic: the ‘Form of God’ is always a theophanic form, necessarily mediated by the receptive capacity (the ‘heart’) of the believer; God has no unconditioned form visible to any creature, yet He discloses Himself only in and through form. The mystic’s vocation is to recognise the theophany in every form, transcending the ‘God created in the faiths’ toward a fully personal theophanic encounter. Jung engages the theme obliquely, through the paradox of the God-man whose divine form must be ‘emptied’ into human suffering for sacrifice to have ontological actuality. These convergences reveal a shared tension: form is simultaneously the necessary vehicle of divine disclosure and the limit that must be surpassed.
when He emptied Himself of the form of God and took the form of a servant, the weakness of the assumed humanity did not weaken the divine nature, but that Divine power was imparted to humanity
This passage presents the Pauline kenosis as the central Christological paradox: the form of God is relinquished not by loss of divine nature but by its concealment within human form, so that humanity might be divinised.
, Saint John of Damascus Collection, 2016thesis
to be in this way in the form of God is nothing else than to be equal with God: so that equality of honour is owed to the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is in the form of God
John of Damascus argues that existence in the form of God entails full ontological equality with the Father, grounding the Son’s co-equal honour in the Philippians hymn.
, Saint John of Damascus Collection, 2016thesis
The vision of which the simple believer is capable still corresponds to the ‘Form of God’ which he sees along with those of the same religion and faith: a ‘God created in the faiths’ according to the norms of a collective bond.
Corbin, reading Ibn ‘Arabi, identifies the ‘Form of God’ as a theophanic projection shaped by the believer’s faith-community, which the mystic must surpass through an essentially personal encounter with each epiphanic form.
, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis
a theosophy which, though thoroughly imbued with the sentiment that God is hidden, that it is impossible to know or to circumscribe the ineffable Essence, nevertheless summons us to a concrete vision of ‘the Form of God.’
Corbin identifies the supreme paradox of Ibn ‘Arabi’s system: despite radical divine hiddenness, theophanic Prayer makes a concrete vision of the Form of God not only possible but the goal of mystical practice.
, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969thesis
Jesus Christ is both the Son of God and Son of Man, Who emptied Himself of the form of God, and received the form of a servant. There is not one Son of Man and another Son of God; nor one in the form of God, and another born perfect man
John of Damascus insists on the numerical identity of the subject who possesses the form of God and the subject who assumes the form of a servant, ruling out any Nestorian division of persons.
, Saint John of Damascus Collection, 2016thesis
the crucial question is not whether or not Images have a value ‘on the basis of’ which we can speculate on the Divine Essence and conclude that they tell us nothing of the ‘form’ of God, who has no form
Corbin, glossing Ghazali against Ibn ‘Arabi, shows that the pious agnostic denial of any ‘form’ of God is itself a limitation overcome by Sufi theosophy’s account of graduated theophanic disclosure.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
neither the heart nor the eyes of the believer ever see anything other than the Form of the faith he professes in respect of the Divine Being. This vision is the degree of theophany that is given to him personally, in proportion to his capacity.
Ibn ‘Arabi, as interpreted by Corbin, restricts every vision of the divine to the ‘Form of faith,’ meaning that the Form of God is always proportional to the receptive capacity and confessional horizon of the visionary subject.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
he knows that it is only in this form as in a divine mirror that he can see the Form of the theophany, and in this theophany recognize his own form. He does not see God in His essence
Corbin employs the mirror metaphor to clarify that the Form of God seen in theophany is simultaneously a revelation of the mystic’s own form, making divine self-disclosure and self-knowledge structurally reciprocal.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
If the Son of God became man, taking the form of a servant, and appearing in man’s nature, a perfect man, why should His image not be made?
John of Damascus grounds the legitimacy of sacred iconography directly in the kenotic assumption of the form of a servant, making the icon the material corollary of the Incarnation.
, Saint John of Damascus Collection, 2016supporting
According to the Christian view God has never ceased to be God, not even when he appeared in human form in the temporal order… Being ‘very man’ means being at an extreme remove and utterly different from God.
Jung reframes the theological paradox of the divine form assumed in kenosis as a psychological necessity: the full ‘otherness’ of human form from divine form is what makes genuine sacrifice and transformation psychologically real.
, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1958supporting
This God becomes visible only in the forms of His epiphanies (mazahir, majalli), which compose what we call the universe. ‘The God who is in a faith,’ says Ibn ‘Arabi, ‘is the God whose form the heart contains, who discloses Himself to the heart in such a way that the heart recognizes Him.’
Corbin’s Ibn ‘Arabi locates the Form of God exclusively within the theophanic forms (mazahir) that constitute the universe, such that cosmology and the phenomenology of visionary consciousness are inseparable.
, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
when the theosophist speaks of the ‘God created in the faiths,’ the dogmatic theologian can only be scandalized, but that the more scandalized he is, the more he betrays himself in the theosophist’s eyes as one who has fallen into metaphysical idolatry
Corbin argues that orthodox refusal to acknowledge the faith-conditioned Form of God constitutes a covert idolatry, since it hypostatises one historically particular form of God as absolute.
, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969supporting
these apparently opposite terms of One and Many, Form and the Formless, Finite and Infinite, are not so much opposites as complements of each other
Aurobindo, without directly invoking the Pauline phrase, offers a metaphysical context in which ‘Form of God’ could be understood as neither the negation of formlessness nor its mere vehicle, but as its necessary complement.
, The Life Divine, 1939aside
the Prophet tells how in ecstasy or in a waking dream he saw his God and describes the form He assumed (hadith al-ri’ya)
Corbin cites the prophetic hadith of vision to establish that the Form of God assumed in visionary experience is a classical Islamic datum underlying Ibn ‘Arabi’s entire theophanic system.
, Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, 1969aside