Relacje między psychologią a religią

Abstract

The paper presents the four models of mutual relations between psychology and religion, i.e.: (1) model of conflict, (2) of subordination, (3) of paralelism, and (4) of integration. According to Freud’s psychoanalysis and marxism, religion remains in opposition to psychological knowledge and does not serve the development of personality. The mutual subordination of psychology and religion is based on the presumption that psychology is the criterion of evaluation of man’s religiousness or that religion forms the frames of the development of psychology. These two forms of subordination, the author calls respectively: a) the psychologization of religion and b) the theologization of psychology. The parallelism of psychology and religion can be observed in the presentation of the correlates of religious phenomena without resolving of the problem of their ultimate fundaments. Integration of psychology and religion, proposed among the others by Carter, Collins, Frankl, McDonagh, Pruyser, Vande-Kemp, aims to finding the common areas of psychological and theological investigation. The author stresses that the main danger for the correct integration of psychology and religion is the confusion of levels and methods proper to either of these fields of human knowledge. Psychology and religion are not opposite to each other but, on the contrary, they are complementary.