Generosity of C. G. Jung's religiosity

• Author: Daniela Sorea
• Position: Faculty of Sociology and Communication, University of Brasov
• Pages: 59-68

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov

Series VII: Social Sciences • Law • Vol. 8 (57) No. 1 - 2015

GENEROSITY OF C. G. JUNG’S

RELIGIOSITY

Daniela SOREA1

Abstract: Jung attributed a religious dimension to the individuating

process and postulated the existence of an archetype of God, in the human

unconscious. The logical-epistemological criticisms aimed at Jung, overlook

the possibility of their being an expression of a religious representation of the

world. If Jung is religious, then his religiosity is more comprehensive than

the Christian one and it might be the expression of a new paradigmatic type

of representation of the world.

Key words: individuation process, religiosity, God, Self, archetypal

representations.

1 Faculty of Sociology and Communication, University of Brasov.

1. Introduction

Recent researches highlight the tendency

to liberate the Western religiosity from its

consecrated Christian expressions. The

recovery of several Ancient religious

traditions, the reactivation of the popular

religions and of the magical practices, as

well as the closeness to some exotic forms

of spirituality are a few expressions of this

tendency. In parallel, from the sphere of

the scientific knowledge, some voices are

ever more clearly heard, which submit

several unitary, comprehensive

descriptions, of the real. These descriptions

legitimate religiosity as an attitude justified

by structuring reality.

In this context, the religiosity of Jung’s

writings, a subject of many discussions,

ever since their issuance, and which is

somewhat at the confluence of the

previously mentioned tendencies, is worth

being reevaluated, in my opinion. I will

proceed thereto in this paper, attempting to

prove that Jung anticipatively assumed a

wide and generous range of religiosity.

2. Psychologism and argumentative

weaknesses, at Jung

The main criticisms brought to Jung

targeted its psychologism and related

thereto, the circularity of his

argumentation. As I have already

highlighted, Jung deemed that the images

of God and the images of the Self cannot

be discerned. Likewise, Jung emphasized

that the psychic reality of God could only

be experienced through the images of the

psyche. It is around these articulations of

his argumentative discourse that the

critical discussions upon the religiosity of

Jung’s writings concentrated.

For the purposes of a condensed

presentation of these critical approaches, I

will resort to the highly accurate

formulations given to them by Edward

Glover and Michael Palmer.

Edward Glover [3] considers that Jung’s

essential statements as regards the