Tasks and limits of psychology of religion: a dialogical perspective

The following paper's main finding is that in the German-speaking context the dialogue between theology (viz. "religion") and psychology is marked by mutual skepticism. This fact has had an unfavorable impact on the psychology of religion. This notwithstanding, the research on the influence of personal religiosity on the soul's life is taken to be a genuine area of this discipline. And although a lack of interest for the study of religiosity and spirituality is widely perceived, there are incipient signs of a new beginning. In part these are due to the fact the already in the early 20th century German-speaking psychology of religionoccupied a very central position. At present the paper verifies a more significant involvement of theology with psychology than the other way around. Among the possible various reasons for this phenomenon, a major one might be traced back to the fact that spiritual/religious experiences resist to analysis by the scientific method. Furthermore, the claim is made to the effect that theology (viz. "religion") and psychology have by now entered some sort of dispute over the human soul. Not least because of that, a fundamental need arises to draw clear limits between treatments which pursue psychological cure, aiming at the reestablishment of psychological health, and a hermeneutics of life which relies on a religious or worldview basis, aimed at the promotion of existential selfconfidence. Finally the paper suggests possibilities of mutual cooperation. This basically takes shape in a model whereby those issues pertaining to meaning and values are handed over to the competence of theology and philosophy, while their translation to concrete life remains a task for psychology. In this way it would be possible to establish a dialogic relationship between a paradigmatic anthropology and empirical procedures.