Jung on Religion

Jung, unlike Freud who maintained a clear-cut, critical attitude towards religion, despite his sympathetic approach, has so frequently reassessed his attitudes as to make it difficult to give a really consistent account of his position. 1 Jung always refused to consider his voluminous output as a ‘system’. ‘I regard my theories as suggestions and attempts at the formulation of a new scientific concept of psychology, based in the first place upon immediate experience with human beings.’ 2 Yet in spite of this, the value of Jung’s contribution exceeds that of any other writer on this subject in this century. We have already considered some of the more important of Jung’s psychological concepts 3 so that we are now free to make, first, a brief résumé of Jung’s personal record, an assessment of the significance of his views on theology and religion and then a comparison (based partly on his own estimate) 4 between his attitude to religion and that of Freud.