기독교 영성과 융의 개성화이론에 대한 비교연구

Abstract

Today "Christian Spirituality" is understood in a wholistic viewpoint, that is, physical, psychological as well as spiritual viewpoint. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to compare Christian spirituality with Jung's theory of individuation to get deeper understanding to the former for contemporary people who are familiar with and are influenced strongly by psychology. In chapter 2, the reason why contemporary people have concern with spirituality is explained. In chapter 3, The reason why we need to compare Christian spirituality and Jung's theory of individuation which shows deep interconnection of spiritual and psychological aspects of persons is suggested. In chapter 4, the characteristic of christian spirituality is introduced. Here ways to experience God, kataphatic and apophatic spirituality, is referred, focusing on the latter which is based on an emptying technique of meditation. In chapter 5, the characteristics of Jung's theory of individuation is introduced. Individuation refers to the lifelong process of becoming whole through the synthesis of conscious and unconscious aspects of personality. Jung viewed this individuation as a religious process, describing it as the submission of the ego-will to God's will. In last chapter, after showing the similarity between christian spirituality and Jung's psychology, Jung's contributions and limitations to the Christian spirituality are analyzed. One of contributions is Jung's insight regarding the fact that God is encountered within the core of the self, not somewhere in the farther reaches of the cosmos. However, when evaluated in the light of historic Christianity, the major limitation of Jung's view of spirituality appears to be his failure to adequately represent God's transcendence or to provide for our self-transcendence.