Religion and Individual Psychology: considerations on the comparison of ideas between Alfred Adler and Ernst Jahn from the latter's last writing in 1933, as a source of perspectives for the future of Individual Psychology

Abstract

Religion und Individualpsychologie is one of Adler's last works and provides us with his views on religion and the classic themes of mature Adlerianism. Adler and Father Jahn were both driven by a deep sense of unity with the destiny of humanity and a desire to contribute to its well-being, progress, and improvement. For Adler, this feeling is the social feeling, an unshakeable element of human nature: religious feeling is also an undeniable factor in human progress and the growth of our sense of community. While for Father Jahn, faith is based on the real existence of God, in Adler an anthropocentric criterion of interpretation prevails, so that humanity is at the center of the world and the sole judge of itself, and redemption and forgiveness do not mean the return of man to God, but rather social redemption that brings man back into the community as a part that unites with the whole