¿Qué aporta la psicología al marco general de las ciencias de la religión?

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to propose a general framework of the main disciplines that have studied religious phenomena, emphasising the epistemological role that Psychology can contribute to this field. First, we review the contributions of normative disciplines and how their conclusions are linked to the social sciences, up to a point. Next, we examine the concept of culture as a central issue in the construction of human nature, stressing, beyond metaphysical views, the essentially cultural nature of the religious phenomena. Then, we study those social sciences that cultivate at a high epistemological level the cultural phenomena, including, undoubtedly, religion. After reviewing contributions from History, Anthropology and Sociology, we emphasise the role of Psychology in the study of religion, noting a remarkable lack the cultural dimension and the concept of meaning as constituent core of psychological reality. For this reason, we offer a theoretical alternative to the study of religious phenomena from a Cultural Psychology perspective that will help establish a dialectic link with the rest of anthropo-social sciences; the objective being to produce, beyond reductionist views, a multidisciplinary workspace that fully accounts for complex religious phenomena.