Religious Views of Victor Frankl

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the religious views of the founder of logotherapy, an Austrian psychologist, psychotherapist and philosopher, Viktor Emil Frankl. Frankl’s works were of great importance for the philosophical and psychological thought of the 20th century, and also remain relevant today. The founder of logotherapy was a believer, which makes his doctrine of man important for theology as well. At the moment, Frankl’s legacy has not been explored from an Orthodox point of view. First of all, theology is interested in the question of the religious views of Viktor Frankl himself, which is the purpose of this article. When studying the issue of Frankl’s religiosity, the following methods were used: historical-functional and biographical methods, which made it possible to identify the causes and conditions that influenced the continuity and formation of Frankl's religious ideas; a method of linguo-stylistic analysis, which made it possible to analyze the vocabulary and figures of speech that Frankl uses in his writings. As well as methods of induction, generalization, comparison, synthesis. As a result, the author comes to the conclusion that Viktor Frankl, having been brought up religiously, carries his faith through his whole life, and even through the Nazi camp. His religiosity took various forms, but if we pay attention to the semantic content of his religious ideas, we find their amazing correspondence with Christian ones. Frankl did not agree on everything in Christianity, but here one should take into account the difficulties of interpreting specifically theological provisions for philosophical and psychological consciousness.