Why Do We Care if God Exists?

Michie · Feb 7, 2024

Ludwig Feuerbach says we invent God because we are afraid of ourselves.

I’m not strictly following the usual Method of Engagement because on this topic I prefer to mingle the ideas rather than compartmentalize them.

I started this Substack project in search of the best philosophical arguments for atheism. Most recommendations are people who are living, writing, and debating today. Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach, however, is from the nineteenth century and best known for his work, The Essence of Christianity.

Feuerbach (1804 – 1872) was a German philosopher who was influenced by Baruch Spinoza (1632 – 1677) and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 – 1831), who was a contemporary of Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882) and Karl Marx (1818 – 1883), and who, in turn, shaped the thought of Friedrich Engels (1820 – 1895), Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844 – 1900), and Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939). Because he is situated among these peers and because he was advocate of atheism, I expected Feuerbach’s writing to be more syllogistic. Terms, assumptions, and premises are laid out, conclusions drawn. We all know that arguments can be set out like the finest porcelain, but that does not mean people will sit down and partake.

Feuerbach does not provide arguments. He writes with authority and speaks fluent Christianese in keeping with the title of his book. He begins with the essence and nature of man set apart from brute animals, the only animal who can reflect on universals and do science. Very Aristotelian-Thomistic. He invokes the “I-Thou” relationship of man with himself and others, an idea that would become a buzzword in Christian anthropology in the twentieth century after Martin Buber. He has chapters on the mysteries of the Incarnation, suffering, the Trinity, Mary, the Logos and Divine Image, Creation, Providence, Prayer, miracles, and theological virtues. His book looks like a book about religion, until you read it.

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