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Course 19 · Lesson 5.3

Freud on religion as illusion

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 19 outline

Module 1: The Secular Age: Humanism and Naturalism

  1. What secular, secularism and secularization mean
  2. Secular humanism: its claims and its moral vision
  3. Philosophical naturalism and its alternatives
  4. Christian responses to naturalism and humanism

Module 2: Science, Evolution and Faith

  1. Models of science and religion: conflict, independence, dialogue, integration
  2. What the theory of evolution claims and what it does not
  3. Christian positions on creation and evolution
  4. The history of the conflict story and its critics

Module 3: Criticism of the Bible

  1. The rise of historical and literary criticism
  2. What critics claim about authorship, sources and development
  3. Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant responses to criticism

Module 4: Truth, Relativism and Postmodernism

  1. What postmodernism is, and why the term is hard to define
  2. Truth, language and interpretation
  3. Moral relativism: descriptive, cultural and philosophical forms
  4. Christian responses to relativism and postmodern thought

Module 5: The Masters of Suspicion

  1. Marx on religion, ideology and economic life
  2. Nietzsche on Christianity, morality and the death of God
  3. Freud on religion as illusion
  4. The genetic fallacy, and when explaining the origin of a belief matters

Module 6: Power, Corruption and Morality

  1. Church, state and political power in history
  2. Institutional failure and abuse
  3. Critiques of Christian morality and how Christians reply
  4. Judging a faith by its failures: what follows and what does not

Module 7: Mind, Meaning and Nihilism

  1. Consciousness and the limits of materialism
  2. Meaning and purpose in secular and Christian thought
  3. Nihilism, despair and Christian hope

Module 8: Writing a Response

  1. Stating a challenge in its strongest form
  2. Building a structured response
  3. Conceding what is true in the critic’s case

All courses

Program / Course 19: Modern Challenges / Lesson 5.3

What you will learn

  • State Freud’s argument that religion is an illusion arising from wishes, in terms he would accept.
  • Explain what Freud meant by an illusion and how it differs from a delusion or an error.
  • Describe the criticisms of his account from psychologists, philosophers and theologians.
  • Say what a Christian can learn from the critique.

The big idea

Sigmund Freud argued that religious belief arises from the wish for a protecting father in a dangerous world. He called it an illusion, meaning a belief that is held mainly because it fulfills a wish. He did not say that an illusion must be false. He said that the believer’s reasons are not the kind that can support truth, and that humanity should grow beyond the need for it. Critics reply that his argument does not show that God does not exist, and that his evidence is weak.

Key terms

Illusion
In Freud, a belief derived from human wishes, whether or not it happens to be true.
Delusion
In Freud, a belief that contradicts reality. An illusion can be true or false, but a delusion is false.
Wish fulfillment
The satisfaction of a desire in imagination, as in dreams, according to Freud.
Projection
Attributing to something outside oneself what comes from within, as when feelings about one’s father are cast on God.
Oedipus complex
Freud’s theory that a young child has rivalrous and loving feelings toward his parents, and that these shape later life. It is controversial.
Neurosis
A psychological disorder, in Freud’s terms, rooted in unresolved conflict. He called religion a universal obsessional neurosis of humanity.
Psychoanalysis
The method and theory of the mind founded by Freud, based on the unconscious and on the interpretation of dreams and symptoms.

Background

Sigmund Freud (1856 to 1939) was an Austrian physician who founded psychoanalysis. He was Jewish by birth and unbelieving by conviction. He wrote about religion in Totem and Taboo (1913), The Future of an Illusion (1927), Civilization and Its Discontents (1930) and Moses and Monotheism (1939). The Future of an Illusion is his main argument and is short and readable.

In it he imagines a conversation with an opponent. He says that civilization requires restrictions that people resent, and that religion helps by giving the restrictions divine authority and by consoling people for suffering and death. He asks whether religion’s teachings are credible. He notes that they cannot be proved and that they arise from wishes. He concludes that religion should be replaced by science and reason, which he calls the god Logos, adding that science is no illusion.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The argument as Freud gave it

The human infant is helpless and depends on a father who protects. As an adult, he finds himself again helpless before nature, disease and death. The wish for protection returns and finds an answer in a powerful, loving father in heaven. Religion thus makes the world less frightening and gives a meaning to suffering. It also gives a reason to obey the moral rules, since a divine father enforces them.

Freud said that the wish does not prove the belief false. A middle class girl may believe that a prince will come for her, and that may happen, though it is unlikely. What marks an illusion is that its main motive is the wish, not the evidence. He judged that the claims of religion were improbable, and in conflict with all that has been learned about the world.

Step 2: What Freud did not claim

Freud did not argue that religious people are insane. He said that religion is a collective neurosis that spares individuals their own. He did not attack believers personally, and he said that religion had been important to civilization. He thought that, in time, education and science would free people from it, and he admitted that his own hopes might themselves be an illusion.

He also admitted that his argument cannot prove that God does not exist. It is an argument about why people believe, and he combined it with a judgment that the evidence for religion is poor.

Step 3: Criticisms

First, philosophers note that this is a form of the genetic fallacy: the origin of a belief does not decide its truth. Freud saw this, and answered that origin gives reason for suspicion. Second, the argument cuts both ways. If belief in God may be a wish for a father, unbelief may be a wish to be free of a father. The psychologist Paul Vitz argued that many leading atheists had troubled relations with their fathers, though this too is a speculative point.

Third, Freud’s evidence is weak. His anthropology in Totem and Taboo, which has a primal murder of the father by his sons, has almost no support among anthropologists. Many psychologists do not accept the Oedipus complex. Empirical studies of religion have found a complicated picture, in which religion can be linked with both better and worse mental health, depending on kind. Fourth, the Christian God does not look like a comforting father figure of a wish. The Bible contains demanding and terrifying elements, and Christianity has hard teachings, such as judgment, self-denial and the cross, that people would not invent for comfort. C. S. Lewis made this point.

Step 4: What a Christian can learn

Freud was right that religion can be used as an escape. Wish-driven belief exists, and the Christian should ask himself whether his own faith is partly a consolation that he has not tested. Prophets and teachers have long warned against peace where there is no peace (Jeremiah 6:14). The psalmists also admit fear and doubt, which suggests that faith does not need to hide from them.

Christians also say that a wish can point to something real. Hunger exists because food exists, as Lewis suggested in his argument from desire. This does not prove God, but it answers the supposition that a wish proves falsehood. Augustine’s words about the restless heart can be read in this way.

  1. Is Freud arguing that religion is false, or that its motive is a wish?
  2. What would show that a belief arises from evidence and not wish?
  3. Does the argument apply equally to unbelief?
  4. Do the demanding parts of Christianity fit the idea of a comforting illusion?
  5. What evidence does Freud give for his account of origins?
  6. Which part of my faith might be a wish, and how could I test it?

Examples

A wish and its truth

A woman hopes that her missing son is alive. Her hope arises from love and not evidence. When a letter arrives, it turns out that he is alive. Her belief began as a wish and turned out to be true. This is the point of Freud’s own distinction: a wish does not decide the truth. (A constructed example.)

A hard religion

A convert describes how the faith demanded that he forgive an enemy, give up a career and accept suffering. He says that if he had designed a religion for comfort, he would not have designed this one. Freud’s reply would be that hardship can serve the need for guilt and punishment. (A constructed example.)

Different perspectives

Freudian and psychological views

Freud’s followers say that his insight into the unconscious roots of belief remains valuable. Later psychologists of religion, such as Ana-Maria Rizzuto, found that images of God are shaped by early relationships with parents, though she did not conclude that religion is false. Many modern psychologists study religion without taking a position on its truth.

Catholic

Catholic thinkers acknowledge that images of God can be distorted by one’s family experience and that faith can be immature. Pope Benedict XVI and others stress that faith must be purified through reason and the church’s teaching. Catholic writers on pastoral care, such as Henri Nouwen, who studied psychology, used psychological insight in their work without accepting Freud’s atheism.

Orthodox

Orthodox writers observe that the tradition of spiritual struggle, with its teaching on the passions and on false spiritual comfort called prelest or delusion, already knows that religion can be bent by desire. They hold that the remedy is repentance, a guide and the sober practice of prayer.

Protestant

Protestants have answered Freud with Plantinga’s argument that Freud’s theory, if true, could not show belief false, and with arguments that the Reformed idea of a natural sense of God may be a real faculty. Other Protestants, such as Kierkegaard in earlier times, warned that comfortable religion may be a self-deception. Plantinga also argues that if God exists, belief in him would be formed in a way that serves truth.

Why it matters

Many people ask whether faith is only a comfort. The question is honest and deserves an honest answer. Learning Freud’s argument in its own terms teaches the student to separate three things: whether a belief is comforting, why a person holds it, and whether it is true. Each can be asked on its own.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Freud proved that religion is a delusion.

Correction: He called religion an illusion, and said that this does not mean it is false. His case for falsity rested on a separate judgment about the evidence.

Misunderstanding: Freud said all believers are mentally ill.

Correction: He described religion as a collective neurosis, and said it spared individuals their own. He did not diagnose each believer as ill.

Misunderstanding: Psychology has shown that religion comes from wishes.

Correction: Contemporary psychologists find multiple sources of religious belief, and do not agree that wish explains it. Evidence for Freud’s specific stories is weak.

Misunderstanding: A wish for something shows it does not exist.

Correction: The wish for water is satisfied by water. A wish can sometimes indicate that its object is real, though it does not prove it.

Knowledge check

What did Freud mean by an illusion?

In The Future of an Illusion he meant a belief whose main motive is the fulfillment of a wish. He said that an illusion is not necessarily false, and that it differs from a delusion, which contradicts reality. His claim was that religious beliefs are held for the sake of comfort, and that their evidence is poor.

State Freud’s argument that religion comes from the wish for a father.

The child is helpless and depends on a protecting father. The adult faces nature, suffering and death and feels the same helplessness, and so imagines a heavenly father who protects, makes the world meaningful and enforces the moral rules. Religion is thus a wish projected onto the universe, which Freud thought science should replace.

Give two criticisms of Freud’s account.

One is that the origin of a belief does not decide its truth, so the argument does not show God does not exist. Another is that the argument can be turned around, since unbelief might arise from wishes too. Others note that his anthropology lacks support and that Christianity contains much that no one would wish for.

What can a Christian learn from Freud?

That faith can be used as an escape, and that wish and fear can shape religious belief. A believer should test his own faith honestly. The prophets warned against false peace, and the Christian tradition has long taught the discernment of spirits. Accepting this does not mean agreeing that all faith is illusion.

Think it through

  1. What in your own faith offers comfort, and what makes demands?
  2. Is there a belief of yours that you hold mainly because you wish it were true?
  3. How would you tell the difference between faith and wishful thinking?
  4. Would a believer be right to consider the opposite wish, that no God exists?

Independent assignment

Freud and the reply

In your notebook, read the sections of The Future of an Illusion in which Freud defines an illusion. Write 400 to 500 words stating his argument in his own terms, and then 300 words answering it in a way that Freud’s followers could not simply dismiss. Mark where you conceded something. Do not send it.

Further study