Is God Dead? Part 2

Feuerbach's Man-God

Many scholars enhance existing ideas rather than originating them, gaining recognition for their significant impact on later thought. These thinkers ignite inspiration in other brilliant minds. Ludwig Feuerbach, a German philosopher, anthropologist, and atheist (1804–1872), is a prime example. Feuerbach articulated the true anthropological essence of religion and gods, profoundly influencing philosophers like Carl Marx and Engels. Engels, after reading Feuerbach's "Essence of Christianity," identified as a Feuerbachian, citing the book's liberating effect. Richard Wagner regarded Feuerbach as a key figure in advocating radical individual freedom from religion and God. Karl Marx praised Feuerbach for transforming the religious world into a secular context, interpreting religious essence through a human lens.

Feuerbach noted that “What distinguishes man from the brutes is the awareness of a distinctive human nature transcending individuality.” Man has reason, will, and affection, yet man cannot escape his nature: “Not even in our imagination can we transcend human nature; and to the ‘higher’ beings in which we believe we can attribute nothing better than human characteristics.” We project our familiar traits to non-familiar objects. Therefore, the “religious object of adoration is nothing but the objectified nature of him who adores,” because the object of a subject is nothing else than this subject’s nature objectified. Such are a man’s thoughts and moral character, such is his God; so much worth as man has, so much and no more has his God. Man’s being conscious of God is man’s being conscious of himself, knowledge of God is man’s knowledge of himself. By their God you know men, and by knowing men you know their god; the two are identical. God is the manifested inward nature, the expressed self of man; religion is the solemn unveiling of man’s hidden treasures, the revelation of his most intimate thoughts, the open confession of what he secretly loves. The diversity of Jesus’ portraits in different cultures substantiates these observations. People depict and understand the unseen God in their familiar categories and traits.  

Feuerbach further argued that if divine predicates are merely anthropomorphic (manlike) as is often observed, then the subject of them is also merely an anthropomorphism. Everybody sees his picture in a deep well. Human attributes such as love, goodness, and personality are also attributed to the existing God. These depictions of god attributions, as well as the very belief there is a God, are also anthropomorphisms (creation of man’s mind and imagination). Furthermore, God is the highest concept humans could possibly attain.  In Feuerbach’s doctrine, “Theology is anthropology… the object of religion, which in Greek we call theos and in our language God, expresses nothing other than the deified essence of man, so that the history of religion… is nothing other than the history of man.” Therefore, we should pay more attention and respect to man and his needs than God and his praises.

Feuerbach, like Hume and others, maintained that the idea of God originated in human needs, desires, wishes, and shortcomings in life: “The foundation of religion is a feeling of dependency; the first object of that feeling is nature; thus nature is the first object of religion.” By projecting his feelings onto natural phenomena, man creates his own gods and then worships them. Therefore, “To live in projected dream images is the essence of religion. Religion sacrifices reality to the projected dream: the ‘Beyond’ is merely the ‘Here’ reflected in the mirror of imagination.”

Also like Hume, Feuerbach viewed religion as anthropomorphism (creation of man’s imagination) but differed from him in that he located it in the inner self of man (human psychology) rather than in the external world around him. By promises of a better life in the hereafter, argued Feuerbach, religion provides people “an escape mechanism, which prevents men from going after a better life in a straight line. Religion is as bad as opium.” The religious authorities capitalize on the followers' longing for a brighter future, enhancing their own material lives by extracting resources from these believers under the guise of heavenly rewards. Religion aligns with the goals of secular rulers, calming the disadvantaged in society with calls for patience, divine promises, and focus on the afterlife, diverting them from seeking their rightful liberties and necessities. Religion acts as a sedative opium for the masses.

A phrase later echoed by Marx. Feuerbach’s anthropomorphic interpretations of religion render religious thought as mere wishful thinking, a means of human self-consciousness and childish error. In other words, religion stems from man’s cognitive confusion and not from a supra-terrestrial transcendent being called God. Feuerbach concludes that man comes first and God ranks second. Therefore, religions must recognize this historical and ethical reality. “Homo homini Deus estman’s God is Man. This is the highest law of ethics. This is the turning point of world history.”

No doubt Feuerbach’s interpretations of the divine and religion resulted in a turning point in subsequent influential philosophical thinking. Karl Marx followed Feuerbach’s thesis but replaced Feuerbach’s “man” with “society and state,” declaring religion to be “the imaginative realization of the human essence, because that essence has no true reality...It is the opium of the people.”

Karl Marx's Atheistic Theory

Karl Marx's socialist theory, which emphasized the societal division into distinct classes and the conflict between capitalists and workers, contested religion, particularly Christianity, for its role in underpinning a hierarchical society. This hierarchy was symbolically mirrored in the Holy Trinity, segregating society into royals, clergy, nobility, and the working class. Marx advocated for the working class to overthrow this structured, capitalist, and bourgeoisie system to secure their rights and improve their worldly lives, shifting focus from the pursuit of an afterlife to immediate, tangible gains. His perspective drew heavily from Feuerbach's notion that God is an exalted man, an exalted human concept. Consequently, in Marx's socialist framework, God, religion, clergy, and sacred texts were deemed irrelevant, culminating in a fundamentally atheistic ideology.

Karl Marx, a 19th-century philosopher, economist, and social scientist, is best known for his critical analysis of capitalism and his advocacy for socialism and communism. His main points include:

Class Struggle and Historical Materialism: Marx believed that history is primarily the history of class struggles, with the economic base of society (how production is organized and who controls the means of production) influencing the social and political superstructure. He saw society as divided into classes with conflicting interests, primarily the bourgeoisie (capitalist class owning the means of production) and the proletariat (working class).

Critique of Capitalism: Marx was critical of the capitalist system, which he saw as exploitative and alienating. He argued that under capitalism, workers are alienated from their labor, the products they produce, and their own human potential. The capitalist system is driven by a profit motive that leads to commodification of everything, including human labor. Religion (Christianity) not only laid the groundwork for this inequitable hierarchical society but also continued to sustain it.

Surplus Value and Exploitation: He introduced the concept of surplus value, explaining how capitalists make profits by paying workers less than the value of what they produce. This exploitation forms the heart of the capitalist system, which evolved from the medieval Christian feudal system into contemporary capitalism.

The Theory of Historical Materialism: Marx proposed that the economic structure of society determines its socio-religious structure and politics. The material conditions of society shape its religious, cultural, and political life.

Revolution and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat: Marx believed that the working class would eventually become aware of their exploitation and rise up in a revolution against the capitalist class supported by the religious elites. This would lead to the establishment of a "dictatorship of the proletariat," a transitional state where the working class holds power, leading to the development of a classless, stateless, religious-less society (communism).

Communism: Marx envisioned a communist society as the end goal, where the means of production are owned collectively, and goods are distributed based on need. This would be a classless, stateless society where the exploitation and alienation of capitalism are abolished.

Marx's ideas have had a profound impact on social and political thought and have been the basis for the development of Marxist theory, influencing various social movements and political regimes in the 20th century.

Charles Darwin's Evolutionary Theory  

In addition to Carl Marx’s socialist ideology, Charles Darwin’s newly developed theory of natural selection also touched upon religion, refuting the traditional theistic view of God as the Creator and Designer, and nature as the manifestation of purpose, design, and immutability. This, according to American botanist Asa Gray, was an “atheistical” step.  

Adam Sedgwick, one of the founders of modern geology, a former teacher of Darwin, and a man of faith, whilst also stating that he roared with laughter at parts of Darwin’s work, criticized Darwin, writing to him that, “It is the crown and glory of organic science that it does, through final cause, link material to moral...You have ignored this link... you have done your best...to break it. Were it possible (which, thank God, it is not) to break it, humanity, in my mind, would suffer a damage that might brutalize it, and sink the human race into a lower grade of degradation than any into which it has fallen since its written records tell us of its history.”

In the Descent of Man, Darwin theorized that “The Simiadae then branched off into two great stems, the New World and Old World monkeys; and from the latter, at a remote period, Man, the wonder and glory of the Universe, proceeded.” He emphatically advocated an evolutionary theory of human and cosmic origins. Such an interpretation of man and his universe certainly countered orthodox metaphysics.  

Biblical metaphysics is based on the concept of a loving God who uniquely created man. The Christian worldview revolves around the concept of a fallen human nature, divine intervention through atoning sacrifice, and resultant redemption through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Darwin’s worldview and interpretation of nature as autonomous, self-directing, and evolutionary undermined the traditional Christian worldview more than the scientific revolutions of Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton. Darwin’s theories challenged and effectively shook the foundations of Christian metaphysics. With Darwin’s evolutionism, every need for a God as the original source of creation and the sole maintainer of this universe ceased to exist.

If creation was regarded as having evolved naturally from primitive origins and to be constantly evolving through the process of natural selection without any external divine intervention, then it stood to reason that God was not required for its existence, sustenance and continuity.

Evolutionary Theory and Atheism

Evolutionary theory became extremely popular in almost all other disciplines aside from biology. It caused uproar in religious circles and not surprisingly, received a heated response from theologians. Despite opposition from religious establishments, evolutionary theory became the guiding principle in all leading disciplines of the nineteenth century. And, in terms of God, the result was monumental, for empirical scientists, anthropologists, philologists, psychologists, sociologists, and naturalists of the time broke the moral theological link between this utilitarian sphere and a heavenly God. Instead, they searched for God in their own world: in nature, the human soul, the psyche, and human society. All of them, almost unanimously, were able to locate God in the human experience: i.e., in the mental process by which man acquires ideas and is influenced by his emotions.

They concurred in their atheistic views that it was not a divine entity who fashioned humanity and the universe, but rather humans who invented the concept of a deity as a response to their uncertainties, insecurities, illnesses, and needs. This belief in a higher power was seen as merely a stage in human evolution. Now, as humanity emerges from its former ignorance and insecurities, equipped with science and technology to address once-mysterious ailments, the perceived necessity for a deity, along with its associated religion and clergy, diminishes. Modern science and knowledge have rendered the concept of God and religion obsolete.

To be continued

See more details in my book "Concept of God in the Judeo-Christian and Islamic Traditions", chapter 1