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In Defense of Sin

Palgrave MacMillan

Chapter One

In Defense of
Idolatry

Often considered synonymous with paganism, idolatry signifiesworship of physical representations of gods. Whereas paganism alwayshad room for one more god, the ancient Hebrews followed a newreligion, one in which there was really only one God. Monotheism wasa radically new idea.

    Idolatry offends God as few other sins can. According to Jewishtradition, for example, all the laws of the Torah save three?murder,idolatry, and adultery?may be broken in order to save a human life.

    Ever since Abraham revolted against his idolatrous father, monotheismhas represented steadfast opposition to idol worship. LudwigFeuerbach turns this opposition on its head and argues that, withoutrealizing it, all practice idolatry. Unwittingly, he claims, religiousbelievers violate the very rule against idolatry they themselves devised.

    In this excerpt from 1841, Feuerbach asserts that God is a creationof the human imagination. Feuerbach applauds humanity for havingused its imagination so creatively. God is the highest achievement ofhuman art, Feuerbach insists, and man is himself God. Feuerbachdefends idolatry (or Christianity?for he saw them as one and thesame) because it amounts to worshiping humanity.

    Feuerbach wondered why religion was universal and why so manyreligions instructed people to humble themselves before a greaterpower. Each culture uses its religion to project its highest ideals intothe sky, he concluded. The problem, according to Feuerbach, was thatwe consequently view ourselves as sinful, fallen creatures instead ofcongratulating ourselves for having come up with such a wonderfulidea.

    According to Feuerbach, we cannot get to know ourselves unlesswe get to know God, who is our own reflection. Although he insistedhe was not an atheist, Feuerbach's philosophy unsettled people widely.His famous cry, "To enrich man, one must impoverish God," may notexactly shock twenty-first century believers, but it can hardly fail tobother them at some level. For liberating ourselves from the idea ofsin comes at the cost of diminishing God. This trade-off between manand God sets the stage for defending sin and is the theme of this book.

* * *

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) made a great splash in Europeupon the publication of The Essence of Christianity (1841). Hisargument that God is merely the outward projection of man's inwardessence scandalized contemporary society. Born in Bavaria, he traveledto Berlin to study under Hegel, an eminent philosopher. AlthoughFeuerbach never managed to surpass his first work, he inspired anotherinfluential thinker: Karl Marx.

from

THE ESSENCE
OF CHRISTIANITY

Ludwig Feuerbach
translated by George Eliot

... Now, when it is shown that what the subject is lies entirely in theattributes of the subject; that is, that the predicate is the true subject; itis also proved that if the divine predicates are attributes of the humannature, the subject of those predicates is also of the human nature. Butthe divine predicates are partly general, partly personal. The generalpredicates are the metaphysical, but these serve only as external points ofsupport to religion; they are not the characteristic definitions of religion.It is the personal predicates alone which constitute the essence ofreligion?in which the Divine Being is the object of religion. Such are,for example, that God is a Person, that he is the moral Lawgiver, theFather of mankind, the Holy One, the Just, the Good, the Merciful. Itis, however, at once clear, or it will at least be clr in the sequel, withregard to these and other definitions, that, especially as applied to apersonality, they are purely human definitions, and that consequentlyman in religion?in his relation to God?is in relation to his own nature;for to the religious sentiment these predicates are not mere conceptions,mere images, which man forms of God, to be distinguished from thatwhich God is in himself, but truths, facts, realities. Religion knowsnothing of anthropomorphisms; to it they are not anthropomorphisms.It is the very essence of religion, that to it these definitions express thenature of God. They are pronounced to be images only by the understanding,which reflects on religion, and which while defending themyet before its own tribunal denies them. But to the religious sentimentGod is a real Father, real Love and Mercy; for to it he is a real, living,personal being, and therefore his attributes are also living and personal.Nay, the definitions which are the most sufficing to the religioussentiment are precisely those which give the most offence to theunderstanding, and which in the process of reflection on religion itdenies. Religion is essentially emotion; hence, objectively also, emotionis to it necessarily of a divine nature. Even anger appears to it an emotionnot unworthy of God, provided only there be a religious motive at thefoundation of this anger.

    But here it is also essential to observe, and this phenomenon is anextremely remarkable one, characterising the very core of religion, thatin proportion as the divine subject is in reality human, the greater is theapparent difference between God and man; that is, the more by reflectionon religion, by theology, is the identity of the divine and human denied,and the human, considered as such, is depreciated. The reason of thisis, that as what is positive in the conception of the divine being can onlybe human, the conception of man, as an object of consciousness, canonly be negative. To enrich God, man must become poor; that God maybe all, man must be nothing. But he desires to be nothing in himself,because what he takes from himself is not lost to him, since it is preservedin God. Man has his being in God; why then should he have it in himself?Where is the necessity of positing the same thing twice, of having it twice?What man withdraws from himself, what he renounces in himself, heonly enjoys in an incomparably higher and fuller measure in God.

    The monks made a vow of chastity to God; they mortified the sexualpassion in themselves, but therefore they had in heaven, in the VirginMary, the image of woman?an image of love. They could the moreeasily dispense with real woman in proportion as an ideal woman was anobject of love to them. The greater the importance they attached to thedenial of sensuality, the greater the importance of the heavenly virgin forthem: she was to them in the place of Christ, in the stead of God. Themore the sensual tendencies are renounced, the more sensual is the Godto whom they are sacrificed. For whatever is made an offering to Godhas an especial value attached to it; in it God is supposed to have especialpleasure. That which is the highest in the estimation of man is naturallythe highest in the estimation of his God; what pleases man pleases Godalso. The Hebrews did not offer to Jehovah unclean, ill-conditionedanimals; on the contrary, those which they most highly prized, whichthey themselves ate, were also the food of God (Cibus...