The Catholic Response to Feuerbach's "Man created God"?

[Thom18]

In Christianity, God made man in His image. This is in stark contrast to the pagan religions, whose gods look and act just like us- those gods are made in our image. Maybe Feuerbach’s argument could make a case against those religions which are man made (if not from demons), but it doesn’t hold water to the religion of the One True God.

 

[Wozza]

bfree1216:

Yep that’s my main question! And what logic there exists to refute that claim.

Except that I don’t think that this is Feuerbach’s claim, is it? It’s not that man creates God wholecloth out of thin air as a crutch (as some modern atheists might claim), but rather, that there are real grounds to religion – namely, Geist (understood as the collective human spirit) – and these grounds are expressed in terms that we’d identify as ‘religion’.

I don’t. So I personally believe that it is a man-made artifact to fullfill a basic need for spirituality.

Except that Feuerbach is responding to criticism that suggested that the Gospels were constructed out of thin air as a way to express man’s own understanding of his spirituality (which is kinda what you’re espousing as your own belief). So, Feuerbach is criticizing you and your take on things…!

That’s not my position. Religion wasn’t imagined out of thin air. The gospels are an actual attempt to make sense of what people believed. And their belief was genuine. There is absolutely no doubt about that whatsoever. That doesn’t make it true. But belief was, and is true, for almost everyone. Whether you live in Italy or the highlands of Papua New Guinea or the plains of Africa or in Mississipi. And this has happened countless times all over the world ever since we could string a few thoughts together.

Religion doesn’t emerge out of a vacuum. There is a reason why almost everyone belongs, and has belonged since time immemorial, to religions.

 

[Gorgias]

That’s not my position. Religion wasn’t imagined out of thin air. The gospels are an actual attempt to make sense of what people believed. And their belief was genuine. There is absolutely no doubt about that whatsoever.

LOL! You might do well to read up on Strauss’s Life of Jesus Critically Examined – you’re pretty much reiterating his thesis on the Gospels, as much as you might want to deny it…

(The Book of Ecclesiastes really did have it right – “there’s nothing new under the sun”…! )

 

[bfree1216]

Now, let’s look at what you posit: you claim that “God gives us what we need” (e.g., ‘strength’) and then we utilize these gifts by virtue of independent action. Or, you claim, we could turn this on its ear and say “some biological force gives humans agency, and humans merely exercise that agency”, as a means of saying “there ain’t no such thing as God.”

I don’t think that the former idea is what Christian theology posits, and so, I don’t think that we can draw a line from theology to the sort of un-theology that you’re suggesting.

I think Aquinas would assert that God, in creating us, gives us potential (or potency) in terms of human nature, and that potency is actualized in terms of secondary causation, such that we act (according to our nature) in individual ways.

The only way to change that assertion, then, would be to posit that some thing (undefined? unspecified?) is what gives us potential and human nature. For this to hold, though, we’d have to define what has that power and ability to give us these things. The refutation, I’d assert, is that, unless we can identify what that thing is, and why we’d assert that it has the ability to ‘grant’ potential / life / agency to us, then we have an empty theory devoid of explanatory value.

Clarify what you mean here for me. Maybe specifically what you mean by “secondary causation”?

Or essentially, is my description of “God gives us what we need, we act by utilizing those gifts” not a simplified, but still accurate explanation of what Aquinas says?

To me, or at least in the way I’m understanding this right now, that description you gave gives us the necessary grounds for why we’d need God in order that we can even exist, but what is the point then of more practical statements like “God gives me strength” or “God gives me what I need”?

Just getting off a long day of work, my brain could be kinda fried, but for some reason I’m not grasping the full picture of what you’re saying. Not trying to be argumentative at all, just striving for accuracy Thanks for your insight!

 

[po18guy]

Since my remaining life is short, I will condense:

1. It’s a bunch of hooey.
2. He has the absolute right to that hooey.

 

[Gorgias]

Clarify what you mean here for me. Maybe specifically what you mean by “secondary causation”?

Humans have agency. We can cause real things to happen. (This ability to ‘cause’ proceeds, of course, from God, to whom can be ascribed “primary causation.”)

Or essentially, is my description of “God gives us what we need, we act by utilizing those gifts” not a simplified, but still accurate explanation of what Aquinas says?

Only if “what we need” is intended to mean “human nature”.

what is the point then of more practical statements like “God gives me strength” or “God gives me what I need”?

It’s a helpful – albeit poetic / approximate / inaccurate – way to describe the operation of human nature and potency to act.

for some reason I’m not grasping the full picture of what you’re saying

Hmm… well, I think you’ve only approximated Feuerbach’s arguments (although, as I admit, I’m no expert in his writings), and as such, I think you’re going off in a tangent that he wouldn’t have asserted. So, I think your thought experiment kinda diverges from his ideas, and doesn’t really help us with your question of how to replace “God” with something else. (In fact, what you’re positing sounds more like something that the New Atheists would have come up with, rather than what German Idealists of the early 19th century would have…)

 

[bfree1216]

Thank you! This is making more sense. A few follow up questions:

Only if “what we need” is intended to mean “human nature”.

Ok I think I understand this, but then what about ideas such as “we need to rely on God more” or “look to God for help”? If we have everything we need in ourselves, what role does God play?

I know I’m extending these abstract philosophical arguments into more practical applications, but I think that’s where I’ve been struggling to understand this: how does it apply practically?

I think in analogies quite a bit, so I think maybe an analogy like the vine and the branches can be useful here for what I’m trying to ask. The branch can’t exist without the vine, true. But if God is solely the cause for our continual existence, what greater role does He have?

Or in another metaphor, I need oxygen to breathe and live. True. But that’s about as far as my relationship with oxygen goes. I don’t worship oxygen, I don’t look to oxygen for guidance, so what use would it be for oxygen to be a big part of the way I live my life?

One more (not trying to beat a dead horse, just trying to get as accurate of an analogy as possible! ): I always love thinking in terms of families, since our God is a family in and of himself, plus He is both our Father and Friend. I’m not “connected” to my parents in any way, but I wouldn’t exist without them. But what use is there to keep them in my life? (Not to sound harsh to my parents hahahahaha I love them dearly). But in this instance, my parents (do their best to) give me what I need (aka help in general, in whatever manner that might mean) and I rely on my parents quite a bit for guidance. How does this relate to us and God?

Hmm… well, I think you’ve only approximated Feuerbach’s arguments (although, as I admit, I’m no expert in his writings), and as such, I think you’re going off in a tangent that he wouldn’t have asserted. So, I think your thought experiment kinda diverges from his ideas, and doesn’t really help us with your question of how to replace “God” with something else. (In fact, what you’re positing sounds more like something that the New Atheists would have come up with, rather than what German Idealists of the early 19th century would have…)

I think we maybe are both helping each other fill in what Feuerbach was primarily getting at (I just re-read through some of my highlighted passages of The Essence of Christianity a couple days ago so I feel mostly refreshed in my knowledge of what he said, but I very well could be missing or misreading some parts), but in any case, it’s no worry! If my main purpose of the post leans more toward some New Atheism ideas than Feuerbach’s, that’s totally okay.

You’ve been such a big help, as has everyone on this thread! Thanks again!

 

[EZweber]

No. I am saying that all faiths exclude all others. Every faith is the one true faith to all those who embrace it.

So why is that a problem?

 

[Gorgias]

what about ideas such as “we need to rely on God more” or “look to God for help”? If we have everything we need in ourselves, what role does God play?

I think that these notions go beyond what Feuerbach was intending to say (or what the Catholic Church asserts). We’re not saying that God is merely the Deist Watchmaker, who sets things in motion and then leaves us to our own devices. Rather, we say that God gives us the grace that we need, and this grace helps us (specifically, to perform acts of supernatural virtue).

So, I don’t think that you can draw a simple direct line from what you’re seeing in Feuerbach’s theories of the grounds of religion to practical considerations of how Christians live their daily lives.

If you did want to draw that direct line, however, extrapolating from Feuerbach, I think you would say something like this: our collective nature is the grounds for who we are and how we act; so, our individual, physical actions are merely the ways in which the “individuals who are not who we really are” interact with other individuals (who are not who they really are) in physical, experiential modes, such that we can distinguish these “not-I” forms in sensory ways. Of course, these experiences all proceed from the single “who I really am”, which is really just the collective human nature. So, the “Us-nature” enables the “me-actor” to act.

Does that help? (It’s kinda weird to write it out like that, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that Feuerbach kinda did what appears to be a bit of a 180 in his thought, in his later writings).

He wouldn’t have asserted that “God is the sole cause for our continual existence”, I don’t think, since he would have asserted that what we call ‘God’ really is our own, shared existence.

From a Catholic perspective, however, things are very different. God is not only who creates us, but He also sustains our existence continuously. He is also the source of the graces which we receive that buoy us up. (In a purely analogous way, our parents (in the ideal case) are there to buoy us up, and sometimes we even rely on them to do so in a very obvious and literal way!)

I just re-read through some of my highlighted passages of The Essence of Christianity a couple days ag

Keep in mind that Feuerbach’s later ideas can appear somewhat contradictory to what he wrote earlier in Essence…!

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

No. I am saying that all faiths exclude all others. Every faith is the one true faith to all those who embrace it.

So why is that a problem?

It means that what you say is reflected by all the followers of all other religions. Everyone uses the same arguments. You are not saying anything new at all. Every single.person on the planet is saying: ‘I’ve got the answer’.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

That’s not my position. Religion wasn’t imagined out of thin air. The gospels are an actual attempt to make sense of what people believed. And their belief was genuine. There is absolutely no doubt about that whatsoever.

You might do well to read up on Strauss’s Life of Jesus Critically Examined – you’re pretty much reiterating his thesis on the Gospels, as much as you might want to deny it…

I’ve not read it. But if he agrees with me then I’m not going to complain.

 

[Gorgias]

I’ve not read it. But if he agrees with me then I’m not going to complain.

The funny thing is that the entirety of German philosophical thought in the 19th century, following Strauss’ publication of the book, pretty much rejected his conclusions, including all of German idealism and subsequent movements…

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

I’ve not read it. But if he agrees with me then I’m not going to complain.

The funny thing is that the entirety of German philosophical thought in the 19th century, following Strauss’ publication of the book, pretty much rejected his conclusions, including all of German idealism and subsequent movements…

Well, what would they know…

 

[Gorgias]

Well, what would they know…

Well, they certainly seemed to think that they had convincing arguments that refuted Strauss…

 

[EZweber]

. You are not saying anything new at all. Every single.person on the planet is saying: ‘I’ve got the answer’.

You could say that for almost any controversial topic on the planet.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

. You are not saying anything new at all. Every single.person on the planet is saying: ‘I’ve got the answer’.

You could say that for almost any controversial topic on the planet.

Just to confirm: when I said ‘every single person’ I meant every single person of faith. I don’t know anyone who has ever said ‘I’m a Hindu/Muslim/Christian/insert-faith-here but do you know, I’m really not sure I’m right about my beliefs’.

On the other hand, you don’t have to look very far afield (me for example), to find lots of people who regularly use the term ‘I’m not sure I have the answer to that’.

 

[EZweber]

My point is that it’s not exclusive to religion. Man almost invariably thinks that a viewpoint of his that he has studied is certainly right.

 

[Wozza]

My point is that it’s not exclusive to religion.

It invariably is with religion. With other matters…not so much. Look at science. Any scientist, if he’s honest (and they pride themselves on this so they invariably are) will say: ‘As far as I know…this answer is the correct one at this moment in time’.

 

[LateCatholic]

Therefore, an incontingent being is necessary for contingent beings to receive their existence from. This we call God.

Religious people call this thing “God”.
But it does not have to be a ‘being’. It is just something that is perpetual. For example, “math”. Or “logic”. Or “space/time”. Or “vacuum fluctuations”.
One could simply say that the logical foundation of existence is fundamental, noncontingent, and perpetual. You do not need to create ‘God’ to satisfy your premises.

Regardless, cosmological arguments are flawed and have been refuted for centuries.

 

[LateCatholic]

Religion by definition is man-made.
The concept of “God” is man-made.
Whether an actual, conscious, intelligence being exists beyond our plane of observation can never be known.
If that being somehow interacts with our plane of existence, we should be able to detect it. But we have not yet.
All people that believe in a ‘higher power’ agree that this being (or beings) both exists and interacts with our plane of existence.

Your question (where does God come in) is why Christianity (and most religions) use death and suffering as wedges and links to increase faith. Specifically, you may not need God now, but you WILL when you die. Or you will when things go bad and you suffer, That is the foundation of all modern religions. For example, if people lived forever and never suffered, I think you are right, no one would technically ‘need’ God to live out their existence. But we do die. And we do suffer. Therefore, God is necessary.