The Book, Cat, & Cat Book Lovers Almanac

of historical trivia regarding books, cats, and other animals. Actually this blog has evolved so that it is described better as a blog about cats in history and culture. And we take as a theme the advice of Aldous Huxley: If you want to be a writer, get some cats. Don't forget to see the archived articles linked at the bottom of the page.

July 28, 2020

July 28, 1804


Ludwig Feuerbach (July 28, 1804 to September 13, 1872) was a German philosopher. His book The Essence of Christianity was first published in 1841 and an English translation appeared in 1855. In this book Feuerbach argues that all our ideas about god are just a reflection of our own human nature. He is a very good writer and his arguments easy to follow, or maybe that reflects the translator, who happened to be the woman who would soon write Adam Bede, Marian Evans.

Our excerpt is from Feuerbach's major book, which we have already cited.


Creation, .... the creative, cosmogonic fiat is the tacit word, identical with the thought. To speak is an act of the will; thus, creation is the product of the Will: as in the Word of God man affirms the divinity of the human word, so in creation he affirms the divinity of the Will: not, however, the will of the reason, but the will of the imagination—the absolutely subjective, unlimited will. The culminating point of the principle of subjectivity is creation out of nothing.'' 
.....
Creation out of nothing is the highest expression of omnipotence: but omnipotence is nothing else than subjectivity exempting itself from all objective conditions and limitations, and consecrating this exemption as the highest power and reality: nothing else than the ability to posit everything real as unreal—everything conceivable as possible: nothing else than the power of the imagination, or of the will as identical with the imagination, the power of self-will...

Creation out of nothing, is identical with miracle, is one with Providence; for the idea of Providence— originally, in its true religious significance, in which it is not yet infringed upon and limited by the unbelieving understanding—is one with the idea of miracle. The proof of Providence is miracle.... Belief in Providence is belief in a power to which all things stand at command to be used according to its pleasure, in opposition to which all the power of reality is nothing. Providence cancels the laws of Nature; it interrupts the course of necessity, the iron bond which inevitably binds effects to causes; in short, it is the same unlimited, all powerful will, that called the world into existence out of nothing. ....

But we nowhere read that God, for the sake of brutes, became a brute—the very idea of this is, in the eyes of religion, impious and ungodly; or that God ever performed a miracle for the sake of animals or plants. On the contrary, we read that a poor fig-tree, because it bore no fruit at a time when it could not bear it, was cursed, purely in order to give men an example of the power of faith over Nature ;—and again, that when the tormenting devils were driven out of men, they were driven into brutes. It is true we also read: "No sparrow falls to the ground without your Father;" but these sparrows have no more worth and importance than the hairs on the head of a man, which are all numbered.

Apart from instinct, the brute has no other guardian spirit; no other Providence, than its senses or its organs in general. A bird which loses its eyes has lost its guardian angel.

... It is true that religious naturalism, or the acknowledgment of the Divine in Nature, is also an element of the Christian religion, and yet more of the Mosaic, which was so friendly to animals.—But it is by no means the characteristic, the Christian tendency of the Christian religion. The Christian, the religious Providence, is quite another than that which clothes the lilies and feeds the ravens. The natural Providence lets a man sink in the water, if he has not learned to swim; but the Christian, the religious Providence, leads him with the hand of omnipotence over the water unharmed.

.....Providence has relation essentially to men, and even among men only to the religious. "God is the Saviour of all men, but especially of them that believe." It belongs, like religion, only to man; it is intended to express the essential distinction of man from the brute, to rescue man from the tyranny of the forces of Nature. Jonah in the whale, Daniel in the den of lions, are examples of the manner in which Providence distinguishes (religious) men from brutes. If therefore the Providence which manifests itself in the organs with which animals catch and devour their prey, and which is so greatly admired by Christian naturalists, is a truth, the Providence of the Bible, the Providence of religion, is a falsehood; and vice versa. What pitiable and at the same time ludicrous hypocrisy is the attempt to do homage to both, to Nature and the the Bible at once I How does Nature contradict the Bible! How does the Bible contradict Nature! The God of Nature reveals himself by giving to the lion strength and appropriate organs in order that, for the preservation of his life, he may in case of necessity kill and devour even a human being... 

[T]he God of the Bible reveals himself by interposing his own aid to rescue the human being from the jaws of the lion...Providence is a privilege of man. It expresses the 
value of man, in distinction from other natural beings and things; it exempts him from the connexion of the universe. Providence is the conviction of man of the infinite value of his existence....

...... [H]ence the beneficent consequences of this faith, but hence also false humility, religious arrogance, which, it is true, does not rely on itself, but only because it commits the care of itself to the blessed God. God concerns himself about me; he has in view my happiness, my salvation; he wills that I shall be blest; but that is my will also: thus, my interest is God's interest, my own will is God's will, my own aim is God's aim,—God's love for me nothing else than my self-love deified.

Thus when I believe in Providence, in what do I believe but in the divine reality and significance of ... my [own] being?

..... Consequently, the belief in God is nothing but the belief in human dignity...
belief in the absolute reality and significance of the human nature. 
....

Perhaps there is too much repetition above: I was really interested in the way this guy twisted religion to prove atheistic conclusions.  This is a very influential book in modern history. 

Feuerbach's influence on Marx is much noted: the former shifted Hegel's focus on mind to materialism,  while retaining Hegel's vision of man as a embodying within himself a powerful culmination of history. Feuerbach's view of 'subjectivity' precedes the modern view of man's interiority as a source of uncertainty, and without remembering this, Feuerbach's use of that word does not make much sense. Atheism of course is a possibility throughout history, but here Feuerbach uses logic without regard for extant mysteries to create atheism as a triumphant dialectical progress from theism. All this had an invigorating effect simply because of its cleverness, rather than any cogency.  And notice Feuerbach's emphasis on the word as powerful in itself, without concern for the reality to which the word points -- can we trace an effect here on 20th century analytic philosophy? 

No comments: