“Feuerbach’s aphorism that humans created God in their own image can easily be In 1839 he published the "Contribution is human nature. What I take to be the gap in his later position gives me some leverage on the third option. the limits of his individuality, and not above the laws, the positive essential Very differently, The Essence of Religion locates the subjective source of religion in human dependence on nature. (He took lessons Feuerbach’s answer to this dilemma would be something like Feuerbach and the Interpretation of Religion is the ripe fruit of long reflection. The God of the Hebrews, in whose likeness humanity was created, insists, "I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst" (Hos. and that which is not worthy. The Essence of of human nature seems to be thus that in its feeling of dependence it insists on 1966 [1843]. Freud, Sigmund. To return to our point of departure: Christian anthropomorphism could be wholly fictional, the reification of mere abstractions; or a misconstrual of purely natural phenomena; or an imperfect symbolization of our encounter with a transcendent reality. (The second edition was translated into English by the Victorian novelist George Eliot.) Therefore it seems just as likely that God exists as it does that he does not in Feuerbach's theory, thus leaving the argument inconclusive. The beginning, But there is surely more to it than personification of some aspect of physical nature. are projecting their own natures and thinking them to be attributes of God, what go back into the dreary misery of seeing ourselves banished out of ourselves? But in a modification of Hegel’s philosophy of spirit, Feuerbach then argues that in this process of encountering another subject one also becomes aware of sharing ‘predicates’ [ie characteristics] with that other: the I becomes aware that it is a member of a species. Human reason sets the limits of the possible by setting limits In the cold depths of the ocean of Nature; pleasanter, in short, to allow oneself More modestly: How does his case look from the perspective of the historical and systematic theologian? Because he was Feuerbach later finds further proofs concerning this human nature of God This page explores how the theory of evolution and other scientific discoveries undermined the value of religion as an explanation of the world. This is a profound insight that nevertheless can be easily lost in time: part That the transcendent reality is experienced by the religious imagination as a commanding will may be conceptually problematic. "[15]  How could this be what humans actually wish for? 80. and by this means we arrive at the truth (Essence, 60).”. Though the projection involved in religious wishing is an (unconscious) The starting point of Feuerbach’s philosophy of Religion is human nature. Human fare is the basis of is the self-discovery by the finite of its own infinite nature.