The Essence of Christianity

In Ludwig Feuerbach’s most widely read work, The Essence of Christianity, the author investigates the essential doctrines and mysteries of the Christian faith, as well as what he insists are the most problematic contradictions intrinsic to religion in general and the Christian faith in particular. Feuerbach claims that what humans see as God is actually the transcendent within themselves. Therefore, theology, the study of God, is really anthropology, the study of humans. The Essence of Christianity has become a standard primary text in the philosophy of religion. Originally published in German in 1841, it was quickly translated into English in 1854, and has seen several other English translations since.

This study guide was written using the e-book edition of George Eliot’s translation, a volume in the Dover Philosophical Classics series, issued by Dover Publications in 2008.

Summary

The Essence of Christianity is divided into two parts. The first part treats what the author terms the Anthropological Essence of Religion, while the second part treats the Theological Essence of Religion.

The first part begins with an overview of God as he is commonly understood, and the essential mysteries of the Christian faith (the Incarnation, the Trinity, the Resurrection, etc.). God is conceived by human beings as an object of their understanding, and as an object that exists outside of themselves. This conception, however, is incorrect. What human beings perceive and understand to be God is in fact nothing other than their own nature and existence.

God is not a transcendent reality that exists apart from human beings; rather, God exists only within the human mind and feeling. Even the person of Jesus, whom Christians worship as God in the flesh, is simply an example of the deified human being who has recognized the truth about human nature. As for the various mysteries of the faith, they are explained by various aspects of human nature that lie hidden, dormant, or unexplored in contemporary philosophy and anthropology.

The Trinity is a teaching that helps one understand the multifaceted relationships that human beings possess with each other. The Incarnation illuminates the fact that human love needs to be embodied and lived out in the world for it to be truly the reality we call love. God’s creation of the world goes back to the reality that human beings need to find ways to feel connected to nature, even though human beings often feel alienated and cut off from the natural world.

According to Feuerbach, religion has, over time, evolved from the particular to the universal, moving from “heathenism” to Judaism, and from Judaism to Christianity. Ultimately, Christianity is presented as the religion that is best able to explain human nature and the human experience because it ends with the claim of personal immortality, which is Christianity’s way of encapsulating the desire of the human species within the bounds of an individual soul.

In the second part of the book, Feuerbach investigates the major contradictions of religion, focusing on Christianity in particular. Religion as a general phenomenon speaks to the human desire to find salvation and healing that can be internalized; the problem is that this possibility is not to be found in any outside being or force or ideology, but needs to be sought within. When religion is used as a means to salvation, the contradictions within it become readily apparent.

Proving God exists requires contradicting his nature—he must become a fact of logic to be proven, but he is really meant to be a subjective experience. Divine revelation too is intrinsically contradictory in that the Bible—the written repository of divine revelation—contains moral teachings that plainly contradict reason and common sense.

God’s most blatant contradiction relates to the two essential aspects of the Christian religion, faith and love. Faith is a mode of setting boundary markers on human intuition and speculation; it gives definition to the undefinable, and it issues laws and demands submission. Love on the other hand is boundless, and is as personal as faith is impersonal. While faith demands submission and law, love liberates and sets the individual free. It unites people rather than dividing them. The relationship between love and faith shows Christianity to be a religion of contradiction because Christianity insists that God is love, but must be submitted to in faith.

Feuerbach closes the book by reiterating that religion is not actually about God at all, but is about human nature and the human experience.