WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND

Freud and Lewis

Signs of the Supernatural by Kristin Rupert

The issue of the existence of God is obviously a vastly important one. Both Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis, two of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century, separated all humans into two categories: those who believe in the supernatural and those who do not. Why such a distinction? Why were these two men so consumed with the “question of God?” Perhaps they spent so much time arguing their respective positions on God because they realized that the existence of a higher power would undoubtedly have immeasurable impact on their lives and on the world. Sigmund Freud was raised partly in the Jewish tradition, but with much influence from Catholicism. This strange combination of religious ritual and tradition may help to explain his ambivalence towards an idea of God and why he spent nearly his whole life arguing against the existence of a supernatural. Freud theorized that one’s view of God springs from the view of one’s father. When a man comes of age and is thrust into the cruel, cold world, he desires nothing less than a haven of security and protection from it. He can no longer look to his parents for this protection – after all, he is an adult and must learn to care for himself – but he desires above all a “Someone” to do this job for him. Freud theorized that the man’s need to overcome his helplessness leads him to the idea of a Higher Power, which he calls God: “When the growing individual finds that he is destined to remain a child for ever, that he can never do without protection against strange superior powers, he lends those powers the features belonging to the figure of his father” (Freud 30). God acts as an idealized father figure for humans, providing an adversary to harsh Nature and an ally in the midst of life’s troubles. Indeed, God becomes made in man’s own image, the “ultimate wish-fulfillment” of man’s desire for a loving father (Freud 21). God provides not only protection from Nature, but also from evil in the world. Freud makes this point by claiming that “religious ideas have arisen from the same need as have all other achievements of civilization: from the necessity of defending oneself against the crushingly superior force of nature. To this a second motive was added – the urge to rectify the shortcomings of civilization which made themselves painfully felt” (Freud 26). Needing a recompense for the suffering around him and a guide for how he should live, the man turns to God for direction. He mistakes the historical moral development of society for rules given and enforced by God. The internalized teachings of his parents and the morals accepted by his culture now become mandates of God: “You shall not murder,” “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not steal.” True, these commandments impose restrictions on man’s instinct, but they also provide security. He knows how to act, and he rests secure knowing that if others step out of line “divine punishment” will result for them. He is safe, believing that God will punish evil as well as reward him for doing right; as long as he complies with these rules, God will regard him as a friend and work everything for his good. Once he has discovered this “truth,” the man can, in effect, control God. He makes God personal and establishes a relationship with Him in an attempt to influence Him to his own benefit. If he figures out what God wants and complies with it, he can play the game and be quite safe, receiving all the protection and blessings that God promises to those who obey him. To all intents and purposes, he has, by submitting to what God wants, forced God to submit to doing the man’s own bidding as well (Nicholi 44). Freud argues against the “illusion” of a supernatural power that imposes morals upon humans. God exists only in one’s mind, imagined into existence as the manifestation of one’s desires. He writes, “We shall tell ourselves that it would be very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent Providence, and if there were a moral order in the universe and an after-life; but it is the very striking fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be” (Freud 42). Later he states, “Since it is an awkward task to separate what God himself has demanded from what can be traced to the authority of an all-powerful parliament or a high judiciary, it would be an undoubted advantage if we were to leave God out altogether and honestly admit the purely human origin of all the regulations and precepts of civilization” (Freud 53). He explains the evolution of religion in civilization as having three stages. The first stage exhibited an absence of morals, where humans had not yet invented a moral code. The second stage developed as humans began to recognize the need for order in societies. During this stage, man developed his idea of a God who gives such morals. The third stage, Freud explains, has only just begun. Humans, now educated and enlightened by science, begin to grow out of their childlike belief in God and recognize morals as man-made rules put into place for their own benefit (Freud 55). Freud believed that as education increased and scientific research continued, humans would slowly stop believing in God and begin to recognize that God was simply an expression of their wishes. Armand Nicholi offers C.S. Lewis as the supernaturalist counterpart to Freud’s teachings. Lewis was an atheist like Freud until he became convinced of the truth of Christianity. Many of his arguments directly answer the arguments of Freud. Lewis asserts that, indeed, we do wish for a God that can fulfill our needs and provide moral order, but we wish for these things simply because we were created to desire them. He argues, “Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists” (quoted, in Nicholi 46). Lewis, an atheist until the age of 31, was never completely happy or content until he embraced the idea of God. He describes his unhappiness as resulting from “an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction” (quoted, in Nicholi 82). Lewis called this desire “Joy” and he found its fulfillment only when he surrendered to the idea of God. He argued that the inborn longing one feels is a desire for a relationship with the Creator God, and the desire itself suggests the existence of God. Sigmund Freud believed that this desire can be satisfied in other things – sex for instance – but Lewis disagreed, saying, “Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care… never to mistake them [earthly pleasures] for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage” (quoted, in Nicholi 47). Only in a relationship with God can humans find true and lasting contentment. Augustine, who, like Lewis, experienced a conversion to belief in the supernatural, said of God, “The thought of You stirs us so deeply that we cannot be content unless we praise You, because you have made us for Yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in You.” Aldous Huxley echoed Lewis and Augustine when he said, “There comes a time when one asks even of Shakespeare, even of Beethoven, is this all?” (quoted, in Smith 42). Lewis would argue with these men that time and time again humans turn unsatisfied from earthly pleasures to look beyond themselves for something that might fill the void they feel. Lewis also teaches that humans are born with an instinctual set of rules that govern their actions. He uses this innate “conscience” as more evidence for the existence of a Creator God. He asserts that if there were a Higher Power that gave life to humans, then that Power would have left some influence on our behavior in order to sway us to act in a certain way. This moral law that the Creator has put in our minds is a sign of His existence (Nicholi 59).

He writes: If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe – no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house. The only way in which we could expect it to show itself would be inside ourselves as an influence or a command trying to get us to behave in a certain way. And that is just what we do find inside ourselves.(Lewis 19) It is true that we do commonly learn the moral law from our parents or society, but that does not mean that society is the originator of that law. Lewis would argue that the originator was God, through the commandments in the Bible and through the “still small voice” inside each person, guiding their decisions and actions (Nicholi 60). If society had been the creator of this moral law, he argued, then the law would have changed over time and across cultures as society grew and expanded. Lewis found no evidence, however, that morals from one culture to the next or from one time period to the next changed in a fundamental or significant way (Lewis 5). He concluded that this was further confirmation that a higher power was directing and preserving the morals of society. Both Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis offer compelling arguments for and against the existence of God. Who was correct? Armand Nicholi said it best: “Their arguments can never prove or disprove the existence of God. Their lives, however, offer sharp commentary on the truth, believability, and utility of their views” (Nicholi 5). I find, upon examining the arguments and lives of these two men, that the arguments of Lewis appear to be more persuasive. Lewis’ writings convince me more so than Freud’s, first of all because Lewis has stood on both sides of the issue. His conversion from atheist to believer offers compelling support for his later arguments for the existence of the supernatural. Once a convinced atheist, Lewis eventually turned from this to become one of the leaders in Christian writing and argumentation. This great change of worldview compels me to examine his arguments more closely and lend more credibility to them. Freud, on the other hand, never allowed himself to accept the idea of God’s existence. In fact, he seemed compelled, even desperate, to prove that God did not exist: “He appears to be determined to destroy every possible reason for accepting the spiritual worldview” (Nicholi 53). Indeed, he was able to come up with convincing arguments to support his point of view, yet most of his arguments were based on speculation and supposition. For instance, in Totem and Taboo, he invents a make-believe story upon which he bases his entire theory of the origin of a moral code. Freud himself said, “…no proposition can be a proof of itself” (Freud 34), yet many of his greatest theories are based on such propositions. This kind of theorizing is unscientific according to Freud himself; there is no basis of observable fact to support it. It may be excusable in the “delusional” minds of supernaturalists (Freud 55), but surely for a great defender of the scientific method it should be questioned. Freud also referred to the moral teachings of Christianity as “useless” and of “no value” (Freud 38), but even the most adamant atheists admit to the worth and deservedness of Jesus’ teachings. How could the command to “Love your neighbor as yourself” be useless? Freud’s unyielding assertion that these teachings are worthless seems to suggest a bias on his part. He admittedly wrestled with authority and preferred to govern his own life (Nicholi 71). I would argue that this influenced his beliefs greatly. He did not believe because he did not wish to believe; believing in God might have meant that he would have to surrender his control. Freud insisted that God was a result of human invention. Humans dreamed up an idea of God because they needed a father figure to whom to look for protection. I agree that many humans have a desire for something greater than themselves to guide and guard them, but I also believe that many humans would rather look out for themselves. Phrases such as “I can handle this” or “I’ll take care of this myself” display our desires for self-sufficiency, and when it comes to our personal lives we are even more reluctant to yield control. If one believes in the existence of a higher being, one must be prepared to relinquish control to it. Huston Smith said that religion “renounces the ego’s claims to finality” (Smith, 113). How did Freud explain the desire for God in independent people who would rather not believe? Being of an independent nature myself, the last thing I would wish is for the existence of a God to whom I must surrender my control. I identify with Lewis, whose atheism appealed to him “because it satisfied his deep-seated wish to be left alone” (Nicholi 46); and yet I am a Christian. Freud could not explain this. Contrary to Freud’s theory that belief in the supernatural is an “illusion,” Lewis’ beliefs were soundly influenced by knowledge and reason as the result of research. Lewis, once he became willing to set aside his opinions and review the evidence without bias, began to discover things that Freud’s prejudices would not allow Freud to see. Lewis believed more and more in God as he studied more and more the evidence for His existence. This was completely opposite from Freud’s claim that as humans become more educated they will give up belief in the supernatural (Freud 49). Lewis’ conversion was not the result of emotional instability, “mass delusion,” or even a great desire to believe; it was the result of intellectual awakening (Nicholi 93). Freud may have professed to believe that the sole source of knowledge was through scientific research, but he himself admitted that his arguments were threatened by the fact that “science of all things seems to demand the existence of God” (quoted, in Nicholi 19). It would appear that even Freud could not refute science’s evidence for a Creator. C.S. Lewis explained this by saying, “We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him” (quoted, in Nicholi 244). All spiritual arguments aside, one can also look at the question of God quite logically. Mathematician Blaise Pascal wrote the following rational argument: If I believe in God and life after death and you do not, and if there is no God, we both lose when we die. However, if there is a God, you still lose and I gain everything (Pascal 233). If Freud was right that God does not exist and death is the end, then one could return the argument that it really wouldn’t matter if humans believed in God or not; truly, nothing in life would matter. If there is no God, the only meaning in life is to live and die. Freud himself said that the only human purpose is to reproduce (Freud 19). If believing in God helps humans to feel secure in life and tranquil in death, why not allow the masses their “delusion” and so retain order? It wouldn’t matter anyhow in the end; the final result is the grave, and it makes no distinction between believers and unbelievers but claims all equally in time. I would argue that if Freud had been willing to set aside his “willful blindness” (quoted, in Nicholi 91), he too might have come awake to the inescapable fact of the existence of God. Both Freud and Lewis weighed the evidence and made their respective decisions. It is too late for either of them to change their minds, but their writings can motivate us to examine this issue ourselves. It is now up to us to decide. Joshua 24:15 gives the choice: “…choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve… But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”