The Essence of Christianity (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading)

By Ludwig Feuerbach and Wolfgang Vondey

"[T]he truth of our time." -- David Friedrich Strauss

The Essence of Christianity is the most significant critique of the Christian religion published in the nineteenth century. The work made Feuerbach a major public figure, admired by some, unpopular with others, but neglected by few. The impact of the book was enormous; it exposed with systematic order, passionate style, and often radical illustrations the weaknesses of contemporary religious thought and philosophy. It upset the entire dominant German philosophical tradition and assumed the lead in the historical critique of religious thought.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Release date: Sep 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781411430181

Ludwig Feuerbach

Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach wurde am 28. Juli 1804 in Landshut geboren. 1823 begann er in Heidelberg sein Theologiestudium. 1824 wechselte er sein Studienfach und studierte fortan in Berlin Philosophie und besuchte dort zwei Jahre lang die Vorlesungen von Hegel. Im Juni 1828 promovierte er in Philosophie; am Ende desselben Jahres folgte die Habilitation. Wenige Wochen danach begann er, als unbesoldeter Privatdozent in Erlangen zu lehren. Vor allem durch seine Religions- und Idealismuskritik wurde er bekannt, da diese auch Einfluss auf die Bewegung des Vormärzes hatte sowie grundlegende Erkenntnisse für die modernen Humanwissenschaften bereitete. Am 13. September 1872 starb er in Rechenberg bei Nürnberg.

Reviews for The Essence of Christianity (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading)

[blake.rosser · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

One of the more difficult books I've ever read, but filled with great ideas. Basically Feuerbach says that Christianity (love of Christ) should really be about love of man, and this is simply because Christ sacrificed himself becasue of this love for man. Consequently, if we don't love and care for our fellow men, we are letting Jesus' sacrifice go to waste. More basically, he says that our version of God is really the divine virtues in ourselves, so religion is nothing more than self-worship (but not in a bad way).

[dmsteyn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The beginning, middle and end of religion is MAN.The dictum that one should “believe as a child” is a popular one among Christians of many stripes. Unquestioning belief is often held to be the true sign of piety, while scepticism and uncertainty are rejected out of hand. Yet so much of civilisation is based on rational discourse and philosophical enquiry. To claim that religion is completely ineffable would then seem to be reserving special privileges for one sphere of human existence, perhaps one of the most influential spheres. Is this justifiable? Or is it a sign of pusillanimity, a human fear of exposing the straw-man arguments on which many believers base their faith? Ludwig Feuerbach, a nineteenth-century German philosopher, would argue for the latter. In his fair-minded, densely written book, Feuerbach argues that, in essence, “theology is anthropology” – not in the narrow sense of anthropology as an academic study of human societies, but in a much broader sense: belief is solely a predicate of human existence, and, according to Feuerbach, Christianity is not based on the existence of an actual deity or real miraculous events, but rather based only on human needs and our limited understanding of the world. Obviously, that is a very, very condensed précis of what Feuerbach actually argues for around 300 pages. But it gives the gist of what he contends. Very controversial ideas, admittedly, whether we are talking about the nineteenth or twenty-first century.The book is a work of philosophy that depends on a great deal of foreknowledge about the field, so it is not an easy read. And even if you have a working knowledge of Western philosophy, you will probably need to have a good amount of patience to get through it: Henry James-like paragraphs await the intrepid explorer of Feuerbach’s book, stuffed with quotations in Latin by the Church Fathers and many quotations from Luther (Feuerbach spares neither Catholicism nor Protestantism in his indictment of religion). The book is divided into two parts, the first concerning what Feuerbach calls “The True or Anthropological Essence of Religion”, in which he adopts a fairly positive tone in teasing out what he believes to be the core of religion. In the second part (“The False or Theological Essence of Religion”), however, Feuerbach pulls no punches in chastising religion for what he believes are its contradictions and inherent problems. Feuerbach can be very forceful here, and I can see why this book has upset people in the past.An interesting note: the book was originally translated by George Eliot, and this is also the edition I read. I find it intriguing that Eliot would have been interested in this kind of book, as she is, on the whole, hardly a polemical writer. Being a translation, little of her own style really seeps through into the book, but it would be interesting to see how Feuerbach’s ideas penetrate Eliot’s own writing. There are a few grammatical problems with the translation as well, mostly related to the German use of du, which Eliot translates as thou, leading to a sometimes strange, anachronistic tone.I thought The Essence of Christianity was an excellent philosophical work, but it certainly will not be for everyone. I did not agree with all of Feuerbach’s conclusions, but his humanist polemic certainly made me think. One should not reject this book merely because it might threaten one’s cherished beliefs. In fact, that is probably the best reason to read it. Complacency in one’s beliefs is surely as dangerous as heresy, and much more insidious. As a famous publication puts it, one should take part in “a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress.” It would be a shame to toss the book aside for its arguments. Its difficulty is another matter.

[stillatim · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Another in the surprisingly large group of books, 'things that, although incomprehensible to people who don't understand Hegel, are read with great relish by people who don't understand Hegel because they can be used to re-affirm preexisting prejudices' (see also Marx, Kojeve, all the 'end of history' types, various aesthetic theories, etc etc).
Feuerbach's argument is, roughly, that Christianity is exactly what Hegel said it is, except that 'Geist' is the human species (which is probably what Hegel meant, too). He's far more intelligent and well read than any contemporary atheistical controversialist, and his argument is far better, inasmuch as he doesn't want to destroy religion; he just wants everyone to understand it properly. If we understand it properly, he says, we'll recognize that all the attributes of God (goodness, creativity, intelligence etc) are actually attributes of the human species as a whole, even though individuals quite often lack those attributes. Christianity is the 'highest' religion, since Christ is a really good, backdoor way of admitting that divine attributes are really human: Christ = the human species. In short, for Feuerbach Christianity is pretty much right, provided that you focus on the predicates of religious statements ('God is good,' 'God is love,' etc...) and not their subject. The predicates are 'true,' the subject is imaginary.

That's a great argument. This book, though, is tiresome for a twenty-first century reader: you really only need the opening chapters (and a good knowledge of the Ph. of Geist and Science of Logic) to get the point. Much of the rest is elaboration. The whole second part is a tour de force, in which Ludwig shows how his view of religion can explain various theological controversies: can we prove the existence of God? What is the status of revelation vs reason? What kind of thing is God, if he is a thing? What is the status of philosophical theology? How can we put the Trinity into words? What happens during baptism/eucharist? Why do Christians, who profess the gospel of love, hate so many people? None of this is at all interesting, inasmuch as his explanations are pretty mediocre, and many of the issues are dead.

It does show, though, that he knows something about the religion he's writing about (cf: Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris etc...) Ludwig's also much better at being a person than those writers. He doesn't use his attack on religion to drag humanity down; he doesn't want to say we're just animals or we're just matter or any such thing. He wants to say we're a part of nature, but that that means we have to understand nature much more widely than we usually do. Human activities, social activities, etc., are all 'natural,' on the right definition of nature. On the definition of nature most people operate under, though, they're supernatural: they can't be explained by natural science. This is not, for Ludwig, a reason to declare them non-existent or aberrant. It's a reason to re-examine religion, *and* the limits of empiricist thought.