FREUD & THE PROBLEM OF GOD, SECOND (Terry Lectures

by Hans Küng, Edward Quinn (Translation)

In this highly acclaimed book, one of the most prominent theologians in the world offers a theological and psychoanalytic assessment of Freud’s atheism and of its implications for current psychoanalytic practice. In the original section of the book, now entitled “God―An Infantile Illusion?,” Hans Küng traces Freud’s views on religion and religious longing, compares Jung’s and Adler’s attitudes toward religion, shows that Freud’s arguments against the existence of God are theologically unsound, and concludes with a frank and provocative discussion of what psychoanalysis may be able to teach the Christian Church. In a new section, “Religion―The Final Taboo?,” Küng points out that religions still plays a negligible role in the practice of psychoanalysis, despite its increasing importance in the lives of most people. Has religion replaced sex, Küng asks, as an integral facet of human experience ignored or repressed by the very profession that seeks to enlighten?
Reviews of the first
“This should stand as one of Dr. Küng’s finest works.”―Edmund Fuller, Wall Street Journal
“A balanced, thorough, and very readable discussion of Freud’s critique of religion… A model of the clarity, honesty, and fairness we can always expect to find in Küng’s writings.” –John F. Haught, America
“An honest, sympathetic pro-and-con assessment of specific elements of Freud’s critique by a well-known German Catholic theologian, easily accessible to the interested layperson and valuable for both theologians and psychologists.”― Library Journal
“Küng carefully, sympathetically investigates Freud’s interpretations of religion, both within his clinical theories and personal history.” –Lisa Mitchell, Los Angeles Times

Genres: Psychology, Philosophy, Theology, Spirituality, Religion

185 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Hans Küng was a Swiss Catholic priest, controversial theologian, and prolific author. Since 1995 he had been President of the Foundation for a Global Ethic (Stiftung Weltethos). Küng is "a Catholic priest in good standing," but the Vatican has rescinded his authority to teach Catholic theology. Though he had to leave the Catholic faculty, he remained at the University of Tübingen as a professor of Ecumenical Theology and served as Emeritus Professor since 1996. In spite of not being allowed to teach Catholic theology, neither his bishop nor the Holy See had revoked his priestly faculties.

Reviews

[Johnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hans Kung is a profound theologian, yet he gave the Terry Lectures at Yale University on Freud’s attempt to create a psychogenesis of religion. Unfortunately, looking at Freud’s own works and the available biological information, Kung asserted in front of a potentially biased audience that for Freud, “…it was really a question of a theory of religion established a priori which he then attempted to prove with the aid of material from the history of religion.” (p. 40) Kung notes that Freud had already developed his own religion of science based on his studies under Feuerbach and suggests that Freud’s atheism and dismissal of religion as mere wish-fulfillment and illusion has not been subjected to rigorous criticism.

Nonetheless, the first lecture attempts to examine Freud’s perspective from Freud’s own work. Kung doesn’t deny many of the negatives Freud saw in religion (and particularly, Christianity). This was natural considering the level of anti-Semitism he experienced during his life. Yet, Kung recognizes that there is too often truth (but not always) in Freud’s accusations that: 1) too many “believe” without demanding proofs for the reason that they know deep inside that there is no foundation for belief (p. 42); 2) those who believe because it is the heritage of their forefathers have not grappled with the fact that many earlier people were ignorant and believed what is not necessary to believe (pp. 42-3); and 3) too many believe “proofs” based on earlier, even primeval, testimony that is not sufficiently subjected to modern criteria (p. 43). So, realizing the scarcity of objective truth regarding faith and religion, Freud uses his discoveries in dreams and the treatment of neurosis to examine religion. So, religion is an “illusion.”

Kung points out that Freud was careful not to claim that “illusion” necessitates religion being an intentional lie in either the moral or epistemological sense (p. 46). But, Freud contends that the religious experience or feeling “…is a product of sensual-instinctual life and needs for its deciphering the decoding of applied psychology.” (p. 46) Of course, Kung winds up his summary of Freud’s positions by asking a really good question: “…is it not surprising that Freud, from his eightieth year, continued to study religion intensely and devoted to it almost the greater part of the remaining five years of his life.” (p. 52)

By the time Kung summarizes the criticisms of Freud’s contemporaries and associates, he comes to the most piercing point: Psychoanalysis “…may not reduce all reality to the psychological sphere, if it is to avoid the danger of a ‘reductionist hermeneutic.’” (p. 101) Then, he hits the reader with a stinger: “A psychoanalysis which is not merely skeptical and resignedly backward-looking, but progressively and communicatively forward-looking, will not be able simply to suppress the question of the meaning of life and also of suffering and dying.” (pp. 101-2) Kung follows up with another point: “Does not the Oedipus complex too need demythologizing, and not merely in the light of the history of religion?” (p. 107)

But Kung doesn’t simply rely on his own critique of Freud. He quotes Jung, saying, “Freud has unfortunately overlooked the fact that man has never yet been able single-handed to hold his own against the powers of darkness—that is the unconscious. Man has always stood In need of the spiritual help which his particular religion held out to him….Man is never helped in his suffering by what he thinks of for himself; only suprahuman, revealed truth lifts him out of his distress.” (p. 111) In a more modern critique, Rollo May insisted that emptiness is the main problem of modern humanity. “The human being cannot live in a condition of emptiness for very long: if he is not growing toward something, he does not merely stagnate, the pent-up potentialities turn into morbidity and despair, and eventually into destructive activities.” (p. 118)

Kung’s final conclusion is that the hostile attitude of the majority of psychiatrists toward religion, as expressed in the idea that religion is only a delusion (one-upping the “illusion” assumption). His conclusion is that modern psychiatry (with a few exceptions) encourages repression of religious sensibilities (p. 140). As a result, Kung urges psychiatrists toward “…a therapy that takes the phenomenon of religion seriously as one of the specifically human forms of expression.” (p. 155) Yet, he also challenges theologians toward a religion that supports self-acceptance without regression and can once again provide spiritual guidance and ethical standards (p. 157).

Although this summary is somewhat superficial, it should demonstrate that this is an important book. It was more balanced than I was expecting a book by a theologian to be but not as deep as some of the books by Kung that I have read. Still, I think it is an important volume in his work and deserves a reading—especially if one is involved in healing either from the pastoral or psychiatric sides.

[Dr. Chad Newton, PhD-HRD · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent analysis of Freud's latent assumptions!