Inventing God

by Jon Mills

In this controversial book, philosopher and psychoanalyst Jon Mills argues that God does not exist; and more provocatively, that God cannot exist as anything but an idea. Put concisely, God is a psychological creation signifying ultimate ideality. Mills argues that the idea or conception of God is the manifestation of humanity’s denial and response to natural deprivation; a self-relation to an internalized idealized object, the idealization of imagined value. After demonstrating the lack of any empirical evidence and the logical impossibility of God, Mills explains the psychological motivations underlying humanity’s need to invent a supreme being. In a highly nuanced analysis of unconscious processes informing the psychology of belief and institutionalized social ideology, he concludes that belief in God is the failure to accept our impending death and mourn natural absence for the delusion of divine presence. As an alternative to theistic faith, he offers a secular spirituality that emphasizes the quality of lived experience, the primacy of feeling and value inquiry, ethical self-consciousness, aesthetic and ecological sensibility, and authentic relationality toward self, other, and world as the pursuit of a beautiful soul in search of the numinous. Inventing God will be of interest to academics, scholars, lay audiences and students of religious studies, the humanities, philosophy, and psychoanalysis, among other disciplines. It will also appeal to psychotherapists, psychoanalysts and mental health professionals focusing on the integration of humanities and psychoanalysis.

Genres: Psychology, Philosophy

254 pages, Hardcover

Published July 25, 2016

About the author

Prof. Jon Mills, PsyD, PhD, ABPP is a Canadian philosopher, psychoanalyst, and retired clinical psychologist. He is Honorary Professor, Department of Psychosocial & Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex, UK; Faculty in the Postgraduate Programs in Psychoanalysis & Psychotherapy, Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology, Adelphi University, USA; Faculty & Supervising Analyst at the New School for Existential Psychoanalysis, USA; and is Emeritus Professor of Psychology & Psychoanalysis at Adler Graduate Professional School, Toronto, Canada where he taught for over 20 years. Recipient of numerous awards for his scholarship, he is the author and/or editor of over 30 books in philosophy, psychoanalysis, psychology, and cultural studies.

Dr. Mills is an internationally recognized scholar, teacher, and cultural critic, award winning author who maintains an active writing schedule, and lectures widely worldwide.

Reviews

[Toby Newton · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was looking forward to this book - the confluence of religion and psychoanalysis is fascinating and I had heard a podcast with the author when he made some interesting and worthwhile points.

But it was a huge disappointment, to the point where I gave up, which takes a lot as I usually stick with a title just in case it suddenly gets "better". But Mills' prose is too stodgy, too tendentious, too shrill, too everything but anything good. I felt like I was being beaten up by a sixth former. It had to stop.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

My level of knowledge in vocabulary made it difficult to follow this book if I'm honest. I read it a couple of months back and all I can remember from it was the idea that God was invented through our conceptual ideation of perfection. I was enticed by the 'Secular Spirituality' part of the title but can't remember exactly what Mills talked about in relation to this area. I would probably need to enhance my vocabulary and re-read this book a few times to get to grips with all that it says.