This presentation-style essay was submitted on October 7, 2021 for my Theories of Religion course.
The excerpts from Sigmund Freud’s The Future of an Illusion outline a psychological approach to religion, applying psychological reasoning regarding personal motives and desires onto the existence and prevalence of religious beliefs. Freud was born in 1856 to Jewish parents and lived in the Austrian Empire for most of his life. In 1881, Freud graduated with a medical degree from the University of Vienna with a concentration on physiology and neurology. He continued his career in the medical field to research neuropathology until around 1886, when he opened a private practice and began treating patients with primal forms of psychoanalysis (Jay).
Freud’s most notable as the founder of psychoanalysis, a set of psychological theories with the belief that humans have unconscious thoughts, feelings, desires, and memories. It is believed that psychological problems are rooted in the unconscious mind, and treatment of these problems focus on bringing unconscious thoughts and memories to consciousness (McLeod). An aspect of the unconscious mind that was of particular interest to Freud was childhood experiences, desires, and beliefs. For example, the Oedipus complex found in his theory of psychosexual stages of development describes the sexual attraction a boy feels towards his mother around the ages of three to five. While a child successfully passes this stage when he begins identifying with the father instead of viewing him as a rival for his mother’s affection, trauma during this stage results in an unresolved conflict that causes the boy to subconsciously be attracted to women that share characteristics with his mother in his adult life (“Oedipus complex”). Freud’s interest in one’s family and childhood experiences on the subconscious mind is carried on in his theory of religion.
Freud’s analysis of religion in The Future of an Illusion can be understood in three parts. Firstly, Freud explains that the attachment to a supernatural being and abidance to religious doctrine is fulfilling one’s desire for protection from a father-like figure. Then, Freud asserts the ways in which religion is an illusion upheld by its wish-fulfilling function. Lastly, Freud contends that the belief in the illusion of religion will inevitably lose to the intellect of experience and reason in the future.
Freud begins his theory by rooting religious belief in instinctual childhood disposition. The object a child is most attracted to is narcissistic in nature: one attaches himself to whatever brings him satisfaction. A person’s first “love-object”, as Freud calls it, is one’s mother, who satisfies his hunger, protects him from dangers, and eases his anxieties. Soon after, protection is sought from the stronger father, and it remains this way for the rest of his childhood. There is a certain ambiguity felt towards the father; on one hand he was once considered a danger during the time the child relied on his mother for protection, however the yearning for the protection and strength of his father still remains. The father is “feared no less than he is longed for and admired” (Freud 39) in the same way many religions both fear and revere their god. Freud then says, “Now when the child grows up and finds that he is destined to remain a child for ever, and that he can never do without protection against unknown and mighty powers, he invests these with the traits of the father-figure; he creates for himself the gods” (Freud 39-40). As one grows up, he realizes how small and weak he is in the grand scheme of the universe and the unknown, so he turns to a being strong and powerful enough to protect him. To Freud, “the child’s defensive reaction to his helplessness gives the characteristic features to the adult’s reaction to his own sense of helplessness, i.e. the formation of religion” (Freud 40). Additionally, Freud asserts that it is a natural inclination for humans to personify everything that they wish to understand and control, establishing relationships with those whom they want to influence. In this way, the personification of the universe and the unknown through a supernatural god allows one to have answers to the riddles of the cosmos through religious doctrine, and gain control over their fate and destiny.
In establishing that religion was created by man in reaction to his helplessness, Freud goes on to build an argument that religion is an illusion. Freud claims that the integrity of religious dogmas lie in three things: that our primal ancestors already believed in them, that we possess proofs passed down from this period of antiquity, and that it is forbidden to question their authenticity. To the first two points, Freud responds that our ancestors were ignorant and believed in many things that we would not think to believe in the present day, which could include religious doctrines. Moreover, the writings that serve as proof for these doctrines are filled with contradictions, revisions, and interpolations that deem them untrustworthy, even more so considering the origin of the content is asserted to be divine revelation. He refutes the third point by stating that such prohibition exists because “society knows very well the uncertain basis of the claim it makes for its religious doctrines” (Freud 44). From this, Freud arrives at the conclusion that “the information which should solve for us the riddles of the universe and reconcile us the troubles of life, that just this has the weakest possible claim to authenticity” (Freud 45).
Freud contends that the inherent strengths of religious ideas is in the fact that these dogmas are not a result of experience, reason, or reflection, but “they are illusions, fulfilments of the oldest, strongest and most insistent wishes of mankind the secret of their strength is the strength of these wishes” (Freud 51). Freud clarifies that truth-value is not relevant to identifying a belief as an illusion, but rather whether or not wish-fulfilment is a prominent factor in its motivation. Religion is an illusion that fulfills mankind’s desire for father-like affinity and protection; a father complex from childhood that was never completely resolved. Time and time again, humans held onto the existence of a powerful, divine father to ease anxieties, provide consolation, and establish a moral world.
The remainder of Freud’s analysis builds up the argument that religion is unnecessary for society’s function and well-being, leading to its eventual extinction due to the strength of reason and experience. Freud first tackles the idea that society is maintained and preserved on the assumption that the majority believes in the truth of religious doctrines; without the belief in a god, divine world order, and afterlife, everyone will act on their egotistic instincts and the world will be in chaos. Believing in religious ideas is meant to restrain asocial instincts, uphold justice, and ensure happiness through consolation, freedom, and love, however Freud points to observations of reality that show a large number of unhappy people who are discontented with civilization. Considering the fact that these “achievements” of religion in society seem lackluster at best, Freud questions whether it is right to consider religion as a necessity for mankind’s well-being. Moreover, Freud observes that, in the context of his European Christian-centric society, religion does not have as big of an influence in the present day as it did in the past, in part because scientific advancements have made religious doctrines seem less credible. Freud states, “The more the fruits of knowledge become accessible to men, the more widespread is the decline of religious belief” (Freud 69).
Getting rid of religion altogether will not make matters better, as many grow up without religious influence and still end up as unhappy as those who did grow up in a religious environment. Freud asserts that a person’s development into a civilized member of society depends on the influence placed on them in childhood, and these things learned in childhood will always confine one’s thoughts in adulthood in the same way religious doctrines do. Religion can only be expelled if it is replaced with another system of doctrine that fulfils the same psychological characteristics, and Freud believes that “it is possible for scientific work to discover something about the reality of the world through which we can increase our power and according to which we can regulate our life” (Freud 99). Freud has hope in the future of mankind because he believes that humanity will finally “grow out” of relying on religion and instead listen to the voice of intellect. He says, “in the long run nothing can withstand reason and experience, and the contradiction religion offers to both is only too palpable” (Freud 98). Intellect will presumably have the same goals as what one expects to be realized by a god since all of humanity desires the same things, but intellect, unlike religion, was not the result of child-like helplessness.
It is notable that Freud acknowledges that his argument is lacking, understanding that his theory can too be categorized as an illusion in the ways it is very theoretical in nature without much practical application or empirical foundation. To this he asserts that, unlike religious doctrine, his illusions are not incapable of correction. If experience proves his expectations wrong, Freud loses nothing, while the world of religious believers would collapse if their illusions were proven false. He discusses the development of scientific ideas in a similar way, where facts are never truly proven “wrong”, but rather new discoveries contribute a wider lens and the truth is adjusted to take into account all of the given information. Despite the fact that he had previously acknowledged that religious doctrine has gone through ideational refinement to weed out “primitive” ways of thinking in an earlier portion of the paper, Freud seems to stand by the idea that religion is static in its ancestrally-sourced dogma, and any amendments would compromise the integrity of the belief system. After further discussion on the superiority of the scientific approach to uncovering the wonders of the universe, Freud concludes his analysis of religion with the statement: “No, science is no illusion. But it would be an illusion to suppose that we could get anywhere else what it cannot give us” (Freud 102).
Works Cited
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Oedipus complex”. Encyclopedia Britanica. 2 Oct. 2020. Accessed 5 Oct. 2021 <https://www.britannica.com/science/Oedipus-complex>.
Freud, Sigmund. Excerpts from The Future of an Illusion. Chapters IV-VII, X.
Jay, Martin Evan. “Sigmund Freud.” Encyclopedia Britannica. 1 Oct. 2021. Accessed 5 Oct. 2021 <https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sigmund-Freud>.
McLeod, Saul. “Psychoanalysis.” Simply Psychology. 2007. Accessed 5 Oct. 2021 <https://www.simplypsychology.org/psychoanalysis.html>.
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