If you’re not familiar with Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872), he was a significantly influential atheist philosopher, primarily because he influenced two of the great malevolent thinkers of the modern age, Marx and Freud. The misery left in the wake of their influence on the 20th century is awesome to behold in its sheer destruction. For Marx that manifested itself in the slaughter of more than a hundred million human beings, and for Freud, the psychological and emotional destruction of generations. We can add to that that many took him as an inspiration for the so called sexual revolution, and we know that hasn’t turned out so well. All three men were committed believers in a God-less universe, but it was Feuerbach who laid the foundation with his assertion that all religion was merely human wish fulfillment. His arguments were definitely not that simplistic, but he believed since there was no God, the prevalence of religion in all cultures and all times had to be explained in some way, and human psychology was it.
Since, as Calvin maintained, the human heart is an idol factory, Feuerbach wasn’t entirely wrong. Outside of the true and living Creator and Savior God revealed to us in creation, Scripture, and Christ, God or gods invented by human beings are always in some way a projection, wish fulfillment on one side, fear fulfillment on the other. Given Feuerbach was a product of Christian civilization, and was a student of Hegel who thought he was saving Christianity while accepting Enlightenment rationalist assumptions, it was Christianity that was especially his focus. The problem is that the Christian God would be impossible for human beings to invent because he goes against the grain of our every sinful inclination. The reasons are two fold, judgment and grace.
First, judgement.
Christianity is a religion of revelation, not of human beings finding God, of working from us to him, but of God revealing and disclosing himself to us, else he could not be found. As sinful human beings we do not seek God because he is our judge, jury, and executioner. Like Adam and Eve in the garden, in our natural state when God shows up, we hide. Revelation itself tells us why, but human experience makes this perfectly clear; we can’t live up to our own standards, let alone those of a holy God. So naturally we project a God who isn’t judgmental. To the modern secular mind, God is really a benign old grandfatherly type who wouldn’t harm a flea. Judgment is so unworthy of him, they think, and surely he accepts everyone regardless of their sexual orientation, or what religion they belong to, or whatever.
Since we are guilty sinners, and know it, the God or gods we invent are always to one degree or another judgmental, so we seek to appease this God or the gods. In other words, we invent ways to turn away his judgment by what we do, not what God does for us. So we invent religions (projection) of our working our way to God, not God to us. Nothing is more foreign to the sinful human heart than God saving sinners wholly of his own will, and by his own effort. That’s why there is only one religion in the history of the world that proclaims a Savior God, Christianity.
Second, Grace.
While we don’t invent a God who is our judge, jury, and executioner, even less do we invent a God of mercy and grace, one who asks nothing of us but our trust. Even that is a gift of grace. Grace is, of course, unmerited favor, and sinful human beings do not like unmerited favor. By nature we are bound and determined to earn God’s favor, to put God in their debt, to say, God, you owe me! Well, he does owe us . . . justice. Which would leave us forever damned and eternally separated from him. So God made it possible for to be reconciled to him by not giving us what we do deserve, wrath and judgment, and giving us what we do not deserve, his love and favor. I would tell Feuerbach, Sir, nobody makes up a God like that!
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