The Essence of Christianity

“Religion being identical with the distinctive characteristic of man, is then identical with self-consciousness—with the consciousness which man has of his nature.”

Religion is by definition how the human person experiences consciousness, which is the reason that religion is a human phenomenon alone. Most people experience religion as something objective and outside of themselves, which they receive from some other source; to the contrary, Ludwig Feuerbach’s thesis involves defining religion as originating within the human experience.

“God is not what man is—man is not what God is. God is the infinite, man the finite being; God is perfect, man imperfect; God eternal, man temporal; God almighty, man weak; God holy, man sinful. God and man are extremes: God is the absolutely positive, the sum of all realities; man the absolutely negative, comprehending all negations.”

The definition of God is always in reference to the divine attributes, which are considered perfections in God. Thus, God is always defined by perfection, and humanity by contrast is everything that God is not. This is part of the reason why Feuerbach spends time discussing why it is that the human consciousness has projected all of its perfections and goods onto an outside and objective being, rather than identifying them as interior human attributes.

“In religion man seeks contentment; religion is his highest good. But how could he find consolation and peace in God if God were an essentially different being?”

One of the first tensions the author finds in the idea of religion is that religion is supposed to be a source of comfort, and yet it demands one find solace in something completely foreign. This is a contradiction and goes against reason, and it will be one of the pieces in the argument that religion is intrinsically self-contradictory, and is not what it seems.