Freud's Unfinished Business

Here's an interesting snippet about everyone's favorite psycho-analyst, Sigmund Freud. Nothing is ever quite what it seems in Freudian psycho-analysis. There are hidden meanings in just about everything. Indeed, many of our adult malaises are caused by the suppression of childhood memories, particularly if the memories we choose not to remember are of events that were traumatic. Freud's treatment often involved the uncovering of suppressed memories (some would say the invention of false memories), allowing the analyst to help the patient to deal with unfinished business.
Freud was brought up as an orthodox Jew. As a child, his father would often read to young Sigmund from a Philippson Hebrew Bible, illustrated with woodcuts. In Freud's father's Bible, the illustrations had been colored in by a child's hand, presumably by Sigmund. It was this Hebrew Bible that Freud's father presented to his son on his 35th birthday.


For all of his adult life, Freud was a militant atheist. He rejected Judaism. Even though his wife was Jewish, he refused to allow her to light Sabbath candles in their home. On one occasion, he threatened to become a Protestant rather than partcipate in a Jewish wedding ceremony. It was an empty threat. His philosophy would no more allow him to be a Protestant than a Jew. It was a position Freud held until the end of his life.
Ana-Maria Rizzuto writes that, when his father died, Freud began to collect small antique figurines. His study contained many; his desk always had a number of statuettes upon it. Freud spoke of his collection with great fondness; he even bequeathed it to his daughter, Anna.
Here's the interesting aspect of this story. Rizzuto tells us that the figures bore a striking resemblance to the woodcut illustrations in his father's Hebrew Bible.


Is it possible that Freud was using them as substitutes for religious devotion? Was the father of psycho-analysis suppressing his impulses? Did Freud have unfinished business? Perhaps the figurines represent the pleasure he had once experienced while hearing the stories of the people of Israel at his father's knee? Who knows! But, Freud taught a great deal about the human capacity for self-deception. It seems at least possible that Freud was deceiving himself. In his professional life he denied the possibility of God; but he surrounded himself with objects that reminded him of his religious upbringing. Did the arch-atheist have, deep down, a heart that longed for God?

Smoke and Mirrors

Where does religion come from? Sigmund Freud thinks he knows. His theory, entitled "the psychogenesis of religion" is to be found in Totem and Taboo (1913). According to Freud, every major religion venerates a father-figure. The reason for this involves "the Oedipal complex." This is what Freud means:

At some prehistoric time human beings lived in a tribe ruled by a chief. This chief was, literally, a father, having exclusive sexual rights over the women of his tribe. However, as the chief aged, and as his sons matured, conflict, fuelled by sexual frustration, grew in intensity. Eventually, the sons rebelled, overthrew their father, and killed him. Almost immediately the sons were overcome by remorse at what they had done. They created rituals in order to assuage their grief and guilt, and so religion was born.

Freud goes on to interpret individual religious experience on the basis of the Oedipal complex. For Freud, veneration of a father-figure is a childish response to a dominant human parent. Fear of punishment forces the child to subject his will to his father's, and then to project the characteristics of the father into an illusory spiritual realm. In effect, therefore, religion is simply the perpetuation of infantile behavior. The frightened child trusts that his father will protect him from the ogres under the bed. The timid adult trusts that his heavenly father will protect him from the very real ogres who inhabit our world. But this is little more than wishful thinking. A confident young adult moves away from his father's control and gains his independence. As he leaves behind the phobias of childhood, so he should also reject the delusion that is religion. He should grow up and deal with the real world, not hide away in a realm created by his own wishes.

For me, the most telling response to Freud's theories of the origin of religion is simply to point out that he is creating an hypothesis, not stating a fact. Freud has absolutely no evidence to support the theory of a prehistoric patricide; the Oedipal complex has no foundation. He has merely invented the event in order to give credibility to his theories, which in turn support his prejudices. This is eisegesis of the worst kind. Freud massages the evidence until it appears to support his conclusions. But it is all a game with smoke and mirrors. Freud is the illusionist, not the Christian.

And yet, how many atheists continue to use this argument? Belief is still condemned as infantile. Obsessional neuroses are blamed for being the hidden persuaders behind religious ritual. Believers are told that they are foolish children, reacting to trauma by repressing their instincts and their emotions. Christians continue to fool themselves by creating castles in the sky.

In truth, though, these criticisms tell us more about the repressed spiritual urges of those who reject Christianity than they do about the origins of religion. Atheists have created their own myth. There is no evidence for its truth, but they continue to advocate for the illusion because they cannot bear to think that they might be wrong. Sound familiar? Freud's psychoanalytical atheism is an hypothesis, nothing more. Christians have no reason to fear an illusion.