Psychoanalytic Theories of Religion in Protestant Contexts

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

University of Religions and Denominations

Abstract

Psychoanalysts since Sigmund Freud have tried to discuss the role of religion in modern societies. Freud himself saw religion as an illusion which had struck neurotics, while Slavoj Žižek viewed it as some sort of “perversion” which functioned in the cycle of law-transgression. In this essay, I dig into these theories to uncover traces of Lutheran interpretations of Paul’s words on the Jewish law. I argue that Luther’s emphasis on Christian faith as a remedy for “Jewish” guilt reached Friedrich Nietzsche via the exegesis of the nineteenth-century Tübingen School. In his Pauline act, Nietzsche tried to cure modern humanity from its guilt-inducing “decadent” morality. He, in turn, influenced Freud, who sought to remedy modern humanity from its guilt, by reminding it of its “religious illusion.” Žižek has not been able to go beyond this paradigm of faith-guilt, as he also tried to free Christianity from its “perverse” core. In sum, in its conceptualization of religion, psychoanalysis has probably referred to a Protestant faith-guilt framework.

Keywords


Balibar, Étienne. 2002. Politics and the Other Scene. Translated by Christine Jones, James Swenson, and Chris Turner. London and New York: Verso.
Baur, Ferdinand Christian. 1875-79. Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ: His Life and Work, His Epistles and His Doctrine: A Contribution to a Critical History of Primitive Christianity. Translated by Allan Menzies. London: Williams & Noorgate.
———. 1878-79. The Church History of the First Three Centuries. Translated by Allan Menzies. London: Williams & Noorgate.
Betz, Hans Dieter. 1979. Galatians: A Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Churches in Galatia. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
Blanton, Ward. 2007. Displacing Christian Origins: Philosophy, Secularity, and the New Testament. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Comay, Rebecca. 2010. Mourning Sickness: Hegel and the French Revolution. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Crossley, James. 2011. “The Multicultural Christ: Jesus the Jew and the New Perspective on Paul in an Age of Neoliberalism.” The Bible and Critical Theory 7(11): 11.
Dunn, James. 1998. The Theology of Paul the Apostle. Edinburgh: T&T Clark.
Franck, Didier. 2012. Nietzsche and the Shadow of God. Translated by Bettina Bergo and Philippe Farah. Evanston: North Western University Press.
Freud, Sigmund. 1955-1974. “Moses and Monotheism.” In The Standard Edition of Complete Psychological Works, 80-92. Translated by James Strachey. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis.
———. 1970. The Future of an Illusion. Translated by W. D. Robson-Scot. London: Hogarth.
———. 2001. Totem and Taboo: Some Points of Agreement between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics. Translated by James Strachey. London and New York: Routledge.
Heschel, Susannah. 1994. “The Image of Judaism in Nineteenth-Century New Testament Scholarship in Germany.” In Jewish-Christian Encounters over the Centuries: Symbiosis, Prejudice, Holocaust, Dialogue, edited by Marvin Perry and Frederick M. Schweitzer, 215-40. New York: Peter Lang.
Kümmel, Georg. 1974. Römer 7 und das Bild des Menschen im Neuen Tetament: Zwei Studien. München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag.
Luther, Martin. 1961. Lectures on Romans. Translated by Wilhelm Pauck. Louiseville and London: Westminster John Knox Press.
Martyn, Louis. 1997. Galatians: A New Translation, with Introduction and Commentary. New York: Doubleday.
Montefiore, Claude. 1914. Judaism and St. Paul: Two Essays. London: Max Goschen.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1997. Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2005. “The Anti-Christ.” In The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols, and Other Writings. Translated by Judith Norman. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
Sanders, E. P. 1977. Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion. London: SCM Press.
Schoeps, Hans Joachim. 1961. Paul: The Theology of the Apostle in the Light of the Jewish Religious History. Translated by Harold Knight. London: Lutterworth Press.
Stendhal, Krister. 1963. “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West.” The Harvard Theological Review 56(3): 199-215.
Taubes, Jacob. 2004. The Political Theology of Paul. Translated by Dana Hollander. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Wright, N. T. 1996. “The Law in Romans 2.” In Paul and the Mosaic Law, edited by James Dunn, 131-50. Tübingen: Mohr.
———. 1999. The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology. Edinburgh: T&T Clark.
———. 2009. Paul: In Fresh Perspective. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
Lacan, Jacques. 1997. Seminar VII: Ethics of Psychoanalysis 1959-1960. Translated by Dennis Porter. London and New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Žižek, Slavoj. 2003. The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity. Cambridge and London: MIT Press.
———. 2008. The Absolute Fragile: or, Why is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For? London and New York: Verso.