218. Consciousness of God is self-consciousness

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90 degrees F in Berkeley

I had not planned to come to Berkeley today. It was supposed to get up into the mid 80s so I decided to take the bus to Emeryville where I could hang out in the air conditioned Barnes & Noble Bookstore, viewing design porn, while eating snacks and using their WiFi. It was such a simple plan.

It only took an hour or so to get through what design magazines they had -- nothing I was tempted to buy -- so I got out my list of books to read and started looking for something to buy. Boy did I strike out. The clerk, who was actually helping me, happened to mention that I was more likely to find these titles at Moe's (in Berkeley). 

And I thought, "well, of course." And then I thought, "And I could have lunch at The Butcher's Son!" (that wonderful vegan deli on University.) By chance, the bus that brought me to Emeryville also goes to central Berkeley, so I got back on. Lunch was fantastic.

Moe's was a mixed bag. I did find The Tale of Genji -- or at least a truncated version of the original. I'll see how I like it. But I struck out on all the other books on my short list: Experiences In Translation by Ecco, Reflections On Violence by Sorel, and The Life of the Mind by Arendt. While looking for those I did recall another title I had been looking for, and actually found The Essence of Christianity by Feuerbach. 

Then I walked over to Caffe Strada (I'm surprised it's still here, just off campus) where I'm sitting in the shade drinking iced tea and sampling my new books. The Feuerbach is almost Scholastic in its dullness. (And, yes, this is the George Elliot translation.) The Tale of Genji looks more interesting. 

The Essence of Christianity

by Ludwig Feuerbach - Prometheus Books, 1841

The first eleven pages seem to me unreadable. I almost wonder if this isn't intentional, to drive away any but the most determined reader. Or, as in my case, someone willing to skim and skip ahead. 


The Essence of Religion Considered Generally
p12 ... In the perceptions of the senses consciousness of the object is distinguishable from consciousness of self; but in religion, consciousness of the object and self-consciousness coincide. The object of the senses is out of man, the religious object is within him, and therefore as little forsakes him as his self-consciousness or his conscience; it is the intimate, the closest object. "God," says Augustine, for example, "is nearer, more related to us, and therefore more easily known by us, than sensible, corporeal things." The object of the senses is in itself indifferent -- independent of the dispositions or of the judgement; but the object of religion is a selected object" the most excellent, the first, the supreme being: it essentially presupposes a critical judgement, a discrimination between the divine and the non-divine, between that which is worthy of adoration and that which is not worthy. And here may be applied, without any limitation, the proposition: the object of any subject is nothing else than the subject's own nature taken objectively. Such as are a man's thoughts and dispositions, such is his God: so much worth as a man has, so much and no more has his God. Consciousness of God is self-consciousness, knowledge of God is self-knowledge. By his God thou knowest the man, and by the man his God; The two are identical. Whatever is God to man, that is his heart and soul; and conversely, God is the manifested inward nature, the expressed self of a man -- religion the solemn unveiling of a man's hidden treasures, the revelation of his intimate thoughts, the open confession of his love-secrets.

Wow! And this was published in 1841. Forty years before The Brothers Karamazov. 

It would be interesting to read this passage to a person of faith while they were in an fMRI machine to see how their brain would light up like a pinball machine. The confirming circuits ("my religion expresses my inner being") alternating with the conflicting circuits ("my religion has no basis outside my self"). The most devout (and particular) Protestants are no different from football fans devoted to their home club. Though perhaps a club of people suffering from Celiac Disease might be a better metaphor, since football clubs exist independently of their fans. Celiac Disease (and any support groups) exist only if there are people with the required internal deficiencies. 

Which is why I'm cautious of blaming cults for the beliefs of their adherents, as the cult only exists because the adherents hold those beliefs. Obviously there are exceptions.

My edition of this books runs to 339 pages, with Appendices, and yet I'm not sure I really need to read any more. I'll at least give Feuerbach and Eliot the credit of skimming ahead, but this was what I was looking for.


I'm really not finding much else (through p35) I need to quote except for one tiny thing I couldn't over look,

p34 ...The understanding shows us the faults and weaknesses even of our beloved ones; it shows us even our own. It is for this reason that it so often throws us into painful collision with ourselves, with our own hearts. We do not like to give reason the upper hand: we are too tender to ourselves to carry out the true, but hard, relentless verdict of the understanding. The understanding is the power which has relation to species: the heart represents particular circumstances, individuals, -- the understanding, general circumstances, universals; it is the superhuman, ie., the impersonal power in man. Only by and in the understanding has man the power of abstraction from himself, from his subjective being, of exalting himself to general ideas and relations, of distinguishing the object from the impressions which it produces on his feelings, of regarding it in and by itself without reference to human personality. Philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, physics, in short, science in general is the practical proof, because it is the product of this truly infinite and divine activity. Religious anthropomorphisms, therefore, are in contradiction with the understanding; it repudiates their application to God; it denies them. But this God, free from anthropomorphisms, impartial, passionless, is nothing else than the nature of the understanding itself regarded as objective.

Thanks to our new friend the Internet, I was able to quickly look up the German text for this passage and, yes, I find:

...er ist die übermenschliche, das heißt: die über– und unpersönliche Kraft oder Wesenheit im Menschen...

So Nietzsche may have popularized the concept of the Übermensch, but it looks like it originated with Feuerbach.

p35 God as God, that is, as a being not finite, not human, not materially conditioned, not phenomenal, is only an object of thought... To the imagination, the reason is the revelation of God; but to the reason, God is the revelation of the reason; since what reason is, what it can do, is first made objective in God...

After this, the book goes into some minutia of Christianity that I'm not that interested in. I'm sure there are things here worth reading, but I'm going to pass. This brings to a close my reading of Ludwig Feuerbach. I am happy I thought to look for this at Moe's.