Table Of ContentSUSPICION AND FAITH
Suspicion and Faith
THE RELIGIOUS USES OF MODERN ATHEISM
Merold Westphal
FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS
+
New York
Copyright C 1998 by FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PlUlss
All rights reserved.
LC98-28456
ISBN 13: 978-0-8232-1876-9
Third Printing 2007
Ubrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Westphal, Merold
Suspicion and faith : the religious uses of modem atheism I Merold
Westphal
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Originally published: Grand Rapids, Mich. : W. B. Eerdmans, c1993.
1. Christianity and atheism. 2. Marx, Karl, 1818-1883-Religion.
3. Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939-Religion. 4. Nietzsche, Friedrich
Wilhelm, 1844-1900-Religion. 5. Apologetics. I. Title.
[BR128.A8W47 1998]
261.2'1-dc21 98-28456
CIP
Unless otherwise noted, scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard
,Version of the Bible, copyrighted 1946, 1952 @ 1971, 1973 by the Division of
Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the
U.S.A., and used by permission.
Printed in the United States of America
for my students and colleagues
in the Senior Seminar program at Hope College
where this project had its birth
Contents
Foreword by Kelly James Clark ix
Preface xiii
I The Hermeneutics of Suspicion
1 Atheism for Lent 3
2 On Learning When Not to Refute Atheism 10
3 Help from Gilbert and Sullivan 18
4 Religious Fictions Too? 25
II Freud and the Psychoanalysis of the Believing Soul
5 Freud's Pessimism 33
6 Freud's Scientism 38
7 Freud's Suspicion I: Dreams and Wish Fulllment 43
8 Freud's Suspicion II: Doctrines and Wish Fulfillment 50
9 On Remembering When Not to Refute Atheism 55
10 Freud's Suspicion III: Doctrines and Distortion 61
11 The Paranoid Dr. Schreber as Victim 65
12 The Paranoid Dr. Schreber as Redeemer 71
13 The Atheist Dr. Freud as Theologian of Original Sin 77
14 Ceremonial as Defense 83
15 Ceremonial as Compromise 89
16 They Know Not What They Do 96
17 Of Savages and Salieri 103
18 Of Obedience and Sacrifice 110
19 Willful Renunciation and the One-Way Covenant 115
vii
viii CONTENTS
III Marx and the Critique of Religion as Ideology
20 Feuerbach' s Bourgeois Atheism 123
21 Feuerbach's Radical Atheism 130
22 Marx's Radical Atheism 134
23 Religion and the Christian State 141
24 Religion and the Secular State 147
25 Marxian Materialism 154
26 Religion as Ideology 159
27 Religion as Critique 166
28 Techniques of Neutralization 172
29 More Techniques of Neutralization 180
30 One Last Technique of Neutralization 186
31 Mixing Religion and Politics 193
32 Who Is the God of the Bible? Ask Pharaoh! 199
33 Third Commandment Idolatry 205
34 A "Marxist" Sermon Against the Baalization of Yahweh 210
IV Nietzsche and the Critique of Religion as
Resentment
35 Squintingly Yours, Friedrich Nietzsche 219
36 Distinctively Yours, Friedrich Nietzsche 225
m
~~~~
38 Jews and Priests 238
39 Glittering Vices 246
40 Justice and the Fascists 252
41 Pity and the Pharisees 259
42 Jesus and the Pharisees I: The Sinners 265
43 Jesus and the Pharisees II: ~ Sabbath 275
44 In Conclusion: ~ Dangers of Suspicion 283
Index 291
Foreword
Suspicion and FAITH [my emphasis] may seem an unlikely title
for postmodern secular readers, but missing out on this book
would be their loss. Westphal's book is quite simply the best
exposition and critical discussion of Marx's, Freud's, and Nietz
sche's views on religious belief available. And it is one of the
best expositions and critical discussions of these thinkers, pe
riod. Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud are massive, sprawling, occa
sionally undisciplined thinkers and writers. Westphal performs
a great service in corralling but not taming their wild ideas.
Westphal says he hopes his book will be read by secular readers,
and I concur. But he tells us his primary audience is the church,
and it is as a member of that community that I will write.
There are few thinkers as likely to strike fear in the hearts
of Christians as Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund
Freud. After all, didn't they banish religious belief in general
and Christian belief in particular into the intellectual wasteland?
Nonetheless, Christians often maintain that these infidels can be
easily dismissed. Wasn't Marxism empirically refuted by the dis
integration of the Soviet Union? Isn't atheism just as much
Freudian wish-fulfillment as theism? And wasn't Nietzsche
driven insane because he couldn't bear to live out the conse
quences of his nihilistic world-view? Set 'em up and knock 'em
down.
Westphal powerfully, poignantly, and prophetically re
minds us that these thinkers cannot be so easily dismissed.
"Atheism for edification" is his unlikely hook, but it is not too
long before we find ourselves snagged. Westphal's sparkling
ix
X FOREWORD
book presents the disturbing challenges that Freud, Marx, and
Nietzsche pose to our most precious religious beliefs. Their deep
insights startle us, find us out, shame us, catch us up short, claim
our assent, and damn our pretension. We realize, to our benefit,
that we are not as good, faithful, just, and humble as we thought
before we started this book.
Westphal takes us on a subterranean cruise with Marx,
Nietzsche, and Freud as program directors (this, one soon real
izes, is not the Love Boat). He plumbs the abyss of the self. His
strategy is the relentless employment of the hermeneutics of sus
picion-to expose the self-deceptions involved in the generation
and sustenance of our most fundamental beliefs and to show
how values that we profess to disown shape those very same
beliefs. All the while disavowing pride, we smugly pride our
selves on our humility. While avowing meekness and gentle
ness, we secretly delight in the ruin of the rich, successful, and
powerful, pleased that they shall attain their just reward. We
are Pharisees-we are whitewashed tombs filled with death and
bones.
There is ample empirical evidence for this dark under
belly of religious belief. This has been substantiated, at least
among fundamentalist televangelists who most loudly de
nounce in others their own temptations. They take advantage of
people, under the guise of piety, to satisfy those hidden desires.
But Westphal's suspicion is not aimed at such easy targets. His
intention is to take the religious believer, from whatever walk
of life, sympathetically inside the narratives that inform Marx,
Nietzsche, and Freud. His goal is to let the reader see her own
self in the prism of these thoughts.
Here's another way of looking at Westphal's project: he
mines the depths of original sin. The primal sin-"Ye shall be
as gods"- is reenacted in each person's desires to be supreme,
omnipotent, and worthy of worship. This is accomplished, in
many cases, by a form of subtle cannibalism. We act meek but
assert our power by gossiping, putting people down, racism,
ethno-centrism, and spiritual pride. We suck the value from our
human victims into our own, ever-expanding self. We are vora
cious power-seekers, eager to maintain our exalted place in the
cosmos at the expense of other people. We take heart that God,
