Beards and Funny Hats: Who Is Worshipped in Religion, and What God Has Got to Do With It

Footnotes

INTRODUCTION

Foreword

One of my earliest memories concerns a time when I was on a bus, or was queuing to board a bus – I’m not sure which. I think I was about three. I was with my mother. Through the window of the bus – or queuing with us, I’m not sure which – could be seen a group of nuns. I must have reacted with signs of alarm, which my mother noticed. When she asked me what was wrong, I said that these people were robbers. To me at that time, that meant they looked bad. My mother replied that, no, they were in fact good. In retrospect I think my mother was probably right. But these were figures advancing purposefully in a group, covered from head to foot in black, their presumably human forms and much of their faces hidden or disguised, while around them in the open light of day were people whose limbs, faces and shapes were visible, and who were dressed in various colours. I’m not sure that that boy, who was myself at the age of three, was wrong.

Roman Catholic nuns in full habit bear some resemblance to Islamic women in the clothing they wear to preserve modesty. Whether one can or should object to that appearance is now something of a political question. But whether one can be disturbed or frightened by it is, I think, a different matter, and one which can’t be legislated. Again on a personal note, I was once startled by a photo of an acquaintance, a church minister, bearded and laughing. For a moment I thought I was looking at a picture of an aggressive Islamic preacher. And why does a Greek Cypriot archbishop look a lot like an Iranian ayatollah? Or a high church Anglican bishop bear something of a resemblance to an Orthodox patriarch?

In the business world the important people are the suits. In religion it seems to be the hats, or the beards, or a combination of the two. There are Anglican mitres, Sikh turbans, Catholic and Jewish caps, and lots of different kinds of headgear in the Islamic traditions. As the hats increase in size and magnificence, so the beards become fuller and longer. Why do evangelical and Pentecostal Christian leaders tend more to a clean-shaven, bare-headed presentation?

There are some who say that many different paths lead to God. Born-again Christians object to that, maintaining that the only way is through Jesus Christ. Indeed, there are many different paths away from God, but it appears that even some of these paths converge on the same defiles, and that to pass through them the people following these paths must act, and even dress, in ways which almost seem to be imitations of one another. Could there be some common spirit driving different religions, and giving rise to similar behaviours? That is one of things looked at in this book.

But if there is going to be a sort of dress code, then – why hats? Is there a reason why these should be emphasized rather than, for example, gloves or shoes? And why beards, rather than, say, long fingernails? Beards, I suppose, can be seen as symbols of male power and leadership. Many have observed, and even complained, that historically men have exerted authority in religious matters. Of course, for some years there have been in parts of the Christian church moves to resist and overturn that state of affairs. Interestingly, those parts of the church which are most active in ordaining women priests, and in altering gender emphases in different ways, even going so far as to renounce the ages-long ban on homosexuality in normal human affairs, let alone in church leadership, still often favour the presence of the beard and the hat on the persons of their leadership. Freud made the discovery, when attempting to understand dreams, that a symbol or a representation of a thing can in a person’s thinking represent both that thing and the opposite of it.

We can see these vestments of religion, but where has the religion itself come from, and what functions does it have? There are anthropological and psychoanalytic theories according to which the mental processes of human beings, as individuals and as groups, have given rise to religious beliefs and practices. Religion is, they say, a human creation. It can serve as a philosophy, allowing people to understand where they are in the scheme of things, and as a system of laws governing behaviour in society. There may be some truth in that. They also go on to say that therefore God is a creation of man – a concept made necessary by this religious system. I believe that is completely wrong.

A film called Sonnenschein was released a few years ago. It recounted the experiences of several generations of a Central European family through the fall of the Austrian Empire, wars, and the coming and going of Nazism and Communism. The family manufactured a delicious tonic called Sonnenschein – or Sunshine in English – the recipe of which was lost, and almost but not quite recovered. The family was Jewish. In an important scene a father implored his family to cling to their religion, and never to allow anything – not God, not anything – to come between themselves and that religion. That says it all really. It’s surprising to see that sentiment expressed so openly, without blushing. There are uses and misuses of religion, and perhaps worst of all is that it allows men to hold God at arm’s length.

It would be instructive to consider and compare a religious man with a man of no religion, if an example of the latter could be found. Many atheists would consider themselves to qualify. One of the arguments of this book is, however, that atheists are also adherents of religion. A man who, I think, could be said to have come close to having had no religion is Abraham. Of course we know that he is a foundational figure in the three religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. But if we look at his life as told in Genesis, we see that he left his home, abandoning completely the traditions and practices of his family and their preceding generations. I don’t know if he had felt any spiritual bond with the land, but if so, he walked away from this also. He physically separated himself from most of his family. He did all this simply because God spoke to him, he heard His voice, and he responded with faith and obedience. None of this came out of any tradition he had learned or imbibed. In fact he acted as if none of that mattered at all to him – at least not once he had heard God’s voice. His approach was the opposite of that Sonnenschein father. This was all relationship and no law. Abraham went to a country of which he knew nothing. He couldn’t follow any precedent, as there was none. We read that God made promises to Abraham – a land, descendants, and much blessing. All of this could certainly have been a good platform on which to build a religious structure.

But then when, after long waiting, false starts and disappointments, Abraham began to see the fulfillment of these promises in the person of his son, what did he do but prepare to kill him, simply because God told him to? As the patriarch of a new religion, shouldn’t he have been mindful of the succession? Should he not have been careful to prepare and train a line of bishops – and who better to lead them than his own son? And now he was about to kill that son, to pull down the whole edifice before it had been completed, and for no better reason than that God had told him to. That’s not what a responsible religious leader would do. It’s not what the Pharisees would have done. And hasn’t Abraham been condemned and labelled a monster by many over the centuries for that decision? We know God reversed the action before it was carried out – and because Abraham preferred to listen to God than to build a religion, hundreds of millions of people have come closer to God.

Can we find other examples of people without religion? Adam and Eve certainly knew nothing of saffron robes, or gowns bearing indigenous art motifs, or even golden crosses. They had no system of temple sacrifices, no seasonal observances and rites. They had no laws. They didn’t even have right and wrong, good and bad. It was just human beings walking and talking with God in the garden. As we know, they threw it all away, and ended up out of communication with God, and so I suppose their example can’t be a positive one. I think the only truly non-religious man was Jesus of Nazareth, and of course, as Christ, He has given His name to an entire religious system. I don’t think He was anti-religious, but He fulfilled all laws in Himself and in His manner of living. Every thought was righteous, every action motivated by love. He fulfilled all requirements. He was wholly and always in communication with the Father. He didn’t need to be religious, and so wasn’t.

In criticising religion, one shouldn’t be too cute or clever. People may say, "Hang on! You’re a Christian. You are religious, aren’t you? And I suppose they’re right. I don’t think that Christians, hearing justifiable criticisms directed at the atrocities and hypocrisies practised in the name of – often Christian – religion, can simply say, Well, that’s not our problem. We have genuine belief, not just a religion or religiosity." I think we have to take responsibility for things done in our name, or at least acknowledge the unfortunate reality of them. Having done that, one can then perhaps begin to make the kind of distinction we are trying to make in this book.

Nothing separated Jesus from God, and so He didn’t need to practise religion. In the case of all other people there is a greater or lesser degree of separation, and so we need some religious doctrine, structure and practice to help us to get to know God again. At the same time it is that very religion that may act as a barrier between us and God. We have stated that Abraham was not religious, but it is apparent that such a person is a necessary foundation for such a code. And it was God Himself who laid out the principles. Through Moses He gave laws and a program of sacrificial worship and atonement. We know that these things alone were not enough to save us, to reverse the effects of sin, or to rescue us from certain death, but they were steps on the road back. Adam and Eve fell out of fellowship with God and into death. Abraham, and before him Noah, began to hear God again. Moses received laws. All of these were and remain important, both before and since Jesus completed the task and saved people. God sent prophets to warn people and to explain spiritual realities and to point to the Messiah.

The Bible talks about a useful and acceptable practice of religion. In 1 Timothy 5:4 this is described as caring for one’s family, one’s children and grandchildren, and repaying one’s parents and grandparents, and in James 1:26 and 27 as controlling one’s tongue, avoiding the pollution of the world, and caring for orphans and widows.

The law is good, the Bible tells us in Romans chapter 7. But sin is defined by law, and sin rises up in new strength, which causes people to die. Religion is good, but it is often a barrier between men and God. We are familiar with the terrible reality of religious wars – between Hindus and Muslims in India and Pakistan, between Buddhists and Hindus in Sri Lanka, and between Protestants and Catholics in Ireland. We have heard of the cruelties practised on one another by Christians of different persuasions in Europe in the last five or six hundred years. Hatred seems to be inflamed and magnified by religion, but we know that God is love, and the fruit of the Spirit is love. The figure of a cowled monk, particularly if seen at night, and particularly if accompanied by the sound of monastic chant, is a reliable stimulus to fear in films and books of supernatural horror. Why is that? Weren’t monks godly men who withdrew from the world to avoid its pollution, to pray, and to do good works? But they do look spooky. At the time of Wycliffe and of Tyndale the church in England exerted itself, even as far as acts of extreme violence, to prevent people within the church having Bibles that they could read in their own language. Why did they do that? And again one is certainly not suggesting that the church is the problem, or is unnecessary. We must have a church. The church is the body of Christ on earth. As men and women – those spiritual beings with souls – also have, and must have, bodies to be what they are made to be, so too the body of Christ, and the bride prepared for Christ, must have a body. If, as Paul tells us in Romans chapter 7, as mentioned above, sin exploits the law to enlarge itself and to recruit Death against humans, then what forces might make use of religious beliefs and impulses, practices, traditions, institutions, buildings and organisations to attack us, confuse us, and to attempt to frustrate God’s work of salvation?

There is I believe – although some philosophers, and perhaps Buddhists, might deny it – a physical reality. There is also a spiritual reality. There are things which exist in these realms as and because they were created by God to be there and in that way. Then there is what we make of them in our minds. The images of film stars appear prominently before people frequently and almost universally. Most of us recognise the images, and have some thought of the people connected with them. Most men marry real women, and women men. Film stars seem to have to marry other film or music or sports stars or kings or presidents or very rich men. In reality most women are as beautiful as most film stars, but something happens in the mind. Christianity is like a man marrying a woman, and religion like a movie star feeling he has to marry another star.

I wrote another book called, Civil War: What Evangelicals would like to know about the Holy Spirit but are afraid to ask. A few people who read it said they found it heavy-going. It was closely argued, they said, following words and lines of the Bible perhaps too minutely. It was meant to be, because it was aimed at Evangelicals who pride themselves on their Biblical scholarship and particularly their faithfulness, as they see it, to the complete and unadulterated word. The plan was to show any Evangelicals who might read the book that the beliefs of charismatic Christianity are biblical. However, it seemed to make it hard to read. This present book is, I think, a bit more personal, and even opinionated. Although Bible passages are not extensively quoted and then examined, the Bible is still present here. In fact, if one wants to consider spiritual powers and their effects on the world, then one might ask, where does one go for information? Increasingly, sadly, people turn to witchcraft and astrology, and in doing so they may find out something, but they will ultimately be more confused, and will in the process have had to enter into an act of worship and obeisance to something which they may not like, and which has no goodwill towards them.

How can a Christian know anything about the spiritual world, and even begin to understand such problems as the nature of the soul, the apparent conflict between free will and predestination, and the relationship of the Trinity? Philosophers have been looking at those things for millennia, but what facts and sources do they have to work with? Can they carry out experiments, as chemists did when they deduced the existence of atoms? In this book I am working on the assumption that the Bible is an accurate and reliable source of information – that if we know what the Bible is saying about something, then we know that as a truth. I realize that not even all Christians share this assumption, and probably few if any do who are not Christians. I trust also in the reality of what may be called the prophetic, that is, a communication directly from God into the spirit of a human. Deep calleth unto deep. This may take the form of a dream or vision, or one of the gifts of the Spirit talked about in the Bible, such as an interpretation of tongues, or as an impression received in prayer. I think a lot of the information the church has gathered about the workings of the spiritual world has been acquired in this way. With regard to prophecy the Bible warns, and even commands, us to treat it with circumspection, but certainly not to despise it. I believe that parts of the Bible, the books of the great prophets – Isaiah and Jeremiah and the others – are talking a lot about what happens in spiritual realms.

I think also we can gain interesting information from listening to people and from reading what they have written. This information, however, seems to be of a different kind. It can’t be trusted to be right. This may be because of carelessness or ignorance or because of an intent to deceive. Quite often we don’t even know which of these is the case. The information is unreliable, and we don’t know why it is unreliable. So, what is the value, if any, of these things? I think that this human communication reveals what we are thinking and feeling and seeking and regretting. A word from God is true. Words from people, if regarded empathetically, help us to understand each other’s experience. Even if a person is lying, we can, if we are careful, extract some information about that person from that – even if he is lying, and doesn’t know he is lying.

So, this is a Christian book, but much of it is looking at the culture of the world – in particular works of literature. I realize some Christians will think that that is not edifying, and is not a valuable use of time and energy. I’m sure some non-Christians will think, We’re not interested in what a Christian has to say about great works of art. Those things are our property anyway. It may fail to meet the needs of readers of either camp. As was mentioned earlier the book is personal and perhaps opinionated. The books and other things looked at here have played important parts in my life, and so writers like William Faulkner and Graham Greene are quoted. I am not suggesting that they are admirable or true, even when sometimes they have a kind of beauty. Many of the views they express are, I believe, quite wrong. Since I came to know Jesus He has shone His light into many areas of my soul, my life history and my thoughts. The objects that that light fell on include many of the things looked at in this book, and that light clarified, sometimes altered their aspect, and threw shadows. Some, such as the Harry Potter books, have to be mentioned, partly because they are almost impossible to ignore, and because their spiritual influence is large.

High school English students, in their essays about famous works of literature, seem almost always to maintain that the author is right – must be right, since he or she has written the famous book that is being discussed, and it is the responsibility of the student to demonstrate in what way the author is right, in spite of all appearances. Perhaps it is only when one is older that one understands that an artist, even one set as an exam subject, can be wrong.

Undoubtedly Christianity has had a strong influence on the culture of the west, and also cultural influences have affected the practice of Christianity. Gregory, one of the early popes, is blamed by many Protestant people for having consciously decided to make an accommodation with some of the pagan traditions of Europe in the first millennium, in order that the church and the Christian religion might better penetrate the society of that time, and the hearts of men. I think the complaint is that this led to a mixture of pagan beliefs and rituals with Christianity. These reform-minded Christians, who criticize Pope Gregory for this, and for whom Luther is a hero, however sometimes approve of Luther’s production of beer-drinking songs with a religious slant, and a kind of rough-hewn or earthy approach, that might better communicate to the average person the doctrines of Reformation Christianity. This probably also was successful, but perhaps produced a mixture with the culture of alcohol.

The book mentioned earlier, Civil War, was critical of those Christians who resist the free expression of the miraculous, prophecy, and gifts of the Spirit in the church. Those same Christians receive some unfavourable attention in this book also. I think it’s important to continue to talk about this. For a born-again Christian a Bible-denying liberal Episcopalian bishop or a fire-breathing Antichrist philosopher may be an easier target to find and to hit than a fellow evangelical whose views differ only on what may seem to someone outside looking in like minor points. But I think the former are much less likely to deceive the elect. Everyone knows that violent gangsters are bad, but congenial ministers of religion who deflect the power of God may not always stand out as threats. And again this issue of conflict between the Pentecostal and the conservative evangelical is one that has much significance for me personally.

The cultural elements looked at in this book are mainly western. There is very little about Buddhism – and that is considered along with Babylon and Jezebel. What is the connection, some may ask? Religious spirits have been grouped here according to the lists of spiritual and historical powers revealed in Daniel’s dreams and in the visions given to John as related in Revelation – Babylon, Persia and Media, Greece, Rome, Antichrist and Death. (This is looked at in chapter 3.) A lot has been said about some of these things by historians and archaeologists. Spiritual information, as was noted above, can be gleaned from the Bible, and from a prophetic spiritual communication from God. If in this book I equate Babylon with Jezebel, then I have some Biblical reasons for doing so. If I suggest that Buddhism may be a manifestation of Jezebel also, then I would claim some prophetic basis for this assertion. In other words, some of the things put into this book are there because they seem right in my spirit. I have tried to explain in the relevant passages.

Likewise there is virtually nothing about Islam in this book. Of course Islam is a huge and hugely important subject at this time in spiritual affairs, as also in political. Many books have been written about it, and are being written, and I think the church is very aware of this matter, and is focusing on it. Communism – another enormous religious subject – is hardly mentioned either, but I think what is said about Antichrist applies to it. This book is really looking at cultural spiritual movements that have had some influence on people of God in the Israel of the Bible and western Christendom. There is an ocean of human soulish activity – art, religion and philosophy. Some of it is attractive. Most of it is not helpful if one wants to get to God. Some say that culture is religion – that is, that peoples’ ideas of a god, and even that god himself, are the product of the peoples’ lifestyle and art. I think it is truer to say that religion is culture – but perhaps that’s saying the same thing. Religious practice, ritual and theology develop from traditions, plays, songs, poetry and so on, but God remains what He has always been, Himself. When looking at literature and painting and music and architecture, it’s not as though one is considering anything really important or lasting. Culture is, after all, garbage. A number of people have made the observation that they respect Christianity because it has been the inspiration for some of the greatest works of art of the last two thousand years. This is like someone saying he loves his mother, because without mothers there wouldn’t be a Mothers’ Day.

The selection of things looked at in this book is, I hope, fairly representative, but is, as was mentioned above, influenced by personal experience. That is, I am looking at books and paintings and so on that have been influential in my own life.

The plots of a number of novels and plays are related in some of the chapters of this book. Before this occurs, a warning is given, so as not to spoil the ending for any reader who may not have read the particular work being discussed, but who may feel intrigued enough to stop, and go and read it for himself first.

Freemasons find that deeper secrets are revealed to them as they commit themselves more deeply. (This is looked at in chapter 16.) In the thirty third and final degree it is explained that the three assassins are law, property and religion. At the same time the quest for the secret hidden name of God, which has occupied the Mason through much of his progress through the order, comes to an end, when he is told that Lucifer is his lord. I suppose Satan should know as well as anyone the things that can create most havoc and bring most destruction to human souls, and if he includes religion as one of the big three, then it would seem that this is a credible claim, in spite of Satan’s reputation as a liar.

The argument of this book is that God has spoken clearly to people, and showed Himself to us, in the Bible, in the person of Jesus and through His Spirit. Religion, like science, culture and history, does much to prevent us from seeing and hearing Him – especially if we allow it to. A desk calendar aphorism recently proposed that someone who stands for nothing will fall for anything. It is good not to be gullible, but this alone won’t save one from deception if one doesn’t know and believe something. Advocates of scientific thinking of the last few hundred years have urged the explosion of superstition, and the exposure of pseudo-science and mythology. I think Christians have even more reason for wanting to do the same things.

Chapter 1

Can You Prove That God Exists?

Should you even try? The important thing is to believe in Him. Some people believe in God and some don’t, and perhaps that’s the end of it. You can’t change that, some would say, by arguments, threats or pleading,

" ‘Prove it? As if he has ever proved anything! He finds it hard to prove things: he thinks it very important that people should believe him.’

 ‘Yes, yes! Belief makes him happy, belief in him. Old people are like that! So shall we be too!’ 

This is a conversation from Nietzsche’s, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, looked at in chapter 27, between two of what Nietzsche calls night-watchmen – men who, having given up Christianity like most intellectuals, have begun to creep back to it, to re-awaken old beliefs and even to pray. The god that they speak about is a demanding and perhaps dementing old man.¹ Nietzsche shows an antipathy to God. His characters, the night-watchmen, have an incomplete understanding of, and no real communication with, God. There are thus multiple opportunities for error. Nevertheless there is some truth in the quotation. Christians know that in fact faith is essential to a relationship with God.

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

(Hebrews 11:6)

Where there is incomplete knowledge, faith can fill the gaps.

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

(Hebrews 11:1)

The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God,’  says Psalm 14 verse 1. This might immediately put an atheist on the defensive, particularly as the psalm goes on to say, They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good. This associates unbelief in God with bad behaviour. It doesn’t really say whether the moral failings lead to atheism or are a consequence of it, or if perhaps both things reinforce each other.

Nietzsche notoriously had his hero, Zarathustra, say, God is dead.² This doesn’t seem to be a statement of atheism. He is not saying that there is no god, or never has been. It is perhaps anti-God, but not atheist. There is a god, he seems to say, but he has died. This suggests that god is a decaying corpse, or perhaps just a memory. In either case his influence on events henceforth must be very limited. But actually, is that possible? Can a god die? If a being can be alive and then die, has he ever been a god? So, perhaps Nietzsche’s opinion is atheistic after all. Perhaps he means, or thinks without actually expressing it, that what stood for god was just an idea in peoples’ minds, and that now they have changed their minds and discarded the idea.

That is a thought that seems to have strengthened in the nineteenth century. Anthropologists traced the development of human society, and found connections between this and the idea of god. Men and women, living more or less as individuals, looked around them, seeing trees and hills, animals, stars, rivers and other things. Those people had a consciousness. Each one knew that he was real, that he himself existed, and that he was separate from other things. This self-awareness, the anthropologists said, was understood by these people as the presence of spirit within themselves. Then, having conceived the idea of spirit, and seeing the things around them which moved – across the ground or across the sky – or even things which didn’t move, but which seemed to have a certain character, such as a mountain, they determined that there was spirit in each of these things too. Thus animist religion was born – the belief that there was a supernatural life in things all around one in the world. When a spirit is seen to reside in an object, such as a brooch or a knife, then this object is a fetish. When an individual or a small group like a tribe has a special relationship with a spirit, which resides in, or expresses itself through, an animal or some other being, that thing is a totem. The god may manifest in a certain animal, and then actually take the form of that animal – like some of the gods of Egypt.

This idea of many gods was and is the religion of people living alone or in very small social groupings, the anthropologists say. Men and women living on their own could, and had to, make their own decisions about everything. When cities and nations developed, for whatever reasons they did develop, then compromise was needed in matters of choice. If each person insisted on doing just what he wanted, then the social structure would break. It was necessary that someone’s will predominate – that there be a king whose authority was accepted by everyone (or everyone who was not an outlaw, like the morally reprobate mentioned in Psalm 14). People seeing this king, and assuming that there was a living spirit in him as in themselves, then conceived God as being like that – a single individual of over-riding authority, responsibility and power. This was, so the theory goes, the beginning of monotheism.

The English poet Shelley in his Queen Mab, written when he was a teenager, made a similar suggestion early in the nineteenth century, well before Nietzsche and Freud. Addressing religion he says,

"……thou didst sum up

The elements of all that thou didst know;

The changing seasons, winter’s leafless reign,

The budding of the Heaven-breathing trees,

The eternal orbs that beautify the night,

The sunrise, and the setting of the moon,…

And all their causes, to an abstract point

Converging, thou didst bend and called it God!…

Who, prototype of human misrule, sits

High in heaven’s realm…

Even like an earthly king."

(Queen Mab VI Lines 94–99, 101–102, 105–106, 107)

Franz Kafka, in his story, Investigations of a Dog, considers a still earlier and more primitive consciousness – although this dog is particularly wordy and intellectual. The dog has discovered that certain ecstatic actions – barking, jumping, turning in circles – accompany the appearance of food. It is his belief that it is these ritual actions that cause the food to be provided. To us this seems ignorant. However it must be admitted that there is a god in the dog’s universe. However limited may be his understanding, he is fed because there is a human being who every day gives him food.

Edmund Hillary, when he got to the top of Everest, is reported to have said, George, we knocked the bastard off. I suppose this is just an earthy figure of speech – but is it also an animating of things, and competing, even if one wouldn’t consciously acknowledge it, in a world of spirits?

In Friedrich Nietzsche’s theory of the origin of religion, a god is actually the interest and the invention of the priestly class. Many men must farm or trade or serve as soldiers. The priests receive their daily needs and their prestige because, and as long as, people are in awe of god. If science advances and knowledge increases, people can ensure more reliable harvests and can treat disease. They will have less need to placate gods. At the same time, their own inner strength of will will grow, and they will have no need of an external moral code. The priests, then, Nietzsche says, must keep people ignorant and sickly and in a state of guilt and cowardice, to maintain their own position, and this, he says, is the whole function of religion.³

He complains that the Jews rewrote their history as a moral story, changed a natural cause and effect into an abstract morality, and that priests create value as they see fit.⁴ If this is so, then he should love them. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra (looked at in chapter 27) he insists, I willed it thus. His ideal of the future of humanity, of which he is the forerunner, will decide what is true and what is good, because he wills it to be so. He will create his own value. The Jews and the priests are then Supermen, Nietzschean heroes. But he hates them, and that is because, in fact, they are telling and living a truth which is eternal and has originated from outside them.

A parable of the birth of religion like that of Nietzsche is put forward in the book, Satanica, by the Iranian-Australian writer Sean Tari.⁵ A dream vision tells of a man who correctly guesses a prophetic truth, and who is then looked to as teacher and law-giver.

Freud claimed to have discovered the origins of god in the mental processes of children. A small child draws nourishment, warmth and comfort from his mother, and for a time does not conceive that the mother can have any purpose or intention other than to give these things. He becomes aware too, however, that his father is actually stronger, and that his mother also seems to lean on the father. Ultimately, then, he must be protected by this powerful figure, who is also a potential danger to him, especially as the two are in competition for the mother’s affection. He must therefore ingratiate himself with his father. Knowing this, Freud says, people conceived of god as a similar strong figure, who could destroy, but who, if approached properly, will not do so, and will in fact save and protect.

In The Future of an Illusion and Civilization and its Discontents, Freud thinks of civilization in this way also. Human beings gained some control over the world they lived in. They had a regular supply of food. There was order and cleanliness. They even, with the institution of marriage, had access to a settled and reliable source of genital satisfaction, without the need to be continually hunting for a mate. They enjoyed the warmth of family life. They had space and time to devote to intellectual and artistic interests. At the same time, though, they were enemies of civilization. People don’t really want to work. They would rather relax. They don’t want to have their passions curbed. They would prefer to take and enjoy whatever they want, whenever they want it. Therefore, if civilization is to work, there must be rules – about, for example, sharing of wealth, labour and sex – and there must be some enforcement of these rules, some power of compulsion.

This force may take the form of the suitably educated rulers, or guardians, that Plato talked about. (Looked at in chapter 2.) It may be, in Freud’s opinion, subtler than that. Instinctive desires and aggressions, rather than being immediately acted upon, may be suppressed, and form the substance of something like the conscience, or in Freud’s terms, the superego. This superego identifies itself with the father, and the aggression which the individual may otherwise have directed against his father, in a determination to be free of his rule, the superego instead turns on other parts of that individual’s own personality. The necessity of maintaining civilization has thus ensured that humans suffer mental illness.

If people can be adequately psychoanalyzed, they may be cured of phobias, obsessions and other symptoms, and if humans as a race are adequately analyzed they may be cured of God.

These ideas are convincingly developed, and could be a plausible explanation for some of man’s ills. As an attempt to demonstrate that God is no more than an expression of the human mind, they are exploded by the fact of a miracle. The parting of a sea, or the raising of one who has been dead, or any overruling of natural laws, are not produced by a punitive superego or a repressed desire. Not all realities are psychological. In the same way, a doctor, considering a case of chest pain, may be aware of the psychological stresses in his patient that magnify the symptoms or the meaning of them, but must still be aware that the patient has a body, and that the pain felt by it may actually be a manifestation of heart disease, and this must be investigated before it can be dismissed. Obsessive thinking may suggest that inadequately washed hands or an object placed in the wrong position will lead to a disaster, and that this can be avoided only by the repetition of certain actions. Such thinking is false and harmful. Nevertheless disasters do occur. Many people die in earthquakes and hurricanes. The spiritual fact of God is ultimately the only protection against this death.

Freud studied the mind, including its unconscious regions, and he recognized the reality of the physical body, but he didn’t consider or accept that there is also a spirit. He proposed that human beings, aware of the possibilities of disease, disaster and death in its various forms, saw these realities as fate, or as gods. The gods could be placated through rituals. If fate and the gods combined into one, then the favour of this protective or threatening father must be won. The defence against the trauma of the threat of aloneness, or of no longer existing, was religion. Freud intends to stiffen man’s courage to accept his lonely existence in the void of the universe. He states, rather vaguely, at the end of The Future of an Illusion that if there is no God, then hopefully men will be more realistic in their thinking, and will live better. To approach this end he recommends that children should not be exposed to any religious education, and should be released from all sexual restrictions and prohibitions. This will hasten the acceptance of reality, with all its difficulties. But he goes on to say that actually one can’t get rid of religious education. A religious believer, too, he maintains, can’t really know what are the motives for his belief until he is psychoanalyzed – and the implication is that he will then give them up.

Again, I think there may be a lot of truth in his description of the mental processes that drive people into religious beliefs. The argument of this present book is that there are also many false and harmful spiritual pressures that give rise to religion. How good it would be, and is, to get rid of false hopes, false dreams, idols, and return to the true God.

Bishop Spong (looked at in chapter 17) quotes Freud and his idea that the evolution of human beings to a state of consciousness brought about stresses that required for their relief the production of religion. Conscious men and women are aware that they exist, that each is an individual distinct from others, and are also aware that these others, many of whom are like oneself, cease to be, or to be conscious, after a time. People recognize the mortality of other human beings, and so assume that they themselves will also die. Questions of mortality and immortality thus are important in religion. Much of religious yearning is a desire to escape from death (looked at in chapter 31) and to escape from fear (chapter 5). Buddha was aware of the reality of disappointment and pain, and seems almost to have been overwhelmed by this realization, so that he developed his system of negating all desire to try to reach a meditative state where neither pain nor longing could touch him. Many of us at different times feel that our life would be full of meaning and happiness if we could have the most popular girl as our girl-friend, or if our football team could win the competition, or if we had more money. Standing back and looking at these things from a distance they don’t seem so important. It appears that Buddha was right in that respect, but he didn’t have the right solution.

Much of Freud’s work involved an understanding of unconscious mental processes. Of course, to say there is an unconscious is to imply that there is consciousness. As has been noted above, this very consciousness has been blamed for many troubles. If people have this consciousness, then why do they have it? The common scientific, anthropological, psychoanalytic view is that this is something that human beings have acquired after a long period of evolution, and it is this process that distinguishes men and women from animals, and then the need for religion has arisen because of the evolutionary state reached by the human brain. But why would consciousness evolve into being? What Darwinian benefit would be conferred on an animal that was conscious of its own mortality, and was fearful of a yawning emptiness or the possibility of endless torment? Wouldn’t this anxiety lessen his chances of successful reproduction? And would he struggle to reproduce more of his kind, or rather be reluctant to see more descendants who would be subject to his own miserable condition?

Another view, of course, is that people have this awareness of themselves, of others, of life and death, because God has created them with a soul and spirit. Freud was enthusiastic about scientific developments of the nineteenth century. He describes Darwin as, the great.⁶ For him this human consciousness is indeed an attribute of the brain that humans possess, which is larger and more complex than those of other animals. He doesn’t seem concerned with the ideas of soul and spirit that are looked at in the next chapter. He recites three important scientific developments⁷ which have, as it were, put man in his place. One is the realization-largely the work of Copernicus – that the sun and other planets don’t revolve around the earth. Another is Darwin’s theory – that human beings are the end result of a long period of adaptation of living things through accident and struggle. The last, and what he considers possibly the most damaging to the self-esteem of man, is the discovery – partly his own – of the unconscious processes of the mind, so that people are not masters even of their own thoughts and behaviours. If these ideas correct man’s sense of his own importance, then they seem to do the same thing to God, inasmuch as religion and belief are no longer seen as obvious responses to the reality and almighty power of God, but rather expressions of psychological and social needs of men. In certain creatures large brains have developed, and the activity of these arouses in them a sense of their own frailty and smallness in a huge impersonal universe, and a consciousness of the shortness of their lives. To cope with this, they have invented God, the theory states.

Even if one were to accept these theories, then do they in fact say anything about the existence or non-existence of God? It seems proven that the sun and planets don’t move around the earth, but even so I don’t know that we can confidently say that the earth is not the centre of the universe. We don’t know where the universe’s boundaries are, if indeed it has them, and so how can we know where is its centre? But if we accept that the earth is at least not the centre of the solar system, or of this galaxy, then in what way does that suggest – much less prove – that there is no God? If God made our world suitable for us to inhabit, and placed us there, then why should we complain, or care where exactly in the universe that world is situated? Human beings share many things with other animals – similar organs, body parts, senses and genetic material. How does that demonstrate that there is no God? God made man from the dust, and breathed spirit into him. Other animals’ bodies likewise are made from dust, and all our bodies return to dust. We are, as Freud discovered – or perhaps rediscovered – subject in our minds to many forces which seem beyond our control. Does this mean that God, if He exists, must have been incompetent in His work of creation, or is this something to do with what we think of as the Fall?

It seems to me that none of these scientific developments really says anything about the existence of God. Rather they support an unbelief. An opinion that man is not the ultimate of God’s creation would be much more difficult to sustain if our world were in fact the hub of the orbits of all the heavenly bodies. When one looks around in the world and considers living things in all their complexity, with all their amazing capacities and beauties, then one begins to think, There must be a God who has made these things. If one doesn’t believe in God, then this natural order of things is very hard to explain. Darwin’s theory, however, offers an explanation. Chance mutations, it says, in simple living things, altered their structure or function in some simple way. This change in some cases gave that thing an advantage over its fellows, and so it was able to prosper and reproduce more successfully. This particular version thus became the common one, and by a whole series of such events new species develop. It seems to make sense, although to my mind, enormously large amounts of time would be required for this series of accidents and selections through struggle to really produce the things we see about us. But even if one were to accept all this, how does it prove that there is no God? Certainly, if one has decided not to believe in God, then this idea allows one nevertheless to be reconciled in one’s mind to the existence of the remarkable world. Freud considered an illusion to be a belief that conforms to a wish. Undoubtedly many beliefs are held because people want to believe them – and this may be true in the cases of personal life events as well as religion. Many of these beliefs are nevertheless actually true. Some are happy to find arguments that allow one to understand the world, the variety of living things, and religious structures without the need of a god. Interestingly, though Freud was one of these, he nevertheless criticized deists – those who hold that a god made the world and people, and then left them alone with no interest in communicating with them or intervening in their lives. He felt they were wrong to worship a shadow like this. If they were to worship, then they should take the next step and know a personal, mighty God.

Critics persist in describing as ‘deeply religious’ anyone who admits to a sense of man’s insignificance or impotence in the face of the universe, although what constitutes the essence of the religious attitude is not this feeling but only the next step after it, the reaction to it which seeks a remedy for it. The man who goes no further, but humbly acquiesces in the small part which human beings play in the great world – such a man is, on the contrary, irreligious in the truest sense of the word.

(The Future of an Illusion VI)

In part X of the same work he notes that those who confine themselves to a belief in a higher spiritual being, whose qualities are indefinable and whose purposes cannot be discerned, will lose their hold on human interest. Again, it seems he thought one should go all the way, or none of it. He spoke of himself too as a godless Jew, and in doing so acknowledged his racial and perhaps cultural ancestry, but in making a distinction in the title he seems to be recognizing that the idea of Jew implies an awareness of and relationship with God.

At one point Freud remarked that an explanation of the purpose of life, if it has one, can be given only by religion – not by art or science, or any of man’s high achievements.⁸ He means, he says, the real purpose. He goes on then to talk about what can be more easily understood – man’s idea of the purpose of his life, which is, Freud suggests, pleasure and the avoidance of pain.

He was critical also of Jung, a former pupil and colleague, who then developed rival psychological theories that resembled rather a religious or spiritualistic practice. But Freud, as noted in chapter 2, had partly begun that process. He found images in the unconscious with meanings attached to them, and these meanings, he discerned, are the same for different individuals. This is not quite the same as the collective unconscious of Jung – in which all people tap into one giant soul – any more than is the fact that the same ideas occur to different people in the same circumstances. Nevertheless Freud’s theories might look a bit like Jung’s. Certainly, as looked at above, Freud ventured beyond problems of the psychology of individuals and attempted solutions to universal religious questions, and some of his more spectacular achievements, such as the interpretation of dreams, look almost magical. He himself may look like a Joseph or Daniel, or another of the prophets.

And so, I think it comes back to a decision – do we believe in God or not? Do we choose to believe or not?

John Shelby Spong, the now-retired American Episcopalian bishop and theologian, in a qualified echo of Nietzsche, has declared that The God of theism… is dying.⁹ By this he means God who created the world and everything in it, including humans, who is separate from humans but at the same time very close to them, caring about the intimate details of their lives and actively playing a part. In saying that this God is dead, or soon will be, Spong makes it clear that he too believes this being to be a creation of human psychological and social need. He considers this need to have passed, and says that human beings in the late twentieth and twenty first centuries no longer have any understanding of, or desire for, such a deity, and that he therefore no longer exists. To support his belief that there is no such God who is active in the affairs of men, he notes, speaking about the terrible sufferings and the great needs of people and of how these needs might be met, that there is no manna for the people of Sudan, but then he has an afterthought – unless human relief operations could be this manna. Indeed that is a principle that has been taught by the Christian church – that God works through His people, inspiring, encouraging and empowering them to do His work in this world.

The Bible tells us that we can please God only by having faith, as was mentioned above. If God had intended that it be impossible for us not to believe in Him, then He could have created conditions accordingly. But He wanted us to come to Him, or not, as we choose. For that to happen, it would seem that an absence of incontrovertible proof is needed. But then, perhaps not. Doubters demanded of Jesus a sign. Satan, tempting Jesus, suggested that He perform certain miraculous feats. Jesus, knowing the hearts of tempters, refused to comply. However, when the time was right, He did perform many miracles, and He even suggested – to the disciples of John the Baptist – that these were persuasive evidence that Jesus was the Christ. The Roman centurion, when he witnessed the earthquake and darkness that followed Jesus’ death was convinced that He was the Son of God. There was a lot of evidence of the power of God – people healed, demons cast out, dead raised, food multiplied, storms stilled. In spite of this, probably fewer people believed in Jesus than not. It would seem, then, that it is not desirable that belief be unavoidable and unbelief impossible, and it would seem also that things which demonstrate to some beyond question the reality of God quite fail to convince others. The motives and desires of the hearts of the people beholding these things affect the outcome.

In spite of that, I think that there is a certain logical argument that at the end does not allow the possibility of there not being God.

When the William Friedkin film, The Exorcist was released in the 1970’s many church groups were concerned, and some actually demonstrated against it. It depicts graphically the manifestations of devil possession of a girl, and the attempts of priests to set her free – attempts which repeatedly fail, until at last the devil is transferred from the girl to one of the priests, who then dies. The film is horrifying, and it was felt by some Christians to be saying that Satan’s power is greater than God’s. I didn’t see the film at that time, but did see it years later. It seems to me to be at least serious-minded. Whereas a lot of more recently produced entertainment concerning the occult suggests that witchcraft, and the harnessing of ungodly powers in various ways, may have a certain glamour and fascination which make them appealing, The Exorcist depicts the devil as vile and loathsome, and altogether to be avoided, which is the truth. The film shows increasingly desperate but defeated efforts by the priestly exorcists, sometimes invoking the name of Jesus, and the devil’s scorn of them. This, I think, is why many people felt that Satan was being portrayed as more powerful than God. However, the film clearly makes the point that the exorcist, motivated by concern for the afflicted girl, has nevertheless lost his faith. He no longer believes in Jesus, and is thus attempting to use the name and power of God, who is not real to him. The Bible makes it clear that Satan does indeed feel quite unthreatened by this, and is entitled to feel that way. However, it is a different matter when believing Christians, acting in obedience to God and in His authority, come against the devil. Certainly the film didn’t touch on that.

Peter Blatty who wrote the script of The Exorcist declared that, although he couldn’t believe in God, he could certainly believe in the devil, or some very powerful malevolent force. Indeed, when one considers the world, it is easy to believe that such a force exists and is active. One is surrounded by people who are mostly kind, peaceful and law-abiding, but then one witnesses something such as the Rwandan killings, in which hundreds of thousands of people are put to death with machetes in the space of weeks, or something like ritual child abuse. It seems that such manifestations of astounding cruelty and destruction cannot be explained by what we have experienced of human nature. They seem to require the activity of a force which is malignant, and which is able to overpower human beings and cause them to do its will. Some might say that there is just an evil tendency in human thinking and behaviour, which sometimes becomes prominent and which leads to a person committing acts he would not otherwise do. Then one may be confronted by a kind of miraculous evil. This is the kind of thing seen in The Exorcist – levitations and impossible bodily distortions. Presumably Peter Blatty became aware of such things – which are both evil and not explicable according to the natural order of the world. When one sees something of that kind, or when one simply looks around at the world and at history, one may have to agree with Blatty that there is a devil. (Christians, of course, at least those who accept the Bible at face value, have never doubted this.)

If there is a devil or Satan, who acts on this world of men, then what results of his activity would one expect to see? The Rwandan massacre could be a part of it, but only a part. We would understand the devil to be bad, to intend badness, work toward badness, with badness being the goal of all his energies and plans. And we would understand him to be stronger than a human being. We see evidence of his work – the suffering and death of people – and we discern something of his character – proud, contemptuous and grasping, and desiring to impose his own will. These attributes can be seen in those same things mentioned above – the evil actions, the physical ugliness assumed by the character in the film.