Suspicion and Faith The Religious Uses of Modern Atheism

by Westphal, Merold

• ISBN13: 9780823218769
• ISBN10: 0823218767
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-09-01
• Publisher: Fordham University Press

Summary

Marx, Nietzche, and Freud are among the most influential of modern atheists. The distinctive feature of their challenge to theistic and specifically Christian belief is expressed by Paul Ricoeur when he calls them the "masters of suspicion." While skepticism directs its critique to the truth or evidential basis of belief, suspicion asks two different, intimately intertwined questions: what are the motives that lead to this belief? and what function does it play, what work does it do for the individuals and communities that adopt it.What suspicion suspects is that the survival value of religious beliefs depends on satisfying desires and interests that the believing soul and the believing community are not eager to acknowledge because they violate the values they profess, as when, for example, talk about justice is a mask for deep-seated resentment and the desire for revenge. For this reason, the hermeneutics of suspicion is a theory, or group of theories, of self-deception: ideology critique in Marx, genealogy in Nietzsche, and psychoanalysis in Freud.Suspicion and Faith argues that the appropriate religious response ("the religious uses of modern atheism") to these critiques is not to try to refute or deflect them, but rather to acknowledge their force in a process of self-examination--and this for two reasons. First, while these critiques are not, as Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud tend to suppose.

Author Biography

Merold Westphal is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University and an elder in the Reformed Church in America.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Preface
The Hermeneutics of Suspicion
Atheism for Lent	p. 3
On Learning When Not to Refute Atheism	p. 10
Help from Gilbert and Sullivan	p. 18
Religious Fictions Too?	p. 25
Freud and the Psychoanalysis of the Believing Soul
Freud's Pessimism	p. 33
Freud's Scientism	p. 38
Freud's Suspicion I: Dreams and Wish Fulfillment	p. 43
Freud's Suspicion II: Doctrines and Wish Fulfillment	p. 50
On Remembering When Not to Refute Atheism	p. 55
Freud's Suspicion III: Doctrines and Distortion	p. 61
The Paranoid Dr. Schreber as Victim	p. 65
The Paranoid Dr. Schreber as Redeemer	p. 71
The Atheist Dr. Freud as Theologian of Original Sin	p. 77
Ceremonial as Defense	p. 83
Ceremonial as Compromise	p. 89
They Know Not What They Do	p. 96
Of Savages and Salieri	p. 103
Of Obedience and Sacrifice	p. 110
Willful Renunciation and the One-Way Covenant	p. 115
Marx and the Critique of Religion as Ideology
Feuerbach's Bourgeois Atheism	p. 123
Feuerbach's Radical Atheism	p. 130
Marx's Radical Atheism	p. 134
Religion and the Christian State	p. 141
Religion and the Secular State	p. 147
Marxian Materialism	p. 154
Religion as Ideology	p. 159
Religion as Critique	p. 166
Techniques of Neutralization	p. 172
More Techniques of Neutralization	p. 180
One Last Technique of Neutralization	p. 186
Mixing Religion and Politics	p. 193
Who Is the God of the Bible? Ask Pharaoh!	p. 199
Third Commandment Idolatry	p. 205
A "Marxist" Sermon Against the Baalization of Yahweh	p. 210
Nietzsche and the Critique of Religion as Resentment
Squintingly Yours, Friedrich Nietzsche	p. 219
Distinctively Yours, Friedrich Nietzsche	p. 225
The Big Lie	p. 232
Jews and Priests	p. 238
Glittering Vices	p. 246
Justice and the Fascists	p. 252
Pity and the Pharisees	p. 259
Jesus and the Pharisees I: The Sinners	p. 265
Jesus and the Pharisees II: The Sabbath	p. 275
In Conclusion: The Dangers of Suspicion	p. 283
Index	p. 291
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