The question of God by Armand Nicholi, Jr.
CS Lewis and Sigmund Freud debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life….
A Harvard professor of psychology lays out some discussions he has developed with Harvard Medical Students over the years. He contrasts the works of CS Lewis and Sigmund Freud as they wrote about theological points—Is there a god? What happens to us when we die? What is the nature of our consciences?—and topics more commonly discussed with both traditional psychiatrists and spiritually minded people —what makes a person happy? What is love? How does one manage pain? Death?
I wish we had had a curriculum like this at UCLA Medical School.
I know little of Freud and my introduction was humorous: my first semester in college, most freshman had a requirement that was satisfied with either philosophy 101 or psych 101. I took the philosophy and the majority of those on my dorm floor chose psychology. They were taught Freudian psychology so the remainder of the quarters that year was full of insightful comments and dream interpretations, (dream sequences were actively sought) at the dining hall. The sexual orientation to many of Freud’s thoughts could not have had a more receptive audience than eighteen year olds experiencing their first away from family...... My philosophy class covered the presocratic philosophers but Socrates was introduced to me for the first time that quarter and he made quite an impression.
When reading Why The Greeks Matter by Cahill years later, a familiar Platonic passage in the voice of Socrates was raised as an example of why the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages agreed that some pagans, “got it” even having pre-dated Christ. Socrates makes the case that one should give resources to the poor, turn the other cheek, and love your enemy. He makes the case logically ie these beliefs are not centered on Faith in God or God’s laws—not a Christian God in any case.
This book addresses some basic questions and makes interesting points regarding the orientation of materialists (those who don’t believe in an all knowing God and who do believe that the physical world has within it all the explanations for what happens to us) and spiritualists who believe there is a point and a guidance present in the world if only we listen to it and act in accordance to that guidance.
Impressions:
The biography and review of different positions posed finds me thinking of Freud as a bit of a fussbudget intellectual drama queen. History has not aged him well. CS Lewis is almost Socratic in his presentation. And yet…..Freud I believe, conceptualized “ego” and we all recognize and use that concept among others he introduced in our everyday speech. Freud’s large and unyielding ego is apparent in his biography and responses to the big questions are reviewed. He lost friendships over his need to be right and he denigrated many people unnecessarily. His personal life was not a roadmap for anyone. His writings suggest he was lonely and without hope as he approached his death, which was aided with generous doses of morphine in the setting of terminal cancer.
CS Lewis mirrored many of Freud’s beliefs as a young man; World War I and his experiences there were painful and found his atheism strengthened. What kind of a God could allow this? CS Lewis had a “conversion” experience and that story (becoming possibly the most important proponent of Christianity in the twentieth century) is a useful contrast with Freud. Lewis died an optimist and at peace with the world despite significant personal loss.
Dr. Nicholi compared CS Lewis’ experience with other recently studied Undergraduate Students who had had a “conversion” experience and became faithful practicing Christians. There were similarities:
1) The experiences occurred within the context of a modern liberal university where the climate tended to be hostile to such experiences.
2) Both Lewis and students observed in people they admired some quality the found missing in their own lives.
3) They made a conscious decision to examine “evidence.” Lewis read the Bible in Greek. Undergrads went to Bible classes. Both methods found them concluding that the Bible is based on reliable historical documents and came to understand the Central Figure not as a philosopher who died two thousand years ago but a “living reality” who made unique claims about himself and with whom they had a personal relationship.
4) “..both Lewis and each of the students, after their conversion, found their new faith enhanced their functioning. They reported positive changes in their relationships, their image of themselves, their temperament, and their productivity. “ Friends and acquaintances agreed that these changes had occurred.
In one discussion, Freud contemplates the nature of a person’s conscience. He suggests that it would be really really nice if he could do anything he wanted—-have sex with various woman and get revenge for slights—but that this would hardly be workable in a civil society so rules are needed. That, I think dodges the question of why we feel bad when we don’t live up to our own expectations--or those of others. The human brain remains more complicated than perhaps it can possibly understand itself; there is an argument that human evolution may have conferred a group benefit to behavior that reflect a conscience, as well as altruistic acts of sacrifice for the group. And such a theory based on biology might also predict that the genes and resulting neurologic pathways would show variation from those with strong consciences to those with none apparent. A moral code for humans that is based simply on practicality feels hollow—-as it should—and it does not explain many behaviors found across all cultures.
Freud is misunderstood using the word, “sex” when defining various manifestations of love (friendship, filial). He acknowledged that his persistence using this word with his own definitions was the subject of great criticism and resistance to his theories. CS Lewis was in a sense, a classicist and clearly outlined the different kinds of love and friendship that most of us can relate to in the day to day—and only one, eros, is related to sex. Of interest, his discussions around “agape” as a form of love does not come about magically or “by feel.” He defines it as an act of will—a person decides on a system of spiritual belief and agape is a conscious decision to love on those terms. His point allows for growth of a human’s potential and behaviors as a conscious act.
Both Freud and Lewis had losses late in life. Freud had a painful cancer and in that setting still had to flee Austria when the Nazi’s assumed control. Lewis lost a wife to cancer over a period of years. Both clearly expressed their sadness and the overwhelming nature of it. Both likely suffered from depression even before this phase of their lives. Both contemplated suffering as they knew it in their time and saw it as a fundamental problem for humans. Freud laments the lack of faith (such faith in his mind was belief in fairy tales) when for so many, it gives solace in the setting of dying or suffering. He makes the point that without Faith, there were for him, limited personal resources. Both wrestle with our inability to contemplate death other than with our consciousness—emotionally, it seems like something not happening any time soon even when it is obvious to others that it is here---now. I think our “animal” brains find this useful—-consider wild animals who live in the day to day and so far as we know, have no conscious understanding of their lifespans. They act each day as the last and likely the next. My version of this is that we all know from early childhood that we are going to die—-but even late in our lives, on our deathbeds, we rarely truly believe it.
Personally, death has been frequent topic this year. I think my observations align with CS Lewis in that attitude and expectations have everything to do with whether you have grace and emotional comfort as your time draws near. I don’t think such grace or emotional states are confined to Christians. Sorting out your options and attitudes include making active choices ie they are acts of will.
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