Is God just a mirror image of our desire?
Critics claim that God did not create people in his image, but on the contrary – man creates a god in his image. Is it so?
A thought once occurred to me: “Aren’t the images we create of God a mirror image of our dreams, desires, and anxieties?” Religious critics, such as philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach, that’s what they say. They are fundamentally suspicious of references to God. They say that God is just a figment of imagination, a wishful thinking of people.
To support this thesis, they argue as follows: because man cannot be good, he longs for God’s goodness. Because there is injustice here on earth, there arises a desire for heavenly justice, which will settle everything. Because we humans lack certainty, we dream of a saving “heavenly Father”.
Regarding this point, they claim: that God did not create people in his image, as it is written in the biblical account of creation, but on the contrary – man creates a god in his image. So to speak, he projects his desire for the heavens – like a projector projects an image on a wall. And then he prays to this projection and calls it “god”.
Reality versus illusion
Undeniably, all our images of God also contain projections. But is God himself an illusion? When you are hungry, your body sends a signal and you start thinking about food. Images of delicious food flash through your head. You dream about him. Your dream image is unrealistic. But is food, the food itself an illusion? After all, your hunger is clear evidence that there must be food somewhere.
There is a “hunger for God” all over the world. It is not possible to explain the phenomenon of religion otherwise. Where does the “hunger of people for God” come from in a thousand variants? Why have people of all eras, cultures, nations, and religions dreamed up to this day, in countless images and again and again, the dream of “God”?
You may have heard this phrase as a child: “Dreams are like foam.” A silly phrase that you should forget right away. Today, thanks to psychoanalysis, we know that dreams are the language of our soul. As a rule, what appears in dreams is what we suppress in the waking state or what we do not admit to ourselves at all. They often contain messages that we should listen to.
God’s word is a signpost and a source of strength, healing, and critical commentary on what we do daily.
I read once about a woman who claimed to be an atheist and who turned to psychotherapists with the following question: “Can you please help me? I have been a convinced atheist for many years. I do not believe in god. My only problem is that I dream about him every night. Please explain it to me!”
I don’t know how the therapists responded. But could it not be that this woman’s recurring dream is related to her pushing God out of her life?
Could it not be that it is God himself who, in our longing for him, speaks to the word to remind us again?
Couldn’t the desire for God be the right impulse for the fact that God is here – an image of hunger for him?
God as a mirage?
What fills us up? What bread of life? The fact that we form false ideas about the Bread of Life is no reason to suspect it of being an illusion.
I would like to ask you not to prematurely suspect God of illusion. Because then something similar to those “modern people” who got lost in the desert can happen to you. Completely exhausted, they see an oasis in front of them. “Ah, a mirage,” they think, “a reflection of the air that wants to drive us crazy.” They are approaching the oasis. But she will not be lost.
They can see the date palms and the spring more and more clearly. “Of course, it’s a fantasy of hunger,” they say to themselves, “that shot our half-mad wits. Now we can even hear the water gurgling. An auditory hallucination!’
A little later, two Bedouins find them – but dead. “Do you understand it? Dates grow almost in front of their noses and they perished. They lay very close to the spring and died of thirst. How is that possible?” The other answer: “They were modern people.”
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