Religion without God?

Ludwig Feuerbach and Lloyd Geering

Gregory W. Dawes
Prepublication Copy: Published in A Religious Atheist? Critical Essays on the Work of Lloyd Geering edited by Raymond Pelly and Peter Stuart, 111123. Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2006.

This draft paper is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. You are free to cite this material provided you attribute it to its author; you may also make copies, but you must include the authors name and include this licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Introduction
As a theologian and scholar of religions Lloyd Geering has achieved an unprecedented status within New Zealand. In a nation that is among the more secular of modern states, he has become, in Paul Morriss felicitous phrase, New Zealands theologian laureate. Geering has always considered himself a Christian theologian, even though in his later work in particular he moves beyond traditional Christian theism. So it is perhaps surprising how little he has to say about the figure of Jesus. Brief references occur, as one might expect, throughout his books and articles, but the only extensive discussion is to be found in Jesus Reconsidered, the published version of three talks given in 1983,[1] in a chapter of his most recent work Christianity without God(2002).[2] In its depiction of Jesus as a teacher of ethical wisdomthe foremost representative of what would later become Christian humanismthat chapter bears the unmistakable imprint of the work of the Jesus Seminar, the group of predominantly North American scholars associated with Robert Funk. The Jesus Seminars depiction of Jesus is controversial, for a number of reasons. But the controversy is not one I wish to discuss here. For the historical Jesus plays a relatively insignificant role in Geerings theological project. Nor do I wish to focus on the question of the resurrection of Jesus, the

subject of the third talk in Jesus Reconsidered and of a book-length study published some years later, Resurrection: A Symbol of Hope(1971).[3] it happens, I believe this book to be Geerings best. But once again, it is not representative of his broader concerns. What I want to focus on is Geerings understanding of the doctrine of the incarnation and its implications for Christian faith. What shall I argue? As Geering himself notes, his view of the incarnation is very similar to that found in the early work of the nineteenthcentury philosopher and critic of religion, Ludwig Feuerbach (180472). But Feuerbachs later work, I shall suggest, is more straightforwardly atheistic. It lacks the positive reinterpretation of religious belief which we find in Geerings work. The question my discussion raises is this: If we share Feuerbachs view of religion, then how should we live? Should we follow the early Feuerbach and embrace the Christianity without God of which Lloyd Geering is an advocate? Or should we follow the later Feuerbach and cut loose from our religious heritage altogether? What is the point in using the term God when we no longer believe in the supernatural being to which that term has traditionally referred? And perhaps there are dangers in the continuing use of religious language, dangers which a more straightforward atheism would avoid.

The Early FeuerbachTheology as Anthropology

In our own day, Ludwig Feuerbach is a neglected figure. If he is referred to at all, it is generally by students of religion. Even then he is, perhaps, more often mentioned than read. But for his contemporaries, he was a figure of considerable standing, and not only for the study of religion. He was considered to have played a vital role in the movement from the philosophical idealism represented by the work of G.W.F. Hegel (17701831) to the materialist philosophy of Karl Marx (181883). Marx himself pays tribute to Feuerbachs significance in his Theses on Feuerbach, written in 1845 but published by his collaborator Frederick Engels only in 1886, as an appendix to Engelss own study of Feuerbachs philosophy. [4] Engels himself describes Feuerbach as the post-Hegelian philosopher who had the most influence on the development of Marxist thought. Given this fact, it is particularly appropriate that the chapter on Feuerbach in Geerings Faiths New Ageis followed by one on Marx, in which Marxism is described as one of the new forms of religion in the post-Enlightenment world.[5] Historically, this is surely the correct context in which to discuss Feuerbachs ideas.
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The Role of Feuerbach

What role, then, is played by Feuerbach in Geerings work? One similarity between the two authors may be noted immediately. While Feuerbach wrote his first major work on what he called The Essence of Christianity(1841), he wrote even less than Geering about the historical figure of Jesus. Feuerbach is familiar with the biblical criticism of his time, particularly the work of his contemporary (and later admirer) David Friedrich Strauss (180874), but he does not consider its results to be particularly significant. Indeed when Feuerbach cites Strauss, he generally refers to Strausss Die christliche Glaubenslehre (1840),[6] which is a work on the history of Christian thought, rather than to Strausss more famous The Life of Jesus Critically Examined(1835).[7] In other words, Feuerbach is more interested in the Christ of faith than in the Jesus of historyit is Christian belief aboutJesus, rather than the figure of Jesus himself, that is the focus of his attention. [8] Feuerbach has little sympathy for the traditional understanding of the Christian doctrine of the incarnation. Indeed he is convinced that this doctrine suffers from certain fatal contradictions. What Feuerbach is interested in is how such an absurd doctrine could have arisen, and whether it still has any significance. This is, of course, a familiar project. Since the eighteenth century, there have been scholars of religion who have attempted to explain the puzzling fact of religious belief, after having become convinced of its falsity. The tradition may be said to begin with David Hume (171176), whose two works on religionthe Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion(1779) and The Natural History of Religion(1757)neatly embody the philosophical-evaluative task on the one hand and the anthropologicalexplanatory on the other.[9] tradition continues in our own day in the work of thinkers such as Stewart Elliot Guthrie (who has the audacity to call his reworking of Humes ideas a new theory of religion), Scott Atran, and, perhaps most impressively, Pascal Boyer.[10] So when Geering turns to Feuerbach, it is for two reasons: firstly, to understand how it is that human beings have come to believe in God, and secondly, to reflect on Feuerbachs interpretation of the doctrine of the incarnation. The two issues are closely connected, at least in Feuerbachs The Essence of Christianity. But lets start with Feuerbachs theory of religion, in particular the Christian religion. What does Feuerbach argue? His central contention may be stated very briefly. What Feuerbach argues is that the true sense of Theology is Anthropology,[11] anthropology here being understood
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as a doctrine of human nature, of what it means to be a human being. More precisely, for Feuerbach, what people refer to as God is in fact a projection of certain human qualities. As he writes,
God as an extramundane being is . . . nothing else than the nature of man withdrawn from the world and concentrated in itself, freed from all worldly ties and entanglements, transporting itself above the world, and positing itself in this condition as a real, objective being.[12]

While this may appear a simple thesis, it emerges from a number of lines of argument, which a more detailed study would try to disentangle. [13] But we may readily grasp the central thrust of Feuerbachs claim. Religion, he suggests, is an objectification of the idealised attributes of humanity. How did this objectification occur? Religion arises when the individual, in his encounter with other people, becomes aware of his own limitations. [14] But he becomes aware of his own limitations only by becoming aware of the perfection, the absence of limitation, that is characteristic of the human species.[15] Discomforted by his own by his own sense of limitation, the individual creates the idea of perfect being, one in whom the essential attributes of the human speciesreason, feeling, and willare expressed.[ 16] It follows that if I worship what I think of as God, I am actually worship human nature,[17] what I take to be Gods love for me is nothing other than my self-love deified.[18] least some of the contradictions in Christian theology arise from the tensions that emerge when these human attributes are idealised. Of particular significance is the tension between the idealised attributes of intellect and feeling.[ 19] Indeed in Feuerbachs view, the Christian God consists of nothing other than an impossible combination of personal and metaphysical predicates.[20]

Religion as Alienation and Self-Knowledge

What are the implications of this, Feuerbachs early view of religion? On the one hand, it means that religious belief is a delusion and a source of alienation.[21] By attributing these human powers to a divine being, religion deprecates the human: insofar as these powers are attributed to God, human beings are deprived of them.[22] Christianity in particular cuts individuals off from the community of fellow human beings by exalting the individual over the collective.[23] It also cuts human being off from the natural world by creating a deity removed from nature and by offering individuals the
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impossible hope of eternal life.[24] On the other hand, this very same view of religion enables Feuerbach to regard religion as an early form of selfknowledge.[25] Since the idea of God embodies human attributes, we can learn something about humanity from our idea of God. As Feuerbach writes,
religion is mans earliest and also indirect form of self-knowledge. . . . Man first of all sees his nature as if out ofhimself, before he finds it in himself. His own nature is in the first instance contemplated by him as that of another being. . . . Hence the historical progress of religion consists in this: that what by an earlier religion was regarded as objective, is now recognised as subjective; that is, what was formerly contemplated and worshipped as God is now perceived to be something human. What was at first religion becomes at a later period idolatry; man is seen to have adored his own nature. Man has given objectivity to himself, but has not recognised the object as his own nature: a later religion takes this forward step; every advance in religion is therefore a deeper selfknowledge.[26]

From this point of view, the Feuerbach of The Essence of Christianitycould still claim to be a friend to religion, its interpreter rather than its destroyer. He has, he argues, merely discovered found the true meaning of the Christian religion, to have extracted this true meaning from what he describes as the web of contradictions and delusions called theology.[ 27] A similar summary of Feuerbachs views is to be found in the seventh chapter of Geerings Faiths New Age, where it plays a pivotal role in his account of the impact of modern thought on religion. For Geering, Feuerbachs work is not merely negative; rather, it opens up the possibility of a reformulated religion, a religion without God.[ 28] Here, too, Geering highlights an important aspect of Feuerbachs thought. For the latter sometimes suggests that religion need not disappear, if only it could be transformed. As Feuerbach writes,
I do not deny religion, I do not deny the subjective, human foundations of religion, namely, feeling and imagination and mans impulse to objectify and personify his inner life, an impulse which lies in the very nature of speech and emotion; I do not deny mans need to lend nature a human aspect, provided that his view of it is compatible with its character as known to us through science, I do not deny his need to contemplate nature in poetic, philosophical, and religious terms. I merely deny the object of 5

religion, or rather of religion as it has been up to now.[ 29]

What he objects to, Feuerbach continues, is the way traditional religion turns poetry into prose, mistaking the objects of human imagination for actual beings. The Doctrine of the Incarnation Geering also endorses Feuerbachs reinterpretation of the doctrine of the incarnation, the belief that God became a human being in the person of Jesus. [30] For Feuerbach, the doctrine of the incarnation is first and foremost an expression of belief in the love of God. It is out of love that God laid aside his divinity, as it were, to become a human being, for God is love. But God is love, Feuerbach argues, should not be understood as though love were a mere predicate, a mere characteristic of a deity who exists independently of that love. A deity who existed independently of love would be an omnipotent being, but an omnipotent being is something quite other than a loving God; he isin Feuerbachs wordsa severe power not bound by love.[ 31] reality expressed by the statement God is love is to be found in its predicate, not its subject. The key term is love, not God. By speaking of a God who renounces his divinity out of love, the doctrine of the incarnation bears witness to this fact. Taken seriously, it leads inevitably to atheism. As Feuerbach writes (in one of his most famous passages),
who then is our Saviour and Redeemer? God or Love? Love; for God as God has not saved us, but Love, which transcends the difference between the divine and human personality. As God has renounced himself out of love, so we, out of love, should renounce God; for if we do not sacrifice God to love, we sacrifice love to God, and, in spite of the predicate of love, we have the Godthe evil beingof religious fanaticism.[32]

Furthermore, since what believers call the love of God is in reality simply human love, the doctrine of the incarnation is clear evidence that in religion human beings are contemplating their own nature.[ 33] What follows from this? The central doctrine of Christianity, interpreted in the light of Feuerbachs theory of religion, points towards the abolition of traditional theism. It is no coincidence that the abolition of traditional theism is precisely what Lloyd Geering advocates, particularly in his more recent works. In Christianity Without God, Geering argues that Christianity is able to abandon
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theism, without losing its distinctive character or its religious power. In abandoning belief in God, Geering suggests, Christianity is not unfaithful to its founder. For Jesus himself stood within the wisdom tradition of Israel, which was more concerned with the human condition than with God.[ 34] And, as Feuerbach showed, Christianitys central doctrinethat of the incarnationtended towards this goal.[35] But Geering also argues that Christianity must become non-theistic. It must do so because belief in a supernatural being to whom we must submit ourselves is a violation of human autonomy, which demands that we no longer be enslaved to an external authority.[36] And monotheism, the exclusive worship of a Sky-Father (as opposed to an Earth-Mother) has had tragic consequences. In particular, it has led us to overlook our dependence on nature, in a way which threatens our very future.[37]

The Later FeuerbachTheology as a Delusion

I have highlighted the importance of Feuerbachs discussion of the incarnation, as found in his early work, The Essence of Christianity. It is this view of the incarnation upon which Geering draws in arguing for a nontheistic Christianity. But what about Feuerbachs later work? What implications would this have for the Christian theologian? It is true that a similar interpretation of the incarnation is found in his later Lectures on the Essence of Religion.[38] Yet the relationship between the earlier and the later Feuerbach is not as simple as it might appear. By the time Feuerbach comes to present these lectures, there has been a shift in his thinking. Gone is the suggestion that religion has value as a form of self-knowledge, as a way in which human beings come to awareness of the essential attributes of their species.[39] This earlier view, which still owes something to the influence of Hegel, has all but disappeared. What is now dominant is what Van Harvey calls the naturalist-existentialist motif in Feuerbachs thought,[ 40] focuses on the relationship between human beings and the natural world. Because of this, Feuerbachs later work is more straightforwardly atheistic. It offers little comfort to those theologians who, like Geering, wish to abandon theism, but retain religion. For the early Feuerbach, religion has a certain revelatory value, even if what it reveals is not God but human nature. For the later Feuerbach, religion looks much more like a simple delusion, from which we ought to liberate ourselves as quickly as possible.

The Naturalist-Existentialist View

What, then, is Feuerbachs later view of religion, the one that Van Harvey refers to as the naturalist-existentialist strand? At times, the Feuerbach of the Lecturesseems to be offering a relatively simple theory of religious origins. Religion arises, he suggests, out of the insecurity human beings feel when confronted with the threatening powers of nature and the fragility of their own existence. Human beings recognize their dependence on the natural world,[41] and render that dependence less threatening by creating from their imaginations personal beings who are thought of as in control of that world.
Man does not have his life in his own hand, or at least not entirely; some outward or inward circumstance, if only the bursting of a tiny blood vessel in my brain, can suddenly end my life, and remove me against my will from my wife and children, friends and relatives. But man wants to live; his life is his most precious possession. Impelled by his instinct of self-preservation, his love of life, he instinctively transforms this desire into a being capable of granting it, a being with human eyes to see his tears, with human ears to hear his complaints. For nature cannot grant this desire; nature, in reality, is not a personal being; it has no heart, it is blind and deaf to the desires and complaints of man.[42]

In order to create these deities, the human imagination personifies some aspect of the natural world, whether particular beings (in the veneration of sacred objects), nature as a whole (in a religion such as that of the Qur an), or (in more philosophical forms of theism) the general ideas that we abstract from the concrete reality of things.[43] beings also personify and deify that which is most characteristic of human beings, namely the power of mind, expressed in speech, so that the monotheistic god resembles a human ruler, who can govern millions by his mere word.[ 44] To this point, Feuerbachs later theory of religion seems far from original. The theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (17681834) had already traced religion back to a feeling of dependency, as Feuerbach himself notes, [45] although in support of a somewhat more traditional form of belief. And it was David Hume who championed the idea that religions emerge from our feelings of insecurity when confronted with the powers of nature. Humes description of the precariousness of our human state and the way in which it gives rise to religion is particularly close to Feuerbachs view:
We are placed in this world, as in a great theatre, where the true 8

springs and causes of every event are entirely concealed from us; nor have we either sufficient wisdom to foresee, or power to prevent those ills, with which we are continually threatened. We hang in perpetual suspense between life and death, health and sickness, plenty and want; which are distributed amongst the human species by secret and unknown causes, whose operation is oft unexpected, and always unaccountable. These unknown causes, then, become the constant object of our hope and fear; and while the passions are kept in constant alarm by an anxious expectation of the events, the imagination is equally employed in forming ideas of those powers, on which we have so entire a dependance.[46]

Hume goes on to note that since we have a universal tendency towards anthropomorphismwe find human faces in the moon, armies in the clouds; and by a natural propensity, if not corrected by experience and reflection, ascribe malice or goodwill to every thing, that hurts or pleases us[ 47]it is not surprising that we think of those unknown powers that control our fate as personal beings. But at other times Feuerbach takes this line of argument further; in doing so he does seem to be breaking new ground. He suggests that at the heart of religion there lies something deeper than our sense of dependency on the natural world. More precisely, perhaps, the natural world with which we are confronted is not merely something external to us. It includes much of our own being. In Feuerbachs own words,
The object of religion is nature, which operates independently of man and which he distinguishes from himself. But this nature is more than the phenomenon of the outside world; it also includes mans inner nature, which operates independently of his knowledge and his will. . . . The ultimate secret of religion is the relationship the conscious the unconscious, the voluntaryand the involuntary in one and the same individual.[48]

On the one hand, we human beings are subjects, that is to say, conscious beings, in partial control of our world. But at the same time we sense that vast areas not only of the external world but also of our own nature are mysterious to us and beyond our control. We are not masters over the forces that produced us or the impulses that drive us. The conscious being, the I, is confronted with the world of nature, the not-I, from which it emerges. In a

passage, which (as Van Harvey notes) reads like the work of a much more recent thinker,[49] Feuerbach writes:
Man with his ego or consciousness stands at the brink of a bottomless abyss; that abyss is his own unconscious being, which seems alien to him and inspires him with a feeling which expresses itself in words of wonderment such as: What am I? Where have I come from? To what end? And this feeling that I am nothing without a not-Iwhich is distinct from me yet intimately related to me, something other, which is at the same time my ownbeing, is the religious feeling.[50]

The personification and deification of this world of the not-I is what gives rise to religion. In Feuerbachs words, religion transforms everything that is not a product of the human will into a product of the divine will, everything that is not a human achievement, the work of man, into the achievement, the gift, the work of God.[51]

Do We Need Religion?
If all we knew of Feuerbach was his early work The Essence of Christianity, it would be easy to argue for the ongoing significance of religion in general and Christianity in particular. Stripped of its claims to speak of a divine being distinct from the world, it could be said, the doctrines of Christianity could be taken to be disguised expressions of human self-knowledge. They may not tell us anything about God, but they do tell us something about human beings. In this sense, the early Feuerbach could be a friend to the theologian who has abandoned God, yet wishes to retain religion. And, as we have seen, Geering is a leading exponent of a theology of this type. But if the interpretation I have offered is correctan interpretation which owes much to the work of Van Harveythe later Feuerbach adopts a less sanguine view. While Part One of The Essence of Christianityis devoted to what Feuerbach calls the true or anthropological essence of religion, there is no corresponding section in the Lectures, the whole of which is devoted to the criticism of religion and its explanation as a form of delusion. For the later Feuerbach, if there is a truth in religion, it is simply the truth of our dependency on the natural world,[ 52] and what wisdom is available to human beings comes from a recognition and acceptance of that dependency. As Feuerbach writes of himself,

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though I myself am an atheist, I openly profess religion in the sense just mentioned, that is, nature religion. I hate the idealism that wrenches man out of nature; I am not ashamed of my dependency on nature; I openly confess that the workings of nature affect not only my surface, my skin, my body, but also my core, my innermost being, that the air I breathe in bright weather has a salutary effect not only on my lungs but also on my mind, that the light of the sun illumines not only my eyes but also my spirit and my heart. And I do not, like a Christian, believe that such dependency is contrary to my true being or hope to be delivered from it. I know further that I am a finite mortal being, that I shall one day cease to me. But I find this very naturaland am therefore perfectly reconciled to the thought.[53]

Only by an acceptance of the fact that we are indeed part of nature can we be liberated from absurd desires, such as the longing for immortality,[54] and become whole human beings, creatures of this world rather than beings who long for another.[55]

Religion After Feuerbach

The question which I hope this discussion has raised is this: If we accept Feuerbachs criticism of religion, what is left of our traditional faith? Do we still need religion? If so, what kind of religion do we need? In a short work published in 1998, entitled Does Society Need Religion?, Geering addresses precisely this question. He notes that those who have attempted to stamp out religion have merely created new forms of religion. Our own age has seen a proliferation of new religious movements, and those movements which set out to abolish religion, such as Marxism or secular rationalism, have often functioned as secular religions. This is hardly surprising. As individuals, we search for meaning and purpose and as a society we need common symbols around which we can rally. So yes, Geering argues, society does need religion. What it needs, he writes, is a common religion which nurtures and preserves the personal bonds of trust and good will needed to hold a society together. [56] What would this religion look like? Well, not surprisingly, it has much in common with Feuerbachs later views. In particular, it embraces the idea that we are entirely dependent on the natural world out of which we have sprung. As Geering writes in Tomorrows God, the meaning system (or religion) which is appropriate for the global world must therefore clearly focus
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on the earth.[57] Why? It is because we have evolved out of the earth and we remain dependent on it for our well-being and our future. . . We humans have come forth from the earth as from a cosmic womb. We are utterly dependent on the earth for our continued existence.[ 58] But because we are aware of our dependence on the earth in a way in which other creatures are not, our relationship with the earth constitutes a new kind of mystical union.[ 59]

God-Talk After Feuerbach

What distinguishes Geerings work from that of the later Feuerbach is that Geering describes his new religious position as belief in God. But of course it is not religious belief in any traditional sense of that term. Geering spells out what this new form of belief entails in the words of the theologian Gordon Kaufman:
To believe in God is to commit oneself to a particular way of ordering ones life and action. it is to devote oneself to working towards a fully humane world within the ecological constraints here on planet Earth, while standing in awe before the profound mysterious of existence.[60]

If this is what it means to believe in God, thenas Geering himself writesfew would wish to call themselves atheists.[ 61] the question I want to raise is: Is this helpfully described as belief in God? Why use the term God in this context? What function does it have, if it no longer denotes a supernatural being? Do we need this language, if we have indeed abandoned theism? Let me illustrate what I mean by reference to a particular passage from Geerings work. Almost any of his discussions of the term God would do, but a useful instance is to be found in Does Society Need Religion? At one point Geering writes that
to worship God in the 21st century is to marvel at the living ecosphere of life on this planet, of which we are a product and on which we depend for our existence and continuing sustenance. Life on this planet is itself the manifestation of God and our own life participates in the life of God.[62]

But just what could that last sentence mean, given that there is no God, as an supernatural being distinct from the world? What could it mean to say that life on this planet is itself the manifestation of God? Perhaps Geering would suggest, following Kaufman, that living beings manifest a serendipitous creativity, an astonishing ability to adapt to new circumstances and continue
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to flourish.[63] Perhaps it is this creativity to which Geering is referring when he uses the term God.[ 64] Fair enough. But then why use the term God, if what you really mean is creativity? In the context of a non-theistic understanding of God, is religious language not redundant? What needs to be said can be said without it. At times Geering suggests that whether we continue to use the term God is a relatively unimportant question. The important thing, he suggests, is the way of life which we embrace. As he writes in Tomorrows God,
whether we continue to use the word God, or not, in order to speak about this faith, is a matter of personal choice. The particular words we use, being arbitrary, are relatively unimportant; what is important are the supreme values we come to associate with such time-honoured words as God, and the responsibilities to which those values call us.[65]

But this seems, at the very least, disingenuous. Geerings popularity as a religious writer stems from the fact that he offers us a new way of understanding the term God. And he himself argues that if we abandon this word, we may have to invent another verbal symbol to take its place as a focus of meaning.[66 ]So we apparently need God, or something closely resembling it. We need such a term both as an ultimate point of reference and as a way of avoiding the hubris of seeing ourselves as self-made beings. [67] given the power of religious symbols, to which Geerings work testifies, it can hardly be a matter of indifference whether God is used.

The Dangers of Non-Theistic Religion

If it is used, if we do continue to speak of God while no longer believing in a supernatural being, then we must face up to the dangers inherent in such a practice. The first danger is that we will invite misunderstanding. Our continued use of religious language demands of our readers or hearers that they continually reinterpret the word God, stripping it of its traditional associations. Not all readers or hearers are going to do this. And unless we can offer a clear alternative meaning, we are making our hearers task almost impossible. It is all very well to say that the term God is now being used functionally, to establish a focus of meaning.[ 68] if we fail to spell out just what that focus of meaning is, thenwhether we like it or notour language may be interpreted as lending support to traditional theism. And if we do spell out what the term God now means (as in the case of serendipitous
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creativity), we must face the charge that this reality is more accurately described in non-religious terms. And perhaps it would be better described in non-religious terms. For there is a second danger associated with the continued use of religious language. It is a danger which Geering himself has highlighted, in other contextsthe danger of creating new idols for old.[ 69] it traditional theism objectionable? Because, Geering writes, it enables people unconsciously to project their own beliefs on to a divine authority, and then attempt to impose them on their fellows, in the belief that in doing so they are simply obeying the divine imperative.[70] But while the term God continues to enjoy its traditional associations, are we not in danger of perpetuating this practice? By using the term God do we not risk making an idol out of our political commitments? We may no longer go on crusades in the name of God, setting out to defeat the infidel. But if we join Greenpeace in the name of God, we may be merely giving religious fanaticism a new goal. To his credit, Geering himself once spoke of precisely this danger. In God in the New World, he wrote that the continued use of the word God with all its associations and images. . . always constitutes a temptation to turn back in the direction of mythology, and that leads to idolatry.[ 71] But it is one thing to be aware of the danger; it is quite another to avoid it. If you continue to use religious language, while denying that it has an other-worldly object, then you inevitably speak of some this-worldly reality as if it were divine. And this looks suspiciously like idolatry. Do I exaggerate this danger? I dont think so. In a paper delivered in 1996 to a Sea of Faith conference, Geering cites with approval the words of Thomas Berry:
The ecological age fosters the deep awareness of the sacred presence within each reality of the universe. There is an awe and reverence due to the stars in the heavens, the sun and the heavenly bodies; to the seas and the continents; to all living forms of trees and flowers; to the myriad expressions of life in the sea; to the animals of the forest and the birds of the air. To wantonly destroy a living species is to silence forever a divine voice.[72]

To wantonly destroy a living species is to silence forever a divine voice. If this is not idolatry, giving divine status to a this-worldly reality and (by implication) to our efforts to preserve it, then I dont know what idolatry means. In saying this, I am not saying that we should not join Greenpeace. I

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am not saying that we should not oppose the destruction of living species. On the contrary, I believe that we should. But I also believe that we contribute nothing helpful to the ecological debate by describing the values we are trying to preserve as divine. The early Feuerbach or the later Feuerbach, a Christianity without God or an atheism which cuts loose from our religious heritage. . . those are the choices which lie open to those who accept Feuerbachs analysis of religion. Geering opts to remain within a religious tradition, albeit in a radically reinterpreted form. And perhaps he is right to do so. Perhaps we human beings are incorrigibly religious; perhaps we cannot live without religious language and ritual practices. If so, let me make my own position clear. I would prefer Lloyd Geerings religion to most of those that are currently on offer. But it brings with it some of the same dangers which attended traditional theism. The most serious of these is that we risk falling into new forms of idolatry, giving divine status to this-worldly realities and to our own political ideals. So perhaps a thoroughly secular alternative is worth examining. Can we live without God? We certainly can. On this, Geering and I are agreed. Can we live without God? I dont know. But perhaps we should at least try.

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