My publisher wondered if that description was too bold or audacious. Was I really providing a "new" apologetics?
I said it was. The Authenticity of Faith really was a new sort of apologetics. Nothing like this book had ever been published.
Sigmund Freud (along with many others before and since) claimed that religious faith was the result of wishful thinking, a craving for consolation and solace. That assessment has proved to be very potent. Especially as honest people know there is evidence backing up the claim.
As we say, there are no atheists in foxholes. And isn't life just one big foxhole?
But what can theologians, philosophers or biblical scholars--specialists in what I call "classical apologetics"--say about any of this?
Nothing really. Freud's claim isn't biblical, historical, theological or philosophical. It's an empirical claim about human psychology, about the motivations behind religious belief.
Which means that if you want to assess or evaluate Freud's claim you can't do it from the theologian's armchair or the philosopher's lectern. To get directly at the question you're going to have put Freud's claim to the test, to assess it empirically.
Is religious belief motivated by wishful thinking? Empirically speaking, either it is or it isn't.
Given that the issue regards human motivation, this seems to be a question only psychologists can address.
And if you haven't read the book, what is the take home point?
Based upon some of my own research, I conclude that Freud wasn't wholly wrong. Religious persons have to take Freud seriously. The motivations Freud describes do exist. Faith is often motivated by a need for existential consolation, and this motivational configuration has a lot of pernicious outcomes. So beware. And be aware.
That's a lesson I share with my students. "I know you want to blow Freud off, but you can't. He's making an important observation, an observation a thoughtful religious person will take seriously."
But Freud's mistake, I go on to say, was his "one size fits all" approach, his insistence on cramming the whole of religious experience into this narrow motivational box. Consequently, a better approach in describing religious motivation is the one used by William James: there are varieties of religious experiences and motivations.
And if that's the case, if there are religious varieties, how could you tell the difference?
This, it seems to me, is the crucial, diagnostic question. For individual believers and for faith communities.
And the book, which I hope you'd read, tries describe a way to answer that question.
