Freud and Christianity
- Author:
Lee, Vicar of University Church, Oxford. James Clarke & Co.
204 pp. 8s. 6d.
Dr Lee has attempted (as others have done before him) to effect an accommodation between Freudian theory and Christian doctrine. The task is formidable enough to daunt all but the most sanguine apologist ; and it would be as idle to pretend that Dr Lee succeeds, as to deny that much of what he has written ought to be read, by Christians and Freudians alike.
The author seeks to mediate : but a mediator ” is not a mediator of one “. And virtually all the concessions required to establish the concordat are, it seems, to come from the Christian side. We are invited to accept, without cavil, comment or hesitation, the most orthodox Freudian dogma, presented here with praiseworthy lucidity though of course in summary form. It is by the test of this ” ur-Freudian ” corpus that Christianity is to be judged, and by this test is found wanting. Even the chronology of the Bible is at fault if, and because, it does not follow the master-pattern. The modifications of traditional Christian teaching which are needed to make it ” square ” with psychological truth are so radical and far-reaching that they amount to a major operation : indeed, the result would be a religion lacking many of the authentic marks of Christianity. The darker side of life, and its theological corollaries, do not appeal to Dr Lee. The way of ” obedience ” (along which so many neurotics have passed to new life and health) is dismissed as ” super-ego religion God is a ” friendly ” person, revealed in a very human ” natural ” and ” friendly ” Jesus? a Christ who, it is safe to assert, could not possibly have spoken more than (say) half of what is attributed to Him in the Gospels. To do justice to Dr Lee, he would very likely agree that He could not have done so.
Whatever may be said about Freudian theory and Practice, it is clear (and this book adds to the evidence) that they cannot be easily turned into an. instrument for the criticism and reform of religion. If Dr Lee had not claimed, in his preface, ^ demonstrate ” how psycho-analysis can cleanse Christianity of non-Christian elements “, it would have been easier for the sort of reader for whom his “??k is presumably intended to weigh his other Assertion, that it can also ” give deeper insights Jnto the true qualities of human life “. For in this (though the terms of reference are so widely and boldly drawn) he is more successful, and some of his obiter dicta are forceful and to the point. G.L.R.
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