A priest consecrates the sacred host and suddenly, it is no longer just bread. It becomes the literal body of Christ. For believers, this is actually the case. However its truth only relies on the fact that it exists solely as a ‘meaning’ or a belief that is projected by those who believe. The bread becomes flesh only in its significance and imagination. In reality, it merely stays bread for non-believers.
The Eucharist is also believed to change the believers. But if it produces no effect at all without faith, then its reality relies on faith alone and it is nothing without such a certain mental state. It is nothing but the consumption of bread and wine. It does, however, reveal the value of bread and wine when the Scriptures were written.
Summing up the core argument in the book “The Essence of Christianity” by Ludwig Feuerbach, every doctrine a religion believes in is a projection of our very own human nature and its inventor’s particular culture, beliefs, desires, and dislikes at a particular point in time. The doctrines and beliefs of a religion, whether supernatural or morally prohibitive, is not necessarily a reflection of truth. It reflects the ideals and prejudices that a particular group of humans finds valuable or abhorrent at their time and place. This idea is what’s called Feuerbach’s projection theory – and using this tool, he went on to demonstrate this idea in relation to Christianity throughout the book.
Projection is the essence of religion in general; it does not contain truths but rather it projects ideas it wants to be true. Whatever version of god we have is an invention that is created in the image of man and not the other way around. So in essence, when man worships god, he really is worshipping himself. God is human nature that is falsely believed as an external being who possesses what man wants to have yet is short of having such as moral perfection, intellectual perfection, the ability to move mountains and do the impossible. But these are capabilities that either man already possesses or if not, ideals that express the extent of his imagination.
Western Christians often say God is beyond comprehension, yet they contradict this truth by describing him through attributes they can actually comprehend
One such example is when Western Christians often say God is beyond comprehension, yet they contradict this truth by describing him through attributes they can actually comprehend – omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence – and make an excuse by saying these are just mere descriptions that define God but God is way greater than this. Again, this is a projection of an ideal that both shows his imagination, his desires/aversions and shows what he already possesses but is frustrated of not having it in abundance. Man actually exists but only in one place. Man is intelligent but he cannot know everything. He has power to do things but is limited either by logic or circumstance. He is capable of being good but he is a sinner. So, he shifts this burden of responsibility by imagining an external being so he could comfort himself in failing to transcend his limitations through the idea of perfection that he is able to imagine.
There are a number of doctrines that Feuerbach has demonstrated to be a projection and criticized such as how Christian love is limited by faith and is therefore not universal, contradictions in the trinity or the existence of god and his nature, the mysteries of faith, miracles, suffering, the resurrection, the immaculate conception, etc. which we cannot tackle due to the limits of this article. The theological concepts Feuerbach has tackled in his work are just one among many doctrines that are a result of human projection and that no doctrine is exempted from such projections. If anything, the projection only begins from there and he gave as a tool/lens/framework, whatever you may call it, in which we can critically dissect the truth hiding behind every religious doctrine.
We should therefore not be surprised if we find a lot of doctrines from Christianity that are either sexist, homophobic, or one that promotes human/animal sacrifice, slavery, and strange dietary restrictions. These are not actually ideals of God because God is man’s will. These ideals are man’s will at a particular culture and point of time presented as a separate divine law that actually only exists in belief but not as a universally binding metaphysical truth. The same extends with all the other religions.
Projection is the concealed essence of religion; there is a motive behind every doctrine. As Feuerbach concludes, theology is therefore anthropology. When we study god, religion, divinity in general and see through the projections, what we are really studying is human consciousness and each version reflects a different consciousness shaped by its spatiotemporal cultural contexts.
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Work Cited: Feuerbach, Ludwig., The Essence of Christianity trans. George Eliot and Zawar Hanfi (New York: Dover Publications, 2008).
