Sigmund Freud Vs Lewis

The Spiritual Worldview

Whether people choose to be a believer in God or a nonbeliever, their original worldviews tend to stem from the views of their family members. These worldviews are typically developed throughout early childhood and are based on the premise of wanting to be accepted by someone (typically family), this is classified as having extrinsic faith. However, as children grow up, they often begin to express their individuality and question their worldviews. This is a demonstration of intrinsic faith, which Sigmund Freud and C.S Lewis exemplify. Sigmund Freud and C.S Lewis are famous theologians who’s writings share a common parallelism, but disagree on whether or not there is a God. Lewis stands behind the spiritual worldview

One of Freud’s primary arguments to disprove the existence of God was based on the premise that religious beliefs were formed from wishful thinking and that God is simply a representation of parental authority. In this case, Freud believes that since children think of their parents as superheroes, they create God as an image of their parents.6 While this analysis does seem relatively reasonable, God is actually even more understanding and compassionate than parents are and he longs to be with us. Therefore, God simply cannot be just a representation of parents. Believing in God is also not wishful thinking because as Lewis points out, living a religious life involves a great deal of despair. When someone believes in God, they learn there is always room for improvement within themselves, which for most people can be hard to accept. Following this, another strong argument Freud made which was rather convincing, was that everything can be explained by the scientific method because it is the only source of knowledge humans can physically prove. Therefore, Freud believes if God cannot be proven by the scientific method, he can’t be real. However, this as well cannot be entirely true because while science does explain a lot, a lot of science is only made up of theories that are not actually proven. Freud is not realizing that while the

Admittedly, while I do believe Lewis makes the best argument for the existence of God, it should be noted that Freud died before Lewis. Therefore, Lewis had the final word and Freud was not able to defend his position against Lewis. However, even if Freud was able to counter Lewis’s arguments, Freud’s ideas were all based strictly on reason and lacked faith. In any event, all good arguments are based on critical reason and faith. In addition, Lewis shows how religion is not the easiest route to take; however it can reveal life-altering insights into one’s life. Especially, the importance of loving others as if they were our self, a phrase commonly referred to as agape.10 Lewis also expressed how it is fine to dislike what another person does, but it is not ok to dislike the person.10 To make sense of this explanation, Lewis discussed how even if someone doesn’t enjoy certain qualities about themselves, at the end of the day they would still want what is best for them. When Lewis explained these views, my spiritual worldview was immensely enhanced as it allowed me to look at my faith from a different angle and understand the real meaning behind the phrase, “love others as if they were yourself”. In contrast, Freud talked about how believers have an image of God that reflects their parents and anyone who believes in God is living in a fairy-tale. However, when Nicholi organized a