December 29, 2006
Book Review - "The Question of God"
By Dr. Armand M. Nicholi, Jr.
Dr. Nicholi’s book, on the surface, looks to be about two noted figures from the last century, Sigmund Freud and C. S. Lewis. The former, the Austrian “father of psychoanalysis”, and the latter, the English author, professor and Christian apologist, would seem to be entirely unrelated; randomly chosen from a list of historical figures. Nicholi’s thesis, however, holds that there is much that links these two, especially their influence on what they both believed to be one of the central questions of any age, the “question of God.”
o Both men strove to understand their world, and their role in it, through their intellect, unwilling to accept other men’s explanations.
o Both produced rational explanations for the inner experience of life, but they came to almost entirely diametrically opposite conclusions.
Nicholi contrasts their beliefs by comparing their writings and the events of their lives. This willingness to step beyond the published works and examine their lives and relationships enriches the book and makes more plain the contrast in their “worldviews” (to use Dr. Nicholi’s preferred term.)
It may be a reflection of Nicholi’s personal feelings, or the “worldview” of this reviewer, but Freud does not come off well in the comparison. There is a darkness to his viewpoints that invaded his life. As his life progressed he seems to become more angry and unhappy. He lost friends over time, and lost them thoroughly. He seemed to collect and savor his animosities.
The contrast to Lewis is striking. Lewis began his career in the academic world as an atheistic cynic, sympathetic to Freud’s positions, scarred by his experiences of the “Great War.” Over time, through his own searching and the influence of noteworthy friends, Lewis developed a particularly “rational” theism, and became a conspicuously happy man, and a great collector of friends.
In the contrast between these two great thinkers we see a reflection of their time, the apotheosis of rationalism, and the transition, in my reading, from a rational and pessimistic atheism, to a rational and optimistic theism (moving through the popular, “optimistic” atheism of today.)
The book is described in it’s sub-title as a “debate”, although the two subjects never directly addressed one another. The reader is led to make a choice of affiliation. I should confess that I am not a fan of Freud. Much of his thinking strikes me as the fantasies of an angry and troubled man; not merely wrong but stunningly wrong. I am also very much a fan of Lewis, and am strongly attracted to his ideas. I am, therefore, not truly an objective judge for this debate. Perhaps others will find Freud’s thinking more convincing.
Even when Nicholi offers explanations for Freud’s more suspect statements, the effect is to highlight the weakness of his arguments. When Freud states that, “The world has nothing to fear from educated men,” Nicholi quickly inserts, “Freud was writing in 1927, before the rise of Nazi Germany.” Not much before, it should be noted. The entirely unsupported belief that formal education is the universal cure for evil is still among us. (So much for Freud’s self-description as “unbeliever.” His worldview is filled with the sort of hopeful fantasy that he mocked in religious belief.)
I strongly suspect that this book will be of more interest to Lewis’s admirers than Freud’s. The atheism of our day is less aggressive than earlier eras, and, as a result, harder to debate. We are much more likely to find the true “unbelievers” that Freud describes today, in a culture where few ideas are strongly held, except the idea that all ideas can be held. Contemporary writers have described our age as one where “anything can be believed, hence nothing is believed.” Perhaps the true benefit of Dr. Nicholi’s constructed debate is that it recalls a time when “the question of God” was commonly understood to be vital, and the best minds of the time were engaged in it. Whether or not you find yourself allied with Lewis or Freud, enjoy this book for the passion that both subjects brought to their thinking.