FEUERBACH BY TAIDO CHINO

[Music] so uh ludwig feuerbach was a 19th century german philosopher who is very often overlooked in the annals of philosophical thought he's perhaps most famous for his memorable aphorism that theology is ever only anthropology by which he means something like in all of our talk about god all we're ever actually doing is talking about humanity and projecting that on a divine blank slate now for those familiar with the philosophy of religion this is something of a commonplace observation in fact it's something of a working presupposition for many kinds of places that are doing work in religious studies now what is perhaps taken for granted in some fields of study today however was a controversial highly controversial observation made in the middle of 19th century germany so over the next several minutes what i hope to do is to first take some time to discuss foyer box life and particularly his cultural and philosophical context second to consider his influential thought as expressed in some of his most profound writing and third to reflect on the relevance for his thought for those working in theology today in 1804 in the year of emmanuel kant's death ludwig vorbach was born in the bavarian towns of lanshoot to a intellectually minded family ludwig's father was sent from berlin to bavaria in order to reform the the legal code there in the early 19th century ludwig's siblings included a mathematician an archaeologist a philologist and even one brother who would go on to follow in his father's footsteps and become a professor of jurisprudence ludwig's nephew was anselm foyerbach an important painter in the german classical style so as you can see ludwig was born into a broad-minded cultured and intellectually robust family which in some ways may have contributed to ludwig's high estimation of the potentiality of the human person the four box family was also a religious one which meant that they would have been part of the kind of cultured protestantism protestantism that is um appropriate for a family of this stature ludwig himself was especially devout as a young person in fact he went to the university of heidelberg with the intention of studying theology however the cultural turmoil that was taking place in the middle of the 19th century in germany found a kind of correspondence in a philosophical upheaval that was also taking place during the time one to which feuerbach would contribute himself in no small measure while at heidelberg he became enthralled with the philosophy of hegel which would eventually result in his moving from heidelberg to berlin to study with the great master himself also during that time in berlin was friedrich schleiermacher who was developing his own approach to the theological task in terms of a feeling of absolute dependence while commentators regularly observe the influence that hegel had on foyer block one might argue that schleiermacher's emphasis on human experience and on feeling also found expression in foyer box writing as well however foir box dissertation topic on the infinitude unity and universality of reason clearly announces his engagement with hegel's thought after successfully defending his dissertation in 1828 he was appointed to a lectureship at the university of erlangen where he lectured and he began to write on the history and development of philosophy however his career his academic career was cut short largely due to an incendiary work that he had published anonymously but that was later discovered to be attributed to him in which he not only questioned the existence of god but he also ridiculed a number of christian doctrine when it was discovered that he was its author he was dismissed from his lectureship and he was unable to find another university position however at this time forback had fallen in love and he married a woman named berta love and they moved to back to bavaria where her family owned a porcelain factory and she was a part owner in it this afforded them some measure of financial security and set and so now no longer uh tied to an institution floybach was free to pursue his intellectual interest as he liked it was during this time that he wrote the work that he's most famous for das vezen deschristen tombs or the essence of christianity which gained him both ardent supporters and sharp critics we'll return to explore some of the themes that are developed in that book but its main aim was to argue that the object of faith is not the triune god disclosed in scripture and affirmed in the creeds but rather humanity and its increasing potential realized over time the book was an immediate sensation friedrich engels a close associate of marx claims that it had broken the spell of the hegelian system and that overnight everybody had become foierbachean david strauss a pioneer in the quest for the historical jesus he hailed it as the truth for their time uh it was in short order turn translated into english by george eliot otherwise known as marian evans who apparently shared in foyer box high estimation of human possibilities further evidence of his influence is indicated by the ways in which marx and sigmund freud and friedrich nietzsche all draw on foyer box thinking in different ways to develop their own theories and ideas these three are sometimes called the masters of suspicion and so it is perhaps not entirely unwarrant warranted to think of weirder bach as the the grand master of suspicion and yet despite his critical acclaim four back would never rise to the ranks of either hegel or marx and is most often considered to be something of a kind of bridge figure between these two much more influential thinkers while forbach would continue to write and develop his thought and deepen his insights on religion and on humanity in fresh ways the remainder of his life was plagued with a number of challenges and setbacks family problems failing health financial difficulties censorship efforts all of which may have potentially contributed to his inability to make further contributions that or to curtail his influence he died in 1872 the same year that bear trend russell was born a philosopher who in some ways would have shared some of foyer buck's concerns in order to come to terms with uh foirbach's significance and legacy one needs to at least make some kind of effort to push past the the slogan theology as anthropology first when one tries to do this however we encounter a number of problems but maybe two stick out in particular first four bach was a relatively productive writer and so trying to neatly summarize his corpus in any kind of easy way is elusive second and maybe as importantly his writing spans a number of decades and during that time his thinking on crucial issues changes more than once and so it's difficult maybe sometimes to understand exactly where we are in foyer box development that being said if we come to for about primarily interested in the theological contributions that um he might make then the task becomes somewhat more manageable because it's in the already mentioned essence of christianity that foyerbach makes his most sustained contribution to theological thought and so it'll be a natural starting point as has been said he's most remembered for this idea that theology is anthropology or that humanity has projected their desires onto a kind of divine blank slate but that doesn't quite get at the heart of four box thought projection theories of religion actually predate foreign by some centuries the idea that humans have tended to read themselves onto their divinities

Channel: Timeline Theological Videos

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Id: O4vecb1Y6ME

Length: 10min 5sec (605 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 06 2018