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Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind... Romans 12:2

Jack or Sigmund?

by Ben House

The first half of the twentieth century ought to have finished off Christianity. If the scientific worldview, supported by Darwin among others, had any real impact, it ought to have completely undermined the spiritual worldview. Technological progress of the twentieth century put us all closer to the Jetsons than to the Amish. (If this scholarly allusion eludes you, ask someone over forty to explain who the Jetsons were.) On the darker side, the evils of that century certainly caused some to doubt the existence of a good, wise, and all-powerful God. The smoking towers of the Nazi concentration camps and the frozen steppes of the Soviet Gulag were merely the better-known examples of genocidal contagion that plagued the century.

Scott Fitzgerald said that the men who returned from World War I found "all gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken." That was at the beginning of the Roaring Twenties; things got worse. Piers Brendan's excellent book, The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s, surveys the political and social upheavals during the decade of the 1930s. This was the time in which Stalin ironically killed enough Communists to put him in the anti-Communist hall of fame, with many of his victims being friends and fellow assassins. Mussolini's Fascists gained power in Italy and Hitler's Nazis ushered in the Third Reich in Germany and began his brutal war against humanity. But these are only the best-documented political horrors. Spain suffered a horrible civil war. Japan and China were in upheaval. France, recovering from its terrible World War I death toll, was becoming ... France. In Britain successive spineless governments dithered, and in America, struggling through the Great Depression, liberal Franklin Roosevelt looked quite moderate when compared with the radical fringes.

Far worse in long-term implications were the philosophical positions of the twentieth century. When shopping for the component parts of a worldview, the main choices were found at Darwin's or Freud's or Nietzsche's. The auxiliary parts, such as economic and political theories or personal ethics, would take you to the selections offered by such thinkers as Marx or Sartre. If you were the optimistic sort, you could, like Marx, work for the worldwide proletarian revolution. If you were more pessimistic, then following Sartre, you could kill yourself and end the illusion, or even more like Sartre, simply advise others to do so.

A dark age descended over the twentieth century that was quite short lived. The darkness turned out to be only the backdrop, the setting designed to contrast the brighter hues that emerged when proper lighting was applied. Christianity did not disappear. God did not die at Auschwitz or in Siberia. Faith did not vanish under high-tech microscopes. Corrie Ten Boom and others testified for Christ in German concentration camps. Alexander Solzhenitsyn and others found God in Soviet Gulags. Richard Wurmbrand preached Christ behind the Iron Curtain. Armando Valladares, in a prison camp in Castro's Cuba, often heard men shouting, "Viva Christo Rey!" (LOng live Christ the King!") as they stood before firing squads. As G.K. Chesterton noted about Church history, every time Christianity seemed to be going to the dogs, the dogs died and the faith survived.

The twentieth century clarified the ultimate choices in this world. Either Christianity is true or nothing is true. The late nineteenth century and early twentieth century prophets saw it coming. Dostoevsky said, "If there is no God, then all is permitted." His soul brother G.K. Chesterton said, "If men do not believe in God, then they will not believe in nothing, but will believe in anything."

Paul Johnson's masterpiece Modern Times is one of the best works to read to understand the history of the century. His book Intellectuals is a great appendix to Modern Times in which he shows the rotten fruit of many modern thinkers. The brightest sages, the heralds of the future, the crests of the waves of evolutionary progress all soon were diminished and collapsed. The New World Order and the New Man, the Communist future and the Ubermensch, are now all gone, buried under the rubble. Soviet leader Krushchev threatened, "We will bury you," but we now wonder where he is buried. The twentieth century idols for destruction ended with quite a bit of whimpering and not with a bang. Once again, God made foolish the wisdom of the world.

For another view of that most dismal and yet encouraging century, let us consider a recent book that contrasts the two key polarizing figures of the twentieth century. The book is The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life by Dr. Armand M. Nicholi, Jr. (New York: The Free Press, 2002). Dr. Nicholi based the book on a class he teaches at Harvard University where he guides the students through discussions of the major ideas of both Freud and Lewis. Nicholi's background is in the field of psychiatry; for some years, he simply taught on Freud. The original course found students divided over Freud. When he incorporated the contrasting views of Lewis into the course, the class grew in popularity.

Lewis and Freud are an excellent choice for this great conversation. Freud was a generation older than Lewis; he died in 1939 in London at the point when Lewis was just beginning his most creative writing stage. Lewis's writings evidence having read Freud or Freud's followers enough to understand his worldview. Freud never read Lewis, but in his life experiences and writings, he weighed in on many of the same issues that Lewis later addressed in his Christian writings.

Both men were atheists. Freud rejected the strong Jewish faith of his father and the Christian faith of various peers and friends. For him, atheism was not just a personal preference but also a philosophical necessity in light of man's condition here on earth. Christianity was wishful thinking; a truthful appraisal of life and the mind would lead to atheism, which was stark, brutal, and hopeless, but realistic. Lewis rejected his childhood faith after the death of his mother and was until age thirty-one an atheist. For many Christians, his conversion story—that of a man brought kicking and screaming into the Kingdom of God—is quite well known and loved. Lewis, like Freud, read widely and deeply. In time a chorus made up of great poets of the past, brilliant Christian authors like Chesterton, and a circle of friends (including J.R.R. Tolkien) all drowned out Lewis's atheism. During the first half of his life, Lewis reinforced his atheist arguments with Freud's ideas, and during the second half he answered those same arguments.

Both men dealt with many of the same experiences, but came to different conclusions. Both suffered greatly from the loss of loved ones. Lewis's childhood loss of his mother helped plunge him into atheism. The later loss of his wife, Joy, sent him into a spiritual struggle but ultimately affirmed his faith. Freud's loss of family members brought him only the empty grief of one having no hope beyond this world. Both men were obviously brilliant, well-read, in tune with the intellectual currents of their world, and skilled debaters and thinkers. Both men wrote profusely. We have their autobiographies, their letters, and their many volumes.

Both men presented well-thought out and consistent worldviews. They both said, in effect, "If this point is true, then this is how we should then live." In fact, Nicholi divides the book into two sections: "What Should We Believe?" and "How Should We Live?" Both staked out their positions so well that one has little need to go beyond these two men to see what philosophical choices are out there to choose from. Nicholi states, "Both Freud's and Lewis's views have existed since the beginning of recorded history .... All of us embrace some form of Freud's or Lewis's worldview." When struggling through the guest list of the ultimate intellectual meal, there is only one decision to make and only one guest to invite: Jack or Sigmund?

The Question of God is a dual biography. The lives of Lewis and Freud are told side by side. Being men of thought, their ideas on religious and ethical issues are contrasted at all points. So The Question of God is also a book on theology, particularly apologetics. To stumble into the key Reformed apologetic debate, let me make a few polite comments and leave. Like the Classical apologists, Nicholi appeals to the reader to sit down and listen objectively to both sides and then consider whose ideas are best. Like the Presuppositionalists, he shows how the presuppositions of both thinkers colored their worldviews. Nicholi admits that no one is neutral on this debate. And while he does a wonderful job of objectively explaining Freud's life, his views, and the impact of his thinking on his own actions, Nicholi's judgments seem more favorable toward Lewis than toward Freud.

The PBS Series
Not only is it rare to find secular professors talking about C.S. Lewis, it is even more rare to find television programs that accurately present the Christian faith. Yet, PBS produced a two-part series based on Dr. Nicholi's book and course. Titled "The Question of God," this series included documentary accounts and reenactments of the lives of Lewis and Freud. For any who loved either or both versions of Lewis's story portrayed in Shadowlands, the scenes from Lewis's life are outstanding. The segments on Freud were enlightening and helpful. In an amazing segment that strays from the historical actualities, Lewis and Freud sit across from each other in a room, puffing away on their pipe and cigar, and debate their worldviews.

Lewis's life story is always delightful. His conversion to Christianity is thrilling; his circle of friends, notably Tolkien, is incredible; the unexpected romantic love and marriage and loss in his relationship with Joy Davidman is beautifully told. By contrast, Freud's life is as depressing as his philosophy. He rejected his father's faith and the Old Testament his father gave him; he was mean and cold toward his colleagues and friends; he faced horrible health and family problems with cold stoicism; and he promoted warped notions, like the Oedipus complex, that twisted and perverted human relations and sexuality. Religious faith was an obsessive issue with him and to his dying day he was angry with the God whose existence he denied.

In the televised series, the biographical sketches are interspersed with a panel discussion. Dr. Nicholi moderates the panel and guides them along the discussion of the existence of God and the ethical implications of belief and unbelief. The panel was made up of a group of intellectual, articulate, and professional people. The views of the group ranged from scientific atheism to belief in Jesus Christ.

Unfortunately, much of this intellectual, articulate, professional group's discussion was quite banal and empty. Some defended something that perhaps could be called a god or the force or faith. One man consistently, though less than aptly, presented the Christian view. Another man consistently and aptly presented the atheistic worldview. Much else said was a muddle of Jungian psychology, intellectual graffiti, spiritualism, and incoherent, vapid ramblings. A scientist in the group, suffering from a Christian hangover imparted by missionaries who rescued his parents, stood on the fence defending Christianity, sort of. When the atheism invited him to accept atheism—for just a year—and enjoy its liberating power, the scientist had no answer.

When my rhetoric class—three bright senior girls—watched the show, we wondered: Did anyone involved in the panel discussion read their homework assignments? Still, the exercise of watching the discussion is beneficial: It teaches us patience and it reminds us of who made us to differ.

Strengthen Your Unbelief
The Question of God—the book and the video—are well worth reading and watching. This study can be profitably used in the classroom, in Sunday school, in-group studies, or for individual reading or study. The first half of the twentieth century was filled with unbelief, as represented by Freud. At the darkest hour, God raised up C.S. Lewis, one among many, who examined closely the prevalent unbelief and was convinced: it was unbelievable.

Return to Volume 10, Number 1.