What do you watch on a Sunday evening with rain pelting the roof and nowhere to go? The possibilities on Netflix and Amazon and Hulu are limitless. A particular beauty, “The Librarians,” caught my eye, advertised as “adventures galore, secrets even more!” or something like that, which did get me to thinking: just what DO those mousy women with cat-eye glasses do at night when their hair comes down?
But no. Incredibly, instead I clicked on – for both myself and my suffering wife – “Freud’s Last Therapy Session” featuring Sigmund Freud in his last days in London during WWII, where he met with famed Christian apologist, C.S. Lewis. Anthony Hopkins plays a domineering Freud who nearly cleans Lewis’s plate with his raw, scientifically-based assessment of Lewis’ conversion from atheist to true believer. “Fairy tales!” he says. “How can a man of reason believe in this nonsense?” Although Lewis has an answer for everything in his books, here he seems to have lost his voice before the aggressive, self-assured Freud. So much so, that I had to glance at my wife now and then to see how she, a true believer herself, was taking it.
It did not look like she was taking it well, and for good reason. The questions it raised in my own mind, however, made me watch with fascination. When Lewis feebly recounts his past arguments for atheism with his friend and colleague JRR Tolkien, he tells us that Tolkien pushed him to investigate the facts about the historical record of Jesus. That, and some personal experiences, convinced Lewis. We know the ultimate argument he would have had to confront: because Jesus really existed and said pretty much what the Apostles said he said, one would have to conclude that Jesus was either a liar, a madman, or exactly who he said he was. For the first, there were thousands of witnesses to his miracles, and no sane man would allow himself to be martyred, as the apostles did, for a lie; for the second, his inscrutable intelligence in the face of his critics negates any idea that this man was insane. This leaves us, as we all know, with only the third option.
Freud did not listen to this argument, however, but rather talked of how silly this all was in the face of quotidian reality – it is, we might have to admit – and what a nasty god ‘God’ would have to be if he did exist. “Look at the suffering!” Freud stormed. Retorted Lewis, “Men, not God, have created our suffering.” “Oh yeah?” replied Freud, “What men made my daughter die of the Spanish Influenza when she was 27, and her daughter die of tuberculosis at the age of 5?...I only wish I could meet this monster and confront him on my death!” (all paraphrased)
At least Freud did admit in the end to not understanding reality. That should have been a big opener for him for the entry of divine truth.
Yes, the film did not allow Lewis to answer as he should have in many cases, but it did continue to push me to think about additional arguments for and against the belief in Christ and God that I have read. The notion of God being ‘all love’ while allowing the brutal realities of our world to continue is, of course, the biggest impediment to those who might be brought to belief. There is an answer to this, however, with two parts. The first, to which Lewis alluded, is the fact that men are themselves evil and bestow much of their suffering on each other. The second is that, through the story of Adam and Eve and the tree of good and evil, we learn that humanity caused its own separation from God by exercising the gift of free will. We all share in this separation, and it excludes no one, not children, not saints, and of course not sinners. By removing ourselves from the full protection of God, we opened ourselves as a whole to death, sickness, suffering, and of course our own evil.
At the end of the film a note is flashed to the viewer, telling us what most already know: that Freud’s writings and research changed Western civilization forever. This is true, but how did it change us? His studies correctly uncovered truths that we hide from one another and ourselves, exemplified horrifically in the Oedipus complex, but incorrectly correlated that with our lack of souls. We were, for Freud, only thinking animals, doomed to frustrated sexual lives imposed upon us by society. He also understood that it was necessary to chain the demon within, even as it created neurosis, but the world never learned to what extent that “chaining” should be. The world took his discoveries of our hidden sexual desires and frustrations, then, without caution. From this we have gotten what we have today – broken families and growing sexual dysfunction as people try to fill the hole within themselves through sexual expression. What many do not understand is that sexual need, as with any physical need, is ultimately endless. More, as Freud refused to admit, it is not our only or even our greatest drive. What society has created from his writings is a wrong-headed attempt to fulfill itself with what will never fulfill. It (society at large) is behaving much like a dog endlessly trying to catch its tale. Round and round it goes until, theoretically, it drops dead from exhaustion while solving nothing.
Additionally, Freud’s studied failure to recognize Man’s connection to, and separation from God (he had ample opportunity, being raised in a strong Jewish family) sunk him, and the society that followed him, into a morass of ultimate meaninglessness. Instead of understanding that the universe was clearly created by a creator that logically cared for its creation, he pushed God away out of anger, leaving himself and his followers – many of us – alone with our broken and deeply perverse selves. There being no God, there is no truth but what can be ferreted out by a limited scientific method. With that, we have been allowed to toss off significant portions of traditional morality in an attempt to appease our never-ending psychological needs. Here we see the dog again chasing its tale, much as our society comes perilously close to spiraling into a dark pit from which it might not return.
The writers and producers of the film exhibited the same myopia as Freud, even as they made genuine attempts to give both Freud and Lewis equal standing. We are allowed to sympathize with Lewis for his need for God and heaven, but in the end are warned against actual belief. As Freud said, God and heaven are fairytales suitable only for people with primitive or childish minds.
It is an idea that exists in many of our political and cultural leaders today. But they are only resisting the actual evidence, just as Freud did by refusing to consider the importance of transcendental experiences among his patients (and thus his break with Carl Jung, who famously DID acknowledge this). So do most of us, at least at times. In this, we are showing our fallen nature, for our “fallen-ness” is not to be found so much in our ‘naughtiness,’ but in our failure – in our subtle refusal – to see beyond the flat world that Freud helped to create and perpetuate. It is this blindness that unites us, a blindness that comes with our separation from God.
Lewis perceived that his periodic feelings of inner joy could be correlated with the real presence of God. We can see from his writings that he believed that this spiritual space elevated him and can elevate us above our worldly cruelties and twisted complexes. Freud refused to acknowledge anything of the kind. If we are to believe the film, this was done not out of a scrupulous compilation of his studies, but out of disappointment, hatred, and pride. We cannot follow his lead. It not only leads to a dead end, but leads to death itself.
Freud’s view of the human being is the perfect reflection of our shared brokenness, but we are so much more. It is not Freud’s unearthing of our inner broken selves that will save us and the world, but rather the re-discovery of our higher, spiritual being. That is what the longing for the spiritual path has always been about.
What do you watch on a Sunday evening with rain pelting the roof and nowhere to go? The possibilities on Netflix and Amazon and Hulu are limitless. A particular beauty, “The Librarians,” caught my eye, advertised as “adventures galore, secrets even more!” or something like that, which did get me to thinking: just what DO those mousy women with cat-eye glasses do at night when their hair comes down?
But no. Incredibly, instead I clicked on – for both myself and my suffering wife – “Freud’s Last Therapy Session” featuring Sigmund Freud in his last days in London during WWII, where he met with famed Christian apologist, C.S. Lewis. Anthony Hopkins plays a domineering Freud who nearly cleans Lewis’s plate with his raw, scientifically-based assessment of Lewis’ conversion from atheist to true believer. “Fairy tales!” he says. “How can a man of reason believe in this nonsense?” Although Lewis has an answer for everything in his books, here he seems to have lost his voice before the aggressive, self-assured Freud. So much so, that I had to glance at my wife now and then to see how she, a true believer herself, was taking it.
It did not look like she was taking it well, and for good reason. The questions it raised in my own mind, however, made me watch with fascination. When Lewis feebly recounts his past arguments for atheism with his friend and colleague JRR Tolkien, he tells us that Tolkien pushed him to investigate the facts about the historical record of Jesus. That, and some personal experiences, convinced Lewis. We know the ultimate argument he would have had to confront: because Jesus really existed and said pretty much what the Apostles said he said, one would have to conclude that Jesus was either a liar, a madman, or exactly who he said he was. For the first, there were thousands of witnesses to his miracles, and no sane man would allow himself to be martyred, as the apostles did, for a lie; for the second, his inscrutable intelligence in the face of his critics negates any idea that this man was insane. This leaves us, as we all know, with only the third option.
Freud did not listen to this argument, however, but rather talked of how silly this all was in the face of quotidian reality – it is, we might have to admit – and what a nasty god ‘God’ would have to be if he did exist. “Look at the suffering!” Freud stormed. Retorted Lewis, “Men, not God, have created our suffering.” “Oh yeah?” replied Freud, “What men made my daughter die of the Spanish Influenza when she was 27, and her daughter die of tuberculosis at the age of 5?...I only wish I could meet this monster and confront him on my death!” (all paraphrased)
At least Freud did admit in the end to not understanding reality. That should have been a big opener for him for the entry of divine truth.
Yes, the film did not allow Lewis to answer as he should have in many cases, but it did continue to push me to think about additional arguments for and against the belief in Christ and God that I have read. The notion of God being ‘all love’ while allowing the brutal realities of our world to continue is, of course, the biggest impediment to those who might be brought to belief. There is an answer to this, however, with two parts. The first, to which Lewis alluded, is the fact that men are themselves evil and bestow much of their suffering on each other. The second is that, through the story of Adam and Eve and the tree of good and evil, we learn that humanity caused its own separation from God by exercising the gift of free will. We all share in this separation, and it excludes no one, not children, not saints, and of course not sinners. By removing ourselves from the full protection of God, we opened ourselves as a whole to death, sickness, suffering, and of course our own evil.
At the end of the film a note is flashed to the viewer, telling us what most already know: that Freud’s writings and research changed Western civilization forever. This is true, but how did it change us? His studies correctly uncovered truths that we hide from one another and ourselves, exemplified horrifically in the Oedipus complex, but incorrectly correlated that with our lack of souls. We were, for Freud, only thinking animals, doomed to frustrated sexual lives imposed upon us by society. He also understood that it was necessary to chain the demon within, even as it created neurosis, but the world never learned to what extent that “chaining” should be. The world took his discoveries of our hidden sexual desires and frustrations, then, without caution. From this we have gotten what we have today – broken families and growing sexual dysfunction as people try to fill the hole within themselves through sexual expression. What many do not understand is that sexual need, as with any physical need, is ultimately endless. More, as Freud refused to admit, it is not our only or even our greatest drive. What society has created from his writings is a wrong-headed attempt to fulfill itself with what will never fulfill. It (society at large) is behaving much like a dog endlessly trying to catch its tale. Round and round it goes until, theoretically, it drops dead from exhaustion while solving nothing.
Additionally, Freud’s studied failure to recognize Man’s connection to, and separation from God (he had ample opportunity, being raised in a strong Jewish family) sunk him, and the society that followed him, into a morass of ultimate meaninglessness. Instead of understanding that the universe was clearly created by a creator that logically cared for its creation, he pushed God away out of anger, leaving himself and his followers – many of us – alone with our broken and deeply perverse selves. There being no God, there is no truth but what can be ferreted out by a limited scientific method. With that, we have been allowed to toss off significant portions of traditional morality in an attempt to appease our never-ending psychological needs. Here we see the dog again chasing its tale, much as our society comes perilously close to spiraling into a dark pit from which it might not return.
The writers and producers of the film exhibited the same myopia as Freud, even as they made genuine attempts to give both Freud and Lewis equal standing. We are allowed to sympathize with Lewis for his need for God and heaven, but in the end are warned against actual belief. As Freud said, God and heaven are fairytales suitable only for people with primitive or childish minds.
It is an idea that exists in many of our political and cultural leaders today. But they are only resisting the actual evidence, just as Freud did by refusing to consider the importance of transcendental experiences among his patients (and thus his break with Carl Jung, who famously DID acknowledge this). So do most of us, at least at times. In this, we are showing our fallen nature, for our “fallen-ness” is not to be found so much in our ‘naughtiness,’ but in our failure – in our subtle refusal – to see beyond the flat world that Freud helped to create and perpetuate. It is this blindness that unites us, a blindness that comes with our separation from God.
Lewis perceived that his periodic feelings of inner joy could be correlated with the real presence of God. We can see from his writings that he believed that this spiritual space elevated him and can elevate us above our worldly cruelties and twisted complexes. Freud refused to acknowledge anything of the kind. If we are to believe the film, this was done not out of a scrupulous compilation of his studies, but out of disappointment, hatred, and pride. We cannot follow his lead. It not only leads to a dead end, but leads to death itself.
Freud’s view of the human being is the perfect reflection of our shared brokenness, but we are so much more. It is not Freud’s unearthing of our inner broken selves that will save us and the world, but rather the re-discovery of our higher, spiritual being. That is what the longing for the spiritual path has always been about.
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