The Essence of Christianity

A critique of religion published in 1841 by a former student of Hegel, and translated into English in 1854 by Marian Evans, better known as the novelist George Eliot. Feuerbach argues that religion is humanity's consciousness of its own nature, unknowingly projected outward: the attributes believers ascribe to God, such as reason, will and love, are the highest qualities of the human species, set apart and worshipped as a separate being. His summary is that theology is, at bottom, anthropology. The first part reads Christian doctrines, including the incarnation, the Trinity, creation, providence, prayer and miracles, as expressions of human needs and feelings. The second part argues that once religion is treated as theology, it falls into contradictions and turns against human love and reason. The book strongly influenced Marx and Engels, though Marx soon criticised it as too abstract in his Theses on Feuerbach.

It is the classic statement of the projection theory of religion, and a direct way into the debates that led to Marx, Freud and later critics of religion.