Feuerbach, Xenophanes and the too human God David TORRlJOS-CASTRlLLEJO' Abstract Feuerbach is known fo r unmasking the concept ofGod insofar as he solved it in a celestial idealization ofthe human essence. Xenophanes already rejected the popular idea of gods, which were described as deified human beings. Our plllpose is to compare the process f ollowed by the two thinkers, because both set the human as the f ocus of their arguments. Xenophanes ' divinity retained some aspects in common with humans and such a God, despite his being different fro m men and his transcendence, is so human that he cannot be taken as a rival of man. Ultimately, one should point out how Christianity fi ts into this humanistic line ofunderstanding God and His relationship with man. Keywords: God , athei sm , Greek reli gion, human, human ism, a lie nation, anthropomorphism In my contribution I want to relate two thinkers who share a sharp critique of the religion in which they are inserted and so may be taken as models of two different types of "secularization". Both Feuerbach and Xenophanes follow a similar line, because they believe that their respective religion s contain a tacit anthropomorphism I. Their goal is, so to speak, "unmasking" anthropomorphism, but the results are very different. Feuerbach believed that Christian anthropomorphism leads to the "alienation" of man, to his destruction. In line with this approach, contemporary atheism and many of the most violent secularizing movements in the present, which fight against the Judeo-Christian heritage , have come to see in God the unbearable enemy of the human being. On the contrary, Xenophanes believes that anthropomorphism is harmful to religion as such, so he is revealed as a deeply religious • Universidad Eclesiastica San Darnaso (Madrid). E-mail address: torrijosca strillejo@gmail. com I Therefore. Feuerbach could be considered as ,.a modem Xenophanes", as says J . LESHER. .Xenophanes". in E. N. ZALTA(ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2013 Edition). URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archivesl faIl2013/entries/xenophanesi>: ..Although there may be no direct line of influence, we may also consider Feuerbach's critique of religious belief as a 'proj ection ' of human attribute s [.. .]". !'"" 180 David TORRIJOS-CASTRILLEJO and theistic thinker. We hope that this discussion will shed some light on the phenomenon of secularization and the different ways of tackling it. This path can be helpful for dialogue between theists and postmodem atheists, who no longer defend humanism and have not only proclaimed God's death but also man's death. We will start with Feuerbach because his criticism against religion is maybe better known than Xenophanes' philosophy and ancient thought usually is-as we will see-strongly determined by various tacit ly accepted modern presumptions. Only later we come to Xenophanes and finally to Christianity. Another reason for this ahistorical, puzzling order is the core of my proposa l: an invitation to philosophy to come back to a more commonsensical way of thinking than the modem one. The latter one already revealed us all its possibilities and, insofar as it leads to atheism and then to the annihilation of the human, it is not able to guide humanity to a peacefu l future. Thus, contemporary philosophy should learn from the ancient one to put God at the center of reality, because He is not an adversary of the society nor is He a rival for individual man but the guarantor for men' s happiness. So Christianity, which is a perennial guide even for modern societies, incorporates all the positive aspects of ancient think ing and the possibility to realize them in a practical way. Feuerbach The criticism of Feuerbach against Christianity does not begin direct ly from his relationship with it, but rather from the opposition to the philosophy of Hegef Hege l had understood the human being as a moment of divine being, so that Feuerbach can say: "On this process of projecting self outwards rests also the Hegelian speculative doctrine, according to which man 's consciousness of God is the se(f-consciousness of God. [.. .] The true statement is this: man' s knowledge of God is man' s knowledge of himself, of his own nature"] Indeed, this is the core of Feuerbach's critique of , M. W. WARTOFSKY, Feuerbach, Cambridge UP, New York 1977/ 198: .Jhe Essence ofChristianity is the direct outco me and the culmination of the Critique ofHegelian Philosophy. Without this context, much of its significance is lost". 3 L. FEUERBACH, The Essence of Christianity, translated by M. Evans, J. Chapman, London 1854. 224, 228; idem, Das Wesen des Christenthnms. O. Wigand. Leipzig 1841. 18. note: ,.Wenn daher in del' hegel ' schen Feuerbach. Xenophanes and the too human God 181 religion: religion is nothin g but the project ion of man ' s being in an imagined shadow , God. All the traits that characterize the divine being as presented by religions can also be found in the human being; the only difference is that in God they are sublimated, exa lted", Feuerbach speaks not only about the sublimation of man 's being, but also about a certain purification. This is the liberation of man from the constraints imposed by his finiteness. Now, is man 's finiteness itsel f a bad thing? To answer this question we have to go back to Hegel. According to him, real men are parti cular manifestations of the divine, which is universal. So what religion call s "s in" is nothing more than finiteness'. Hence Feuerbach conceives God as a bundle of universal characteri stics, where no particular attribute has a place; so that the concept of God repels all determination. Moreover, what man considers better for him is just what he attributes to God. For this reason, according to Feuerbach, in orde r to produce the referred sublimat ion, an unfulfilled desire is also necessary. The concept of God is the counterpart of that to which man aspires to but does not achieve", Thus, on one hand , the man loves a non-existent entity, which is only the emptying of all human attributes via the universal, but, on the other hand , he is frustrated becau se he meets his own desires by projecting them Religionsphilosophi e auf dem Standpunkt der mystisch-speculativen Vem unft der oberste Grundsa tz der ist: 'das Wissen des Me nschen von Gott ist das Wissen Gottes von sich selbst, so g ilt dagegen hier auf dem Standpunkt der natiirlichen Vemunft der entgegengesetzte Gru ndsatz: das Wissen des Menschen von Gott ist das Wissen des Menschen von sich selbst", 4 ,.[ ... ] Das gottliche Wese n ist nicht s andres als das menschliche Wesen ode r besser : das Wesen des Menschen, gereinigt. befreit von den Schranken des individuellen Men schen" (L. FEUERBAC H. Dos Wesen des Christenthums, op. cif.. 20). idem, Vorlesungen uber das Wesen del' Relig ion: nebst Zusatren und Anmerkungen, O. Wigand. Leipzig. 1851. 23-24: ,.[. .. ] meine Ans icht oder Lehre. nach welc her das Geheimnis der Theologie die Anthropologie ist, nach welcher das Wesen der Religion. sowohl subjectiv als objectiv nichts Andere s offenbart und ausdriick t als das Wesen des Mensc hen". 5 See G. W. F. H EGEL. Vorlesung uber die Philosophie der Religion. Werke 2. vo/. 12. Duncker und Humblot. Berlin 1832. 211-212. L. FEUERBACH, Dos Wesel1 des Christenthums. op. cit., 44: ..Der Widerspruch der Siinde mit Gott iSI daher nur der Widerspruch des individuellen Menschen rnit seinem Wesen". 6 See E. COLOMER. El Pensamiento aleman de Kant a Heidegger, Herder, Barcelona 1990, 102. 182 David TORRIJOS-CASTRI LLEJO onto a being that only is his very essence set out of him. This phenomenon is the so-called "alienation" . Man becom es strange to himself, because the more he goes out of himself to worship this fictitiou s God, the more he will be betraying his own essence and therefore voiding himself. God is therefore a destructi ve concept to man and should be banished to extract from it the only beneficial thing in it, namely, human nature. Man should be the only god that man should worship". Xenophanes Although Homeric cnticrsm of religion in general and particularly of anthropomorphism is a constant of Greek thought from its birth, Xenophanes not only insisted more than other thinkers on this point , but also followed a similar way to that followed by Feuerbach. For example, Heraclitus openly attacked Homer (OK9 22 B 42, Graham 10 25) and Empedocles critici zes anthropomorphism saying that a spherical shape is more appropriate for the god than a human form (OK 31 B 29, Graham 57). This line of argumentation would be followed by Plato, who also believed the sphere more divine than other figures (Tim., 33b34b). The founder of the Academy (Resp., 11 , 377e-378e) assumed also another point criticized by Xenophanes, namely, immorality attributed to gods (OK 21 B 11 , 12, Graham 29, 30). However, Xenophanes attracts our attention because he agrees with Feuerbach to see Homer's description of gods as somewhat superhuman men. There are many fragments of his work in which he expresses a critique of anthropomorphism. According to him, the Greeks believed that gods were like them and therefore they imagined them with bodies similar to theirs and in fact they erected 7 L. FEU ERBACH, Das Wesen des Christen/hums, op. cit., 30: .Llm Gott zu be re ichern, mu/3 der Mensch arm werden: damit Gatt Alles se i, derMensch nichts se in [H'] ' l e ahnlicher daher Gall in de r Wahrheit dem Menschen iSL desto unahnlicher wird der Mensch Gall ge rnacht oder erscheint er sieh selbst. Allein diese Selb stvemeigung is! nur Selb stbejahung" , See M. CABADA, El humanisrno premarxista de L. Feuerbach, SAC. Madrid 1975, 53-55. 8 See L. FEUERBACH, Dos Wesen des Christenthums , op. cit., 370. 9 DK = H. DIELS und W. KRANZ, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, Weidmann, Berlin 1951 -75. 10 Graham = D. H. GRAHAM, The Texts 01 Early Greek Philosophy , Cambridge UP. , Cambridge 20 10. For the Gr eek texts, I use Graham's translat ion. Feuerbach, Xenopha nes and the too human God 183 anthropomorphic sculptures to venerate them: "But mortals think gods are begotten, and have the clothing, voice, and body of mortals" (DK 21 B 14, Graham 31). So he throws an ironical hypothesis, to show the absurdity of their conduct: "Now if cattle, <horses> or lions had hands and were to draw with their hands and perform works like men, horses like horses and catt le like cattle would draw the forms of gods, and make their bodies just like the body <each of them> had" (DK 21 B IS, Graham 32). If animals could have a religion, they would also worship their own idealized image. Xenophanes extends his argument and says that each people believed the gods alike in appearance to itself: "Africans <say their gods are> snub-nosed and black, Thracians blue-eyed and redhaired" (DK 21 B 16, Graham 33). In short, Xenophanes mainly criticized the anthropomorphic dimension of Greek religion. However, unlike Feuerbach, he does believe that he must continue 10 speak about God. Xenophanes, as almost all Greek philosophers, is not an "atheist" thinker. In fact, his philosophical itinerary led him not to deny the ex istence of divinity, but to rethink the discourse about the divine. According to Xenophanes, divinity cannot be concei ved starting from imaginary stories, but our thoughts about it must be founded on philosophical truths acquired by formal reasoning!' . This is the approach to the divine proposed by theistic philosophers . Thus, Xenophanes speaks about a God devoid of the anthropomorphic traits that are characteristic to Greek mythology: "One God, greatest among gods and men, not at all like to mortals in body nor in thought" (DK 2 1 B 23, Graham 35). However, he describes the deity as being characteri zed by thought and knowledge: "AII of him sees, all thinks, all hears" (DK 21 B 24, Graham 36). Also this God has great power, but does not act going around like the Olympian gods but he is motionless and simultaneously able to influence any part of the universe: "He remains ever in the same place moving not at all, nor is it appropriate for him to flit now here, now here" (DK 21 B 26, Graham 38). " But without any toil he shakes all thinks by the thought of his mind" (DK 21 B 25, Graham 37). I1 J. H. LESHER. Xenophunes ofColophon , University of Toronto Press, Toronto 1992. /1411 9. OK 2 1 B 25. Graham 37 speaks for some cosmological causality of God. Xenophanes' God is a cosmic God and a precedent of Anaxagoras' and Socrates one: thus. such a statement about the divinity is philosophical. 184 David TORRIJOS-CASTRILLEJO Such sketchy data concerning Xenophanes' thought give rise to a signifi cant reflection. As mentioned, the philosopher comes to these formulations of the divinity conceiving it as very different from the Olympian gods. However, the result of his research still has many common points with the Homeric thought. Actually, Homer greatly emphasized the enormou s difference between gods and men through the distinction between immortal and mortal. On the other hand, Homer himself was the first who gave considerable importance to the two main factors of Xenophanes' divinity, namely, knowledge and power. This could make us think that both properties are residues of an anthropomorphic image of the divine . In short, it might seem to us that the divinity of Xenophanes is still "all too human", in Nietzsche 's words. However, I think such a judgment about his doctrine would be too simple. Some interpreters of the birth of philosophy in the Greek world have discerned two unilatera l stages, paradigmatically exemplified with the concepts of "myth" and "logos", which would mutually exclude each other. This opposition cannot be solved just formally, i.e. showing the rational elements present in the mythical tale and simultaneously the fanciful and emotional elements that remain in scientific discourse". In fact, this antagonism would also have an important doctrinal feature. Many philosophers would agree with Xenophanes in ascribing to the divinity some specific characteristics of human beings, such as knowledge and deliberate action. Is this, as Feuerbach intended, mere anthropomorphism? So we should think, according to some commentators such as Frankfort, who characterized the personal elements attributed to divinity by mythical thinking as typical effects of an imaginative and poetic way of understandin g reality; in opposition to this, rational and scientific understanding of the world eliminates all personal and anthropomorphic features and explains nature by blind causes: "[oO.] for modem, scientific man as regards the phenomen al world is primarily an 'It ' ; for ancientand so for 12 This was done, for example, by Kirk wi th myth and by Kiihn and Barb our with science : see T. S. KUHN, The Structure a/Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Pres s, Chicago 1962; G. S. KIRK, The Nature of Greek Myths, Penguin. London 1974 ; 1. G. BARBOUR. Myths. Models, and Paradigms. A comparative study in science & rel igion. Harper & Row. SanFrancisco 1974. Feuerbach, Xenophanes and the too human God 185 primitive-man it is a 'Thou,,,13 However, it is dubi table that the person al status of divinity is purel y the result of a series of "religious feelin gs". Theistic philosophers do not understand the ir discussion about the divinity as a religious d iscourse. Rather, they simp ly study rea lity and analy ze it using formal and rational methods, i.e. universally achieva ble to any human being. At the end of their way , they name divine what they have found. This is how W. Jaeger, speak ing about Anaximander, summarizes the respective approach: He cannot begin with the concept of God or the Divine, but starts with experience and the rational conclusions based on it. Having arrived in this way at the conception of a first cause, the predicates of which are equal to those which earlier religious belief used to attribute to the gods, he takes the last step, which is the identification of the highest principle with the Divine. This method was followed by ancient philosophers of later centuries" . When they att ribute "mind" or " intelligence" to this ultimate principl e of sensible things, they are not makin g a concession to their innermost feelings nor to the religiou s tradi tions of their people. On the contrary, these philosophers considered scientifica lly more reasonable to suppose that the first principle is intelligent and capable of acting de liberately. In short, that the ultimate principles of thin gs must be material entities is a philosophical assumption to be proved. In any case, the story of the birth of philosophy does not allow us to conclude that Greek philosoph ers believed that all rational inqui ry compels us to ass ume purely material causes as defin itive . Indeed, several philosophers have thought that the varie ty, the order and the beauty of the world wo uld be better explained by one or more intelligent causes , plus all the irrational causes, than only by the sum of blind causes. Additionally, it wou ld be di fficult to explain that the most va luable 13 H. and H. A. FRANKFORT. "Myth and Reality". in: H. and H. A. FRAN KFORT. 1. A. WLLSON. T. JACOBSEN. W . A. I RWLN (ed.). The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man. An Essay on Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near East. The University of Chicago Press. Chicago 1965.4. " W . JAEGER. The Theology oJ the Early Greek Philosophers. Clarendon. Oxford 1948. 203. note 44. ... 186 David T ORRIJOS-CASTRILLEJO reality of the world, name ly, intell igence and will, wou ld be absent from the first cause. We might think that philosophers are opening a new field, essentially different from religion. This phenomenon cou ld be understood as being based on Feuerbach's reflections, acco rding to which there would be a con tradicti on between God's metaphysical predicates and his personal characteristics. According to him, God would be, firstly, omniscient, eterna l, omnipotent, etc., but on the other hand , he would also be compassionate and would take care of men 15 Although Feuerbach claim s that this contradiction belongs to the Christian concept of God as theology designed it, in fact, Christians did not consider the idea of a providential and merci ful love of God toward man as uniquely belonging to them; hence we fi nd similar doctrines not only in other religiou s groups but also among philosophers. Thus, if we apply Feuerbach's consideration to the Greek world, we might think that philosophers had begun to pervert the notion of divinity with a series of empty metaphysical cla ims, but this could not but get them away from truly re lig ious divini ty, which would primarily establish a personal relationship to men. However, such an interpretation is not compatible with the evidence, because we have examples such as P lato, who, in the Timaeus and in the Laws, ju stifies divine providence and God's loving care of men precisely because of the "metaphysical" properties of divinity. Anyway, there were in fact conflicts between philosophy and popul ar relig ion and even civil religion as officially practiced in the polis. Philosophy produced a cr isis in Gree k religion and forced it to rethink its mythical narrat ive and worship. Mainly, in order to achieve what they thou ght was the truly religious attitude, 15 V. A. HARVEY, Feuerbach and the Interpretation ofRelig ion. Cambridge UP, Cambridge 1995, 124-125: ..The most fundamental intellectual con tradic tion of Christian theology is two-fold . Feuerbach contended. in that it anempts to combine in one notion of God two mutually incompatible types of predicates metaphysical. on the one hand, and personal. on the other and then rationalizes the resulting contradictions with the assert ion that the divine being is incomprehensible to the human intellect. On the one hand, the divine being is said to be o mniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, and impassib le; on the other hand. this God is a loving and compassionate being who is moved by human suffering". Feuerbach. Xenophanes and the too human God 187 philosophers tried to modify religion by emphasizing points that were relegated to a second place in the popular mind: knowledge about the divinity and moral act ion'". In this sense, we could take Greek philosoph y as a seculari zing factor-broadly understand- , because it signifies a critici sm of the established religion, marks limitations for it and evaluates its actions. However, it should be noted that philosophy normall y represents a favorable movement to religion, although it does not understand it in the same way as traditional thinking. Certainly, the repercussion of philosophical ideas on the majority of the population must have been very limited and we cannot appreciate great changes in this regard . For this reason, we can speak of an anomaly. If we can put it so, the religion proposed by philosophe rs is devoid of anchoring in a society where it can be lived-or this soc iety is reduced to the philosophical communityand it lacks ritual elements that help to humanize religion. This is quite normal , because the divinity taught by philosophers, despite its care of men, is not in relationship with them in a human way. By raising the image of God in such a way, philosophers had left Him too much out of the reach of human beings. It is true that the deity mentioned by philosophers was more humane than the Homeric deity, who acted capriciously and only cared for certain men arbitrarily chosen or because there existed certain national links; on the contrary, "the God of the philosophers" take care of all men and of the universe as a whole. However, the main way to respond to this divine care is moral conduct and intellectual contemplation. The lack of a ritual worship appears to reduce the possibility of personal contact with the divine, since there are no more physical places or determ inate times to meet the divinity. If, according to Xenoph anes, Zeus has no human form and, in the words of 16 G. V LASTOS, ,.Theology and Philosophy in Early Greek Thought" , The Philosophicol Quarterly 2 (1952) 121-122: "[ Oo .) it is its [of pre-Socratic philosophy] peculiar genius to transpose a religious idea into the medium of natural inquiry. transforming, but not destroying. its associated religiou s values" (my italics). Obviously. among Greek philosophers there are a lot of nuances and variations. For examp le. Epicurus believed that knowledge about nature leads the philosopher to know the indolence of the gods and that they do not care about men. Soc rates, however, thought moral action and philosophical teaching as a service to divinity. Subsequently, for example Theophrastus. in his De pietate. states that the deep sense of religious worship is ethical righteousness. 188 David TORRIJOS-CASTRIL LEJO Aristotle, the cosmos is the temple where he lives" , men cannot adore him so easily and naturall y as they did when burning incense in front of his effigy placed on the sanctuary. Despite these limitations of the result s reached by the philosophers, one could say with one interpreter " that their findings, rather than a denial of religion as such, are maybe perfecting it by purifying the mythological elements and formulating it in a universal way, making it more credible and, in that sense, also more human. Nevertheless, the limitations of their approach placed the history of European thinking in a positive cris is, which favored the introduction of Christianity. In this sense, classical philosophy can be viewed as a true praeparatio e,'al1!?elica I9 . Christianity Greek thinkers move in a scheme that does not distingui sh, as subsequently it will happen , between philosophical theology and 17 Dephilosophio, ed. Ross, fr. 14b. 18 E. BERTl.ln principio era la meravig lia. Le gra ndi questioni della jilosojia antica, Laterza., Bari 2007, 79: Socrate do 1/11 1010 non rinnega la religione lif/iciale a cui rendera omaggio anche inpunto di morte, raccomandando di sacrificareun galla ad Asclepio - : dall 'altro, mostra di avere un concerto di dio molto piu raffinato e spirituale, cioe di concepire if dio come l 'unico sapiente e quindi come infinitamente superiore all 'uomo, un dio che non pretende dall'uomo un ell /ID esteriore ma una fe delta intertore, un dio che come unico precetto impone all' uomo la ricerca della verita e deJla virtu, cviero la .ccura del/a propria animo ". Per testimoniare la sua jedelto a un tale dio, Socrate non esito ad c ffrontare la morte (my italics). 19 G. DEL POZO A SEJON, ,.La sintesis cristiana de fe y razon: el modelo de santo Tomas de Aquino". Revista espaiiola de teologia 68 (2008) 265. Del Pozo emphasizes the anguish that Aquinas attributed to the situation of Greek thinkers. who aredevoid of revelation. even directed at her. TOMA DEAQUlNo. Summa contra gentiles, m. 48: Propter has autem et huiusmodi rationes, Alexander et Averroes posuerunt ultimam hominis felicitatem non esse in cognitione humana, quae est per sciemias speculativas. sed per continuationem cum substantia separata, quam esse credebant possibilem homini in hac vita. Quia vera Aristoteles vidit quodnon est alia cognitio hom inis in hac vi/a quam per scientias speculativas, posuit hominem non consequi fe ticitotem perfectam, sed suo modo. In quo satis apparet quantam angustiam patiebantur hinc inde eorum praeclara ingenia A quibus angustiis liberabimur si ponamus, secundum probationes praemissas, hominem ad veram fe licitatem post hanc vitam pervenire posse, anima hominis immortali existente in quo statu animo intelliget per modum quo intelligunt substantiae separatae, sicut in secundo huius operis ostensnm est (my italics). Feuerbach. Xenophanes and the 100 human God 189 revealed theology, but there is only a incipient differentiation between poetical and philosophical discussion about gods. Neither is there separation between religion and the state in the Greek world, although in the Roman one this distinction begins to break through, because of the recognition of several cults other than Roman traditional religion. With the emergence of Christianity, these distinctions are particularly important. The difference between religion and the state is interesting, but, from the philosophical point of view, the distinction between revealed theo logy and natural theology attracts our attention in the first place. Philosophers could not estimate myths as true exponents of revealed theology because the Greeks lacked the concept of revelation as understood in the JudeoChristian world. Christians, however, give the same credence to faith as to philosophy. They cannot neglect revelation as a genuine source of truth; hence some Church Father s chose to describe Christian thought as "philosophy" rather than using the characteristic terms of the religious world of the time (like the term "theology" , which was also linked to pagan religiou s writingsj". Therefore, if one can broadly speak about "secularization" from the point of view of the rational judgment on the understand ing of God, it is not as possible to do so among Christians as it was in the Greek world. For Christians there are two modes of speculative rationality, both valid. Philosophy can do its work in complete freedom and not have to analyze revealed doctrines. Greek philosophers felt an obligation to review the myths to attain something salvageable from them. Both Hegel and Feuerbach act similarly to Christianity, looking for a way to make it intelligible in terms of their own philosophical premises. However, the methodology followed by Christianity for their own "enlightenment" cannot consider its narrative as a collection of mere mythological stories, whose profound truth must be unraveled . The method of approach to Christian faith supports a new type of rationality that is the theological rationality and is based on the admission of a Revelation. Philosophy can study the 20 See J. RA TZINGER. Der Gait des Giaubens und der Gait der Philosophen. Ein Beitrag =llm Problem der theologia naturalis, Paulinus, Bonn 2006. 29: idem. Einfiihrung in das Christentum. Vorlesungen uber das apostolische Glaubensbekenntnis , Kosel. Munchen 200 I, 103. 190 David TORR IJOS-CASTRILLEJO inherent rationality withi n the possibility that God is revealed through His activity in history, but is not in a position to j udge whether or not the fact has occurred. Also, it can examine the (logical or ontological) non-impossibility of the propositions of faith, although it cannot verify therrr". By contrast, theological rationality comes from the assent to the fact of revelation and the subsequent agreement with its contents, and then, based on the veracity of its judgments, it rationally examines them and shows their intimate coherence. In my opinion, this positive acceptance of human knowledge capacities responds to the essence of Chr istianity as such, whil e it admits the possibil ity of God ' s historical intervention. The logic of the incarnation promotes peaceful approval of the human , without conceiving it as an obstacle to the transcendence of the divine. This nuclear mystery of Christianity presupposes the affirmation of the human as truly human and of the divine as truly divine. It is not necessary for any of these factors to be denied in order to give priority to the other, because both are fully observed. On the one hand , Christianity inherited from the Old Testament tradition an understandin g of divinity, which is transcendent, unconquerable, not subject to the will of man, but is the owner of all things and thus also the owner of the human being. No wonder that, even before Chr ist, many Jews were sympathetic to philosophical ideas. They shared with the philosophers not only a very little anthropomorphic image of God, but also the explicit rejection of idolatry and polytheistic worship . However, they also posited as necesary a loving God, Provid ence and so on, which , as for many Gree k philosophers, did not contradict divine transcendence. Christians entirel y accept Jewish faith in the one God but they introduce a significa nt change in men 's relationship with Him. The faith of Israel could support a much more intense religious relati onship with God than that of the philosophers becau se, despite his transcendence, He had made the deci sion to link Himself to a people and their response to Him was not only in their moral conduct but also through worship. Now Chri stians claim that Israel 's God intend s to enter a relationship with all men, but, unlike the philosophers, Christians do provide new human links between 21 TOMA D E AQIJINO, Super De Trinitate. pars 1 q. 2 a. 3 in c. Feuerbach, Xenophanes and the too human God 191 them, able to consolidate historically a true religion. Mainly, from this moment on, all men can establish a relationship with God because He became man. Maintaining a personal relationship with the man Jesus means entering into a relationship with the universal God. Jesus becomes a way to a God, which is transcendent, infinite, eternal, omniscient, etc.; but this is a hwnan way, because one should only meet a man. It is therefore crucial for Christians to affirm the humanity of Jesus as such, because, indeed, it is the condition that can produce a religious contact with the unattainable God. On the other hand, they must also confess the divinity of this person we meet in the man Jesus, since otherwise the human relationship with him would not provide direct access to God. Jesus' humanity, far from being a "metaphor" to express the constant projection of humanity on God, as Feuerbach thoughr", is authentic humanity. Contrary to the claims of the German philosopher, Christianity is based on the simultaneous affirmation of both poles, namely, God and man. It is not a union of contradictory realities. The content of the Christian faith, against all the attempts to interpret it otherwise than the ways reiterated since antiquity, implies the decided statement ofnon incompatibility between both poles. Conclusion: Secularization and a New, but Theistic Humanism I would like to conclude these reflections bringing back two works which deal with contemporary hwnanism regarding atheism. First, the well-known work of Henri de Lubac, whose conclusion is that atheism is able to build a civilization but such civilization would be inhumane" . De Lubac stated the failure of the project initiated by Feuerbach, who believed that the death of God was necessary for men's life. Secondly, the recent book written by Remi Brague, who corrects de Lubac, saying that he was too optimistic. In fact, atheism, according to Brague, can only lead to the annihilation of man" . "- L. FEUERI3 ACH, Das Wesen des Christenthums. op . cit., 49: .Die Incarnation ist nichts andres als die thatsachliche sinnliche Erscheinung von der menschlichen Natur Gotte s". 23 H. DE LUBAC. Le Drame de l 'atheisme athee. Spes. Paris 1944. 24 R. B RAGUE, Le propre de I'homme. Sur une legitimite menacee. Flammarion. Paris 2013.36. 192 David T ORRIJOS-C ASTRILLEJO Thus, the French scholar bel ieves that only a theistic approach can be humani st. Naturally, both theses could be subject to discussion, but I think they stimulate our thinking. As already stated, Christianity is itsel f a factor of secularization of thought and society in a certain way. It is a model of secularization that is sympathetic to theistic ideas, as also classical thought largely was. By contrast, a philosopher like Hegel or Feuerbach would paradoxically use a veiled surv ival of non-secularized thought charac teristic of the ancient world , in which there are not marked boundaries between theolo gy and phi losophy but a respect ive freedom for both spheres. In this sense, none of the two modelsneithe r the Greek one , nor a philosophy that is conceived as the ultimate authority of j udgmentfit perfectly into a Christian society. Given these positions, in Christian Europe, although not without many factual and historical difficulties, precisely at the time the university was invented, philosophy and theology were establ ished in different faculties. As I see it, the discrimination between the two areas is beneficial but does not have to entail either the deni al of God 's existence among philosophers or the abandonme nt of reason by theologians. Rather, it is possible to create a friendly collaboration between the two discip lines if it is true, as some think, that the "God of the phi losophers" is the "God of the Christians,,25. 25 J. J. ESCANDELL, "Book Review of Jose Maria Barrio, El Dios de los filosofo s. Curso basico de filosofia , Coleccion libros de bolsillo n" 254. Madrid: Rialp 20 13. 25 1 pp. ISBN: 978-84-32 14-250-5", Esplritu 62 (20 13) 2 12-213: ,.En realidad, el verdadero creyente. el que se ordena al verdadero Dios, al adorarlo no puede sino adorar al Motor Inmovil. El Die s que nace de una mujer, que predica en Palestine durante tres anos, que muere crucificado por 105 rornanos, que resucita y que. tras elevarse al Cielo, aun pennanece en 105 Sagrarios, es tambi en Motor Inm6vil, Causa Increada. Ser Necesario por Si, Perfeccion Plena y Supremo Ordenador del Universe". See , "La autonornia de la razon", Communio 26 (2004) 122.