God’s existenceDraft · awaiting advisor review
Isn’t belief in God just wishful thinking?
In short
Not necessarily. Wanting something to be true doesn’t make it false, any more than it makes it true; what matters is whether there are good reasons to believe it. And the God of the Bible is not simply comforting: he judges, makes demands and unsettles, and many people have had reasons to wish he weren’t there.
The Objection
Humans fear death, meaninglessness and an indifferent universe. Freud argued that God is a projection of a childhood longing for a protective father. Cognitive science suggests our minds are primed to detect agents and purpose everywhere. If our needs and psychology explain belief in God, we have no need to suppose God is real. People would believe whether or not he exists.
Put as its strongest advocates would put it.
The Christian Case
- Philosophical argument
Explaining why someone believes something does not show whether it is true. Assuming that it does is called the genetic fallacy. A thirsty person longing for water doesn’t make the water a mirage. Freud himself said an ‘illusion’, a belief driven by wishes, is not necessarily false. Whether God exists has to be settled by weighing the evidence.
- Philosophical argument
The argument cuts both ways. Some people have strong motives to want no God, such as freedom from moral accountability or anger at suffering. The atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel candidly wrote that he hoped there is no God. That doesn’t make atheism false. It shows that there are motives on every side, so pointing to them settles nothing.
- Scripture
The Bible does not present God as a comfortable projection. People who meet him are often afraid or undone. Adam hides, Isaiah cries “Woe is me”, and Peter asks Jesus to depart from him. The biblical God confronts, judges and calls people to costly change. That is not quite what wishful thinking would produce.
- Historical evidence
From the start, Christians rested their faith on a claim about a public event, not on a feeling. Paul says that if Christ was not raised, faith is futile. Luke records that the disciples did not expect the resurrection and first dismissed the women’s report as idle tales. That claim can be investigated as history, not only explained as psychology.
- Christians differ
Christians differ on what our longings show. C. S. Lewis argued that a desire nothing in this world can satisfy suggests we were made for something beyond it. Others find this weak, since we can long for things that don’t exist. Some, following Alvin Plantinga, argue that belief in God can be rational without arguments, if our minds were designed to perceive him.
Where the Evidence Is Weaker
Some people do believe partly because faith comforts them, and Christians should admit that wishes shape everyone’s beliefs, their own included. Showing that atheism can also be wishful does not make Christianity true. Lewis’s argument from desire is disputed, and cognitive science offers plausible natural accounts of why religious belief is so widespread. Answering the ‘wishful thinking’ charge only clears the ground. The positive case for God must be made on other grounds.
Arguments to Avoid
- Saying atheists are simply rebelling against God or hiding from guilt.
- Claiming Freud’s theory has been scientifically disproved, or dismissing it by pointing to his personal life.
- Insisting that nobody would ever invent a demanding religion, when people have invented many.
- Arguing that faith makes you happy and so must be true, which is the very mistake the objection describes.
Read for Yourself
1 Corinthians 15:12–19
12Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: 14And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. 15Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. 16For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: 17And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. 18Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. 19If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
Isaiah 6:1–8
1In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. 2Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. 3And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. 4And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. 5Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. 6Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: 7And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. 8Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
Luke 24:1–12
1Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. 2And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. 3And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. 4And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments: 5And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? 6He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, 7Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. 8And they remembered his words, 9And returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest. 10It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles. 11And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not. 12Then arose Peter, and ran unto the sepulchre; and stooping down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves, and departed, wondering in himself at that which was come to pass.
Further Reading
- The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life · Armand M. Nicholi Jr. (2002)
- Mere Christianity · C. S. Lewis (1952)
- The Future of an Illusion · Sigmund Freud (1927)The classic case that belief in God is wish-fulfilment.
Drafted with Opened AI and awaiting review by Opened’s apologetics advisors. Labels show the kind of support each point has: Scripture is what the Bible says; historical evidence and philosophical arguments can be checked by anyone; “Christians differ” marks questions on which faithful Christians disagree.
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