Dad, I'm an Atheist. Dad? Where Are You?!?
Paul Vitz's Faith of the Fatherless
Jeremy M. Beer
July 1, 2000
Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism, by Paul C. Vitz (Spence, 1999), 174 pp.
Do believers just need some good therapy? Among twentieth-century intellectuals, it was widely assumed that "belief in God is based on all kinds of irrational, immature needs and wishes, whereas atheism or skepticism flows from a rational, no-nonsense view of things as they really are." So observes Paul Vitz, professor of psychology at New York University, and as a psychologist, he should know. But if Vitz's bold argument in Faith of the Fatherless is right, atheists may have the better claim to the psychoanalytic couch.
It's reasonable to approach Vitz's book with healthy skepticism. Christians and other religious believers have complained about the reduction of belief to psychology for at least a century now. How, in good conscience, can believers attempt to explain atheism away with some psychologizing of their own? But Vitz never denies that psychological factors play a role in determining belief; he merely argues that atheists, like theists, have personal histories, and although these histories are not determinative, neither are they irrelevant in the formation of unbelief.
Consider Steven Weinberg, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist, who commented at a recent conference: "I think we should be very careful not to give an impression to the public that somehow our scientific work is converging with religious work into a synthesis. It's not. I don't want a constructive dialogue. I don't want to do anything to reconcile science and religion. I think it's very good that they remain at odds with one another." In true junior-high fashion, Weinberg went on to say that if he were wrong, "suddenly a flaming sword could appear and strike me ...
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