which are predicated on our longing for transcendence and faith in our transcendent value. Feuerbach was quite clear that the consolations of the heart, and the truth, are incommensurable:
“Reason is the truth of Nature, the heart is the truth of man. To speak popularly, reason is the God of Nature, the heart the God of man … .” [148F-EOC: p. 285]
“ … although in theory the theists place truth above good cheer, in practice the power to provide consolation is their sole criterion of truth or untruth; they reject a doctrine as untrue because it provides no consolation, because it is not as comforting and comfortable, as flattering to human egoism, as the opposite doctrine which derives nature from a personal being who guides the course of nature in accordance with the prayers and desires of man.” [273F-LER: p. 204]
As one can see, Alberich’s and Hagen’s victory would involve acceptance of a loveless universe, in which no transcendent meaning inheres, an objective reality with bitter consequences for man’s tendency toward romantic idealism and utopianism. The advantage which proponents of such a loveless world would gain would be freeing up man’s potential for accruing power through objective knowledge of man and nature, which otherwise would be rendered inaccessible due to the need to cater to subjective human sentiment. The disadvantage would be that there could be no pretext found in objective knowledge of nature for setting up limits to the power that individual human beings could accrue, and no rational limit to the exploitation of men vulnerable to the predatory instincts of those more capable of wielding power over others. But most importantly, a society wholly dedicated to objective truth, to be self-consistent, would have to wean itself of all humane impulses, all concern for individual expression and rights, or the dignity of the human spirit. Any such respect for the rights of men would only be preserved, if at all, for the sake of prudence, the prudence of egoism, but such prudence is incapable of inspiring man’s passionate loyalty.
It is precisely this fear that science will annihilate everything of value which the human imagination has produced, everything which lends grace and magic to human life, that led religious men in the Renaissance and the Nineteenth Century to violently resist accepting Copernicus’s solar-centric cosmos (where previously it was believed that God made the solar system revolve around man and his earth), and resist Darwin’s attempt to place man in his true position within the animal kingdom (the evolution of man in Darwin’s view being just another step in the sequence of the evolution of life, with no higher intrinsic value than that of worms). The quest for objective knowledge implicitly denies man a divine origin or transcendent value. It is this frightening truth which gives pause even to moderate secularists and avowed atheists, who still wish (as Nietzsche complained) to smuggle man’s alleged transcendent value into their worldview.
Feuerbach spells out the advantage which man might gain through Alberich’s and Hagen’s triumph below:
“Culture has no other object than to realize an earthly heaven … .” [127F-EOC: p. 217]
Should we be Christians? It would be better to be healthy; only medicine and chemistry can still give us health.” [34F-TDI: p. 231]
