Is Faith in God a Mental Disorder?

By: Omar Rushlive L. Arellano

Perhaps in religious argumentation, there is nothing more bereft of charity than in claiming that religious people as a whole are mentally ill; it never grants that one can be mistaken for believing something without being deluded. But this is one that I have run countless times into in my online interactions with atheists — and no wonder — as the Oxford evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins popularized this notion in The God Delusion. In the preface, Dawkins borrows Microsoft Word’s dictionary definition to echo that a delusion is “a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence, especially as a symptom of psychiatric disorder,”¹ and ascribes the first part to religious faith. He cites Robert Pirsig to clarify that he claims religion to be a collectively held delusion,² and hopes that his book converts religious readers into atheists.

Another rendition of this is from the late Sigmund Freud, one of the fathers of psychology and is regarded as the father of psychoanalysis. Many of his insights on religion can be read in The Future of an Illusion (1927).³ In the fourth chapter, he imagines himself in a dialogue with a hypothetical interlocutor who questions his views on religion.⁴ Freud is “made” to account for his apparent contradicting explanations in the origin of religion. The interlocutor points out that Freud, in his Totem and Taboo, believes that religion resulted from the human longing for a father, which is a role filled by God; whereas in The Future, he mentions that human weakness and helplessness are central reasons to its formation. Freud answers that the former is not supplanted by the new; rather, they are parallel. He states that when an individual realizes that he will be a perpetual child, he also discovers that he is left unprotected from the mysterious powers of the cruel world. Feeling the need to lend his power to a father figure, he creates for himself gods that he fears and attempts to appease for his protection.⁵

In chapter 5, Freud says that religious views do not follow from the proper methodology for confirming the truth of a belief and maintains that religious teachings are loosely supported by the claims that ancestors believe them, that there are proofs “from those same primaeval times,” and that questioning their authenticity is forbidden. Asserting that the ancestors “were far more ignorant than we are,” together with their own beliefs being riddled by contradictions, Freud concludes that religious beliefs, despite carrying much cultural significance, are “the least well authenticated.”⁶ In chapter 6, he claims that religious doctrine, despite the lack of solid proof, gets its power not from experience or reason, but from illusions.⁷ Here is where the famous phrase “wish-fulfillment” is derived:

These, which are given out as teachings, are not precipitates of experience or end-results of thinking: they are illusions, fulfilments of the oldest, strongest and most urgent wishes of mankind. The secret of their strength lies in the strength of those wishes.⁸

To clarify what he means, Freud classifies error, illusion, and delusion from different camps. He merely defines error as a mistaken belief, but some errors are borne from ignorance and are not necessarily illusions, as he exemplifies with Aristotle’s belief that dung produces vermin. He suggests that delusions differ from illusions in that they sharply contradict with reality.⁹ Illusions, however, do not necessarily contradict reality, but what is constitutive of them is that they are mainly driven by “wish fulfillment” and are devoid of verification.¹⁰

I mentioned Dawkins and Freud to show the different attitudes of people toward religious belief. With that said, it is not my intention to critique their books in this essay, but my focus is on answering the question of whether having mere religious belief warrants a skeptic’s indictment that one is delusional in the domain of psychology.

Religious Faith in Psychology

The late President of Royal College of Psychiatrists Andrew Sims was a specialist in descriptive psychopathology. He defines it as a systematic study of abnormal experience, cognition, and behavior, based on observation and not on preconceived theory.¹¹ He defines delusion as a “false, unshakeable idea or belief, which is out of keeping with the patient’s educational, cultural, and social background; it is held with extraordinary conviction and subjective certainty.”¹² This main definition, along with several other criteria discussed below, are significant in determining what is constitutive of delusion.

Firstly, he uses the phrase, “out of keeping with cultural and social background” as the “criteria for definition of delusion.”¹³ This means that a person whose actions cannot be traced from his immediate or wider culture must certainly experience delusions. So if it can be expected of someone who belongs in a church that has formulaic prayers to address God using a certain set of words, and if another is expected to pray extemporaneously since he belongs in a church which practices the like, it can be surmised that their actions are “culturally held” by their respective religious traditions and are therefore not evidence of mental illness.

Secondly, Sims includes the phrase, “held on delusional grounds.” He means that someone is experiencing delusions if he cannot be understood if we try to put ourselves in his shoes, Sims’ example of this is of a man suspecting his wife of infidelity (even if it is true) on the grounds of the fifth lamp post going out, because his normal perception was interpreted in a delusional manner (infidelity unproven by an unrelated event).

Thirdly, he shares that delusions are “held without insight,” explaining that if an individual wonders whether he is delusional or not, then he is almost certainly not delusional. He quotes a Christian colleague who differentiates faith and delusion. The former is held with some doubts, or at least the person understands that other people could have doubts about their beliefs. But the latter is held without any kernel of doubt.¹⁴

Fourthly, Sims includes “concrete thinking” to his criteria of determining delusion. He explains that certain religious expressions are not to be taken literally. So the example, “give our heart to Jesus” does not mean taking out our heart and giving it to Him in a literal way. Sims states that in some serious mental illnesses, there are abnormal ways of thinking, which leads to literalness of expression and understanding, and this abnormality is described as “concrete thinking.” This “concreteness” is said to help distinguish between the disturbed thinking of a patient with schizophrenia, and someone with just a strong religious belief.¹⁵

Fifthly, Sims incorporates having “bizarre thoughts and actions.” The DSM-5 in “Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders” regards these actions as implausible or cannot be understood by people from the same culture, or if it is not based on ordinary life experiences. Examples given under this are a person who believes that an outside force replaced his internal organs with another’s, a patient who thinks that her thoughts were removed by the same (thought withdrawal), alien thoughts were put in their mind (thought insertion), or if their body is being manipulated by an outside force (delusions of control). An example of something that is not bizarre is if a person thinks he is under police surveillance despite no convincing evidence. Sims mentions that if religious people do not have mental illness, then they won’t experience them in other areas of life that are not connected to religion.¹⁶

Lastly, Sims clarifies the distinction between “form and content.” Form refers to the “type of abnormality of mental experience,” whereas content is the subject of a patient’s concern. An example of a content is a patient’s concern that the nurses are stealing her money. The form identifies whether this is a fact, a misinterpretation, a delusion, or something else. Both form and content are important in making a diagnosis.¹⁷ Sims mentions this to help us see that if a person who has a psychiatric disorder is predominantly religious, then he must experience religious delusions. So the nuance here is that a religious person who experiences psychiatric disorder will have religious delusions, but having religious beliefs per se does not make you delusional.

Sims explains that though the content of delusions could possibly be religious, religious belief in itself is not a delusion. He sums up his reasons using the above criteria:

1. They do not fulfil [sic] the criteria for definition of delusion — it is not ‘out of keeping with the person’s cultural and social background’;

2. They are not held on demonstrably delusional grounds;

3. Religious beliefs are spiritual, abstract, and not concrete — ‘God within me’ is not experienced as a tactile sensation;

4. Religious beliefs are held with insight — it is understood that others will not necessarily share their beliefs;

5. For religious people, bizarre thoughts and actions do not occur in other areas of life, not connected with religion;

6. Religious ideas and predominant thinking is a description of content.¹⁸

In light of this, another important element worth mentioning is whether a delusion could be shared, for this is how Pirsig defines religion. Sims argues that shared delusion being a religion can only be fulfilled in the International Classification of “induced delusional disorder.” He narrates a case report where the patient had believed that a large firm had placed ‘bugging’ devices on the walls of his brother’s house, and that their employees had been following him and had been interfering in his own house. Sims explains that the man’s wife had fully accepted this story initially, and was even able to produce corroborative evidence. However, a year later when the husband was already treated, the wife rejected this plot and believed that her husband was mentally ill. As an explanation, Sims details that the wife was a very anxious person, and she had received treatment for depression in the past, but she had never experienced psychosis. This woman was never out of touch with reality, but because of the power of her husband’s personality, and also his influence on her, she had been persuaded into believing that the firm persecuted them. Through this example, Sims demonstrates that delusion cannot be shared. As he said in the words of Karl Jaspers, it’s ‘ultimately un-understandable’.¹⁹

Conclusion

In the field of psychology, delusions could have a religious content, but having a religious belief in itself does not render someone as essentially delusional. Of course, this fact does not mean that all religious beliefs are automatically true, as many of them fundamentally contradict each other. However, this welcome conclusion helps the atheist and the religious alike to not regard each other as mentally ill because of their disagreements. Rather, by treating each other with dignity and respect (which aligns with the Christian ethic of viewing people as fellow “image-bearers” of God), an environment suitable for rational exchange can be cultivated, which aids both sides to progress in their pursuit of truth.

References:

1. Dawkins, Richard, The God Delusion (London: Transworld Publishers, 2006), 5.
2. Ibid.
3. Freud, Sigmund, The Future of an Illusion. Translated by James Strachey (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1961).
4. Freud, Sigmund, The Future of an Illusion, 22.
5. Ibid., 24.
6. Ibid., 26.
7. Ibid., 30.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid., 30–31.
10. Ibid., 31.
11. Sims, Andrew. Is Faith Delusion? Why Religion is Good For Your Health (New York: Continuum, 2009), 118.
12. Sims, Andrew, Is Faith Delusion?, 124.
13. Ibid., 128.
14. Ibid., 124–125.
15. Ibid., 125.
16. Ibid.,. 222.
17. Ibid., 123.
18. Ibid., 129.
19. Ibid., 127–128.