48 | FEBRUARY 1 • 2024 J
N

N

o one can prove the
existence of God. Nor
can one disprove it. The
debate seems to go nowhere
in most cases. But what if the
debate is between two great
minds of the 20th century?
Sigmund Freud, the father of
psychoanalysis, was a staunch
atheist and very much a secular
Jew. He was ardent in the belief
that there was no supreme
being and that all explanations
were of this world. British
author C.S. Lewis, on the other
hand, returned in adulthood to
avowed Christianity (he was an
Anglican) after a struggle with
atheism.
A hypothetical (and fictional)

debate between the two great
thinkers was dramatized in
the play Freud’s Last Session by
Mark St. Germain. The play
itself is based on the book The
Question of God by Armand
Nicholi.
Freud’s Last Session is now
a movie directed by Matthew
Brown, starring Anthony
Hopkins as Freud and Matthew
Goode as Lewis. Both actors
deliver masterful performances.
World War II and the horrors
of the Holocaust make up the
backdrop to the film. The date
given for the Freud-Lewis
encounter is Sept. 3, 1939,
(two days after Nazi Germany
invaded Poland and the day

Great Britain declared war on
Hitler’s monstrous regime).
One real-life segment of
the movie takes place while
Freud was still living in Vienna
and his daughter, Anna Freud
(a psychoanalyst like her
father and portrayed by Liv
Lisa Fries), is detained by the
Nazis. She was released several
hours later due to efforts of
U.S. authorities. The incident
obviously prompted Freud and
his daughter to emigrate to
England.
Just as the psychological
is often the companion issue
to the theological, so, too, is
the sexual (especially when it
concerns Freud). When Lewis

acknowledges a friendship he
had forged with the mother of
his friend who died in World
War I, Freud makes automatic
speculation that the relationship
was sexual and states that sexual
relationships involving disparate
ages are not unusual and
implies such relationships are by
no means unhealthy.
But the Freud character also
betrays an inconsistency in his
thinking. Also a real-life aspect
of the movie, Freud’s colleague,
Ernest Jones (portrayed by
Jeremy Northam), is in love
with Anna Freud. Though
Freud indicates his approval of
relationships with disparate ages
(and homosexual relationships),
he strongly disapproves of
disparate ages when it comes
to his own daughter (who is 20
years younger than Jones).
But what of the existence
of God? Lewis protests that
Freud sees as “an imbecile”
anyone who harbors religious
faith. But it is not at all clear
that Freud labels a belief in
God as a symptom of low
intelligence. Indeed, he seems
to acknowledge Lewis as a man
of intelligence, though the great
doctor is intolerant of religion.
Lewis insists that man’s
existence demands a greater
meaning, thereby making
necessary God’s existence. That
is a basic profession of faith
to which one may or may not
subscribe. And Freud rests his
atheism on the reality that all
of us, to one degree or another,
has a fear of death. “We’re all
cowards,
” Freud tells Lewis.
Speaking of mortality,
another backdrop to the story
is that Freud is terminally ill,
suffering from inoperable oral
cancer (the result of a lifelong
cigar habit). Indeed, Freud
died in late September of
1939, weeks after the fictional
debate with Lewis is dated. It’s

Atheism and Theology
Clash in Freud’s
Last Session

JOHN O’NEILL SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

PHOTOS FROM SONY PICTURES

FILM
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