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
ARTS&LIFE

