Eros and the Death of God

Abstract

In The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm draws an interesting correlation between the death of God and the disintegration of love in Western civilization. On the surface the thesis is not one for which we can find an abundance of confirmatory evidence, and yet a deeper study of its implications reveals that the debasement of love, its systematic and widespread devaluation, is indeed closely interrelated with the loss of religious faith. Fromm examines the interrelation from one point of view: the loss of the spontaneous self and the consequent decline of spontaneity in love. In religion, too, the concept of God that man professes to worship is mechanical and idolatrous. No longer sustained, as of old, by the traditional theistic faith, the character of man is badly split. If he turns to God it is not with instinctive faith but with a frightened, compulsive longing for security. Thus he leads a double, alienated life. God is present principally as a means to implement his drive toward greater economic advancement.