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This book consists of six lectures, the Burroughs Memorial lectures for 1953. The author is the Vicar of the University Church of St. Mary's in Oxford. As he showed a few years ago in his excellent book Freud and Christianity, he has a thorough knowledge and understanding of psycho-analysis, the findings of which he fully accepts. Here, as in his former book, he is concerned to reconcile those findings with the teachings of Christianity, and, moreover, to ascertain what modifications of the latter may be desirable.
Starting from the premise that the idea of God first develops out of three elements—the super-ego, the ego-ideal, and the infantile father-image (p. 65)—he admits that many of the various attitudes towards God later are still influenced by those childhood sources, and his aim is to purify them in the adult conception of God. It is as if the child on growing up discovers that there really is a God, thus confirming his early expectations, needs, and desires, but he now has to adopt a more mature attitude towards the Deity. The same thesis holds good for other religious beliefs and rituals. There are deep motives urging towards the belief in immortality, but its objective truth is demonstrated by the historical fact of Christ's resurrection from the dead. The ritual of the Holy Communion itself has, as he