Religion is Not an Escape from Life

By Fr. Vasily Termos

When religion offers all the answers, it can eliminate the anxiety associated with questioning, seeking meaning, and making personal choices about life’s essentials. Instead of empowering individuals to find strength and courage to face life’s challenges maturely, religion can sometimes present an image of God that alleviates anxiety, allowing people to avoid the responsibilities of adulthood, seemingly with divine approval.

K. Fauteux* discusses how the quest for security might hinder maturity: “Religion can provide security and protection in a daunting world, not necessarily as an escape. It can be a cohesive force that prevents our fragile lives from falling apart. Religion offers solace during inexplicable pain and clarity in confusion, aiding individuals to manage life’s challenges. Without it, they might struggle. However, if religion solely offers security and alleviates fears, we might feel comforted but remain childlike, without maturing. Just as overprotective parents stifle a child’s growth, religion should foster inner security, inspiring confidence for self-reliance.”

Adults find in God the support to face harsh realities. However, if they don’t discover in God the love and protection that builds inner security, they lack the strength to confront anxiety independently, depending on God like a child does on parents, seeking relief from responsibility rather than growth.

When all answers and anxiety relief come from God, priests, or dogma, we remain as children. Freud’s critique of God as an “illusion” targets those who view God as a parental substitute, providing protection without fostering personal security. For them, God represents an unfulfilled childhood wish for omnipotent satisfaction.

Many cling to this illusory God because they resist letting God be real, seeing God as a source of protection rather than growth. They desire a nurturing deity because they never learned self-care. Such individuals connect with God not as vibrant, self-aware adults but as anxiety-driven children seeking protection.

Thus, God is sought not for growth but for comfort, not as a spiritual development facilitator but as a security source. May notes how spirituality can be a form of “escape,” where spiritual practices help evade daily responsibilities, turning prayer into a sedative or a pretense of surrender into passive obedience.

Spiritually, we aim higher: “Virtues aren’t merely vice opposites but transformations of emotional tendencies that immature character development would incline toward vices.”

Notes

• Kevin Fauteux, Religion’s Encouragement and Inhibition of Psychological Development, 1990.

Excerpt from the book: Άνθρωπος στον φωρίνητας! Προσεγγέτηση τη καινάδοξης Θεολογής και επιστήμων του υχυσιμός, Athens: Εκδόσεις Γρηγόρη, 2006.