Between Faith and Unbelief Between Faith and Unbelief: American Transcendentalists and the Challenge of Atheism

This book sets out to shed light on what is specific to American Transcendentalism by comparing it with the atheistic vision of German philosophers and theologians like Ludwig Feuerbach and Arthur Schopenhauer. The study argues that atheism was part of the discursive and religious context from which Transcendentalism emerged. Tendencies toward atheism were already inherent in Transcendentalist thought. The atheist scenario came to the surface in the controversy about Emerson?s ?new views.? Contemporary critics charged that the deity Emerson worshipped was himself. Emersonian Transcendentalism thus anticipated some of the central concerns in the works of German atheists like Feuerbach. From idealism to atheism seemed but a short step.
Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter I. ?The Spirit of Infidelity?: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Harvard?s Early Göttingen Students
Chapter II. The ?Credentials? of Faith: The Miracles Controversy in New England
Chapter III. The Arch-Fiend of Christian Faith: David Friedrich Strauss and New England Divinity
Chapter IV. The Claims of History: Strauss?s ?Mytho-Mania? and After
Chapter V. Man as God-Maker: Feuerbachian Atheism in New England
Chapter VI. From Idealism to Atheism: Theodore Parker and the Projection Theory of Religion
Chapter VII. The ?Cures for Atheism?: Emerson and Jakob Böhme
Chapter VIII. ?A World Without God?: Emerson and Arthur Schopenhauer

Conclusion

Selected Bibliography
Index