ABSTRACT
Freud speaks of what ‘our God Logos’ will reveal over time. He is speaking ironically, of course; and what he is referring to is scientific progress, the march of ‘reason and experience’. But can we not see Freud here as speaking beyond himself? Perhaps he did not fully grasp what his God Logos is. Certainly, Christians believe that ‘in the beginning was Logos, and Logos was God’. And one of the world’s most notable pagans, Aristotle, believed that God is Nous (Active Mind). A truly religious life, for him, was one that was oriented towards rational contemplation. This wasn’t meant to be a substitute for religious life; it was religious life. Now Freud thought that his ‘God Logos’ will over time come to function as a substitute for religious belief. But what ‘reason and experience’ teaches us beyond doubt is that no discoverer is the ultimate arbiter of the significance of his own discoveries.
