Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) Søren Kierkegaard could write: "It is false when the current Christianity says Feuerbach attacks Christianity. Is not true! Attacks Christians, showing that his life does not correspond to the doctrine of Christianity. " The Feuerbach himself speaks in the prologue to The essence of Christianity "therapeutic" purpose of the book. More than the negation of religion, which is intended purification of repre-tations contradict the man and the po-bilities of mankind as such.
"Whoever can not say about me but I'm an atheist, he does not know anything about me. The question of the existence or nonexistence of God, as opposed to theism and atheism XVIIy belongs to the eighteenth century, but not the XIX. I deny God. This means in my case: I deny the negation of man [...] The question of being or not being of God is in my case only the question of being or not being of man. "
The reading of the essence of Christianity is essential to understand the modern descendants of the author. The influence of this work, whose "liberating force" is re-ferred F. Engels and whose contribution, a clear precedent of the theory of "ideology" was greeted with enthusiasm by K. Marx, was also extended to thinkers like A. Schopenhauer or Nietzsche F., and reached a post-teriores theologians like Karl Barth and R. Bultmann. In the words of O. J. Osier, "these different allegiances make Feuerbach a central place of our good or bad conscience, that is, of our unconsciousness."