 The Essence of Christianity is divided into two parts. In the first part Feuerbach considers religion “in its agreement with the human essence” (WC 75), arguing that, when purportedly theological claims are understood in their proper sense, they are recognized as expressing anthropological, rather than theological, truths. That is, the predicates that religious believers apply to God are predicates that properly apply to the human species-essence of which God is an imaginary representation. In the second part Feuerbach considers religion “in its contradiction with the human essence” (WC 316), arguing that, when theological claims are understood in the sense in which they are ordinarily taken (i.e., as referring to a non-human divine person), they are  self-contradictory.[9]  In early 1842 Feuerbach still preferred that his views be presented to the public under the label “anthropotheism” rather than “atheism” (GW v. 18, 164), emphasizing that his overriding purpose in negating “the false or theological essence of religion” had been to affirm its “true or anthropological essence”, i.e., the divinity of man.