 Feuerbach begins the Luther book by conceding that no doctrine would seem more clearly to contradict the central claim advanced in The Essence of Christianity, namely, that Christians worship the human species-essence, than does Luther’s doctrine, which is the epitome of human self-abnegation insofar as it emphasizes the depravity and contemptibleness of human nature in contrast to the perfection of the divine nature. This appearance, however, is deceptive; for, while it’s true that whatever Luther takes from human beings he gives to God, since all that belongs to God belongs to Christ, and all that belongs to Christ belongs to the Christian, it is only on the surface that Luther’s doctrine is dehumanizing. Whereas, in The Essence of Christianity, he had contrasted the egoism and intolerance of faith (which he associated with the false, theological essence of religion) with the altruism and universality love (which he associated with the true, human essence of religion), in the Luther book Feuerbach emphasizes that Christian faith is faith in a God who is love, but the principal object of whose love is humanity, so that this faith turns out to be an indirect form of human self-love or self-affirmation. The Christian believer affirms the existence of, as well as his or her confidence in, the goodness of God, who has promised him or her blessedness or freedom from the painful limitations of mortality. It is only because the Christian believer “completes and satisfies himself in God” (WGL 363/46) that God has everything that human beings lack. Luther, with his emphasis on God’s being pro nobis or “for us”, was “the first to let out the secret of the Christian faith” (WGL 366/50), which is, at bottom, the assurance 