On George Eliot's Religious Ideas

George Eliot, the nineteenth century famous English novelist, abandoned Christianity and refused to go to church when she was young because of the influence of Feuerbach and those with progressive ideas. She got rid of the metaphysical way of looking at the religion and thought that the religious theology advocating formalism was parochial, exclusive and intolerant. She could not tolerate the God's oppression towards men, criticized severely religious authority, theology as well as the Christian church and denied the religious doctrine of punishment and the ritual of religious worship.However, George Eliot is closely connected with Christianity because of the religious influence on her from her childhood. In her lifetime, she tries to establish a God of her own kind. While she is greatly influenced by Christianity, she is full of suspicious and rebellious ideas towards it. She doesn't believe in the Christian God, and at the same time, she is filled with deep sympathy and understanding towards all the religious feelings. In her works, her suspicion and reliance on God exist side-by-side and intermingle with each other.As a matter of fact, from her criticism of the God in religious theology of her times to her praise of primitive way of religious belief and love between God and men, We can see that George Eliot's novels are permeated with religious ideas. In the process of denying religious theology and formalism, George Eliot establishes her basic religious ideas centered on human beings and love. In her heart, God is always there above all. It is a supernatural being, embodying the absolute value and thehighest principle. Her God is different from the Christian God, and her religion is the one based on love and feelings.George Eliot believes that love should be regarded as a standard of existence as well as the full embodiment of human nature. Only those with the feeling of love should be regarded as being existing in the world. On the contrary, there would be nothing and no human nature without love. Thus, her religion should be the one of pure feelings without any formal rituals. She holds that people can experience those feelings, which the Christians are in search of in their performance of their religious activities and be greatly satisfied in the same scale. George Eliot uses her novels to reveal the theme of God, and the central idea of "loving the God and loving your neighbor" of Christian religious belief is deeply reflected in her novels. This thesis is to analyze George Eliot's unique understanding and attitude towards the religion on the basis of her life and her works.