oa [Gods haat en tiranniek geweten: over de verwantschap tussen psychoanalyse en protestantse theologie, God’s Hate and Tyrannical Conscience: On the Affiliation between Psychoanalysis and Protestant Theology]

In his seminar on ethics Jacques Lacan suggests there exists a ‘filiation’ between Freudian psychoanalysis and a ‘new direction of thought’ that starts with Luther’s conceptualization of ‘a hatred that existed even before the world was created’, and is then further continued in Calvinism. In this article this thesis is explored. The author argues that there is not only a familiarity between the protestant doctrines of predestination and Freud’s reconstruction of prehistoric events, but also that Lacan’s project on ethics and his elaboration of desire, superego and morality shows an affiliation with Calvinist thought on the nature of conscience and the longing for restoration of a lost image of God.