The idea that humans have a �God-shaped hole� when it comes to morality assumes that without God�especially a God who grounds morality and issues difficult commandments�we would lack ethical direction. But this doesn�t hold up under scrutiny. Moral reasoning clearly predates and extends beyond any single religious tradition. Philosophers like Aristotle grounded ethics in human flourishing and virtue, while thinkers such as Immanuel Kant argued that moral duties arise from rational consistency itself, not divine decree. In contemporary thought, secular frameworks like utilitarianism and human rights theory provide structured, demanding moral systems without appealing to God. Even difficult moral rules�such as prohibitions against harming innocents or obligations to tell the truth�can be justified through considerations of well-being, social trust, and fairness. The persistence of moral debate across cultures suggests not a missing divine anchor, but an ongoing human effort to reason together about how best to live. Rather than revealing a �hole,� our moral experience points to capacities for empathy, reflection, and shared norms that do not depend on belief in God to function.
Few talk about how believers who attend worship often may report a god-shaped hole themselves!
COMMENT: The author is trying to protect Christianity from psychologists who think that faith has mental health dangers.
Religion tends to imply that a healthy person is the one who centres God. We typically hear, “Man needs a God. If you forget the true God you will put another one, usually the state or money or the body beautiful, etc. in his place.” Idols are not necessarily religious. The banker obsessed with money does not burn incense to it and kiss it reverently all the time. He does not expect it to miraculously bless him. So religion should say, “Man needs an idol. Your vision of God could be your idol. It could be like the woman you love when you in fact only think you know her. It is your image of her that you love not her.” In other words, if there is a gap there that one will fill, it does not matter what it is as long as it is filled. It is an idol-free zone and needs an idol. Surely service of one's neighbour should be the best idol!
There is the core religious doctrine that prayer is not about what we do but about what God does if we let him. Prayer is letting him in. Saying that depression and so on is to be blamed on the person not being prayerful enough or dedicated to God enough violates the mental health care ethic that the victim must not necessarily be blamed. Saying that breaks rapport between therapist and client.
Plus do you want to ask therapists to become religious ministers and evangelists?
It is risking abuse to tell somebody that if they cannot handle something when God is there that it is their own fault. Telling them it is partly their fault is also dangerous for they wonder if their own flaws have broken the camel's back. It lays a heavy burden down for they think that one tiny slip-up they made was the straw that did this. It is risking abuse if it is not actually abuse. But we assert that it is actually abuse.
Plus while Jesus and Jeremiah may have suffered from depression, others would say they were just responding properly to bad things happen and you couldn't expect them to be anything but sad. It is highly improper to argue that depression is not a god-shaped hole for Jesus had it and couldn't have such a hole as he was God's beloved son. You have no right to use a religious story as a way of looking at the suffering around you. If depression is indeed a sense of divine absence or non-existence then it is not right to deny that in the name of making Jesus fit your theology.
Notice how our author incoherently denies that depression is down to a rejection of God and then says that we all need God. If we need him then we damage ourselves by not letting him in or opposing him.
Christianity says that evil is not measured by harm. So it says violent and sadistic video games are evil for they feed the bad in the person. They help the person create bad changes inside. The person absorbs and venerates toxicity. Christianity says the reason people disapprove of immorality is because of the corruption in the person and not because of any actual harm done. Now that judgementalism does not fit the claim that God easily averts corruption. If he is that good at it then seeing a person as having evil inside is not seeing how God has largely uprooted it. The person may have invited him to and it has not been announced yet. It takes time for the changes to become apparent. Such dangerous nonsense shows that if a person has a hole and they think it is god-shaped they are wrong.
Therapists may dwell on the harm done by a client. But they will certainly not engage with the notion that there is some spiritual pollution inside the person. They in fact warn that such a belief if misguided will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Christians say we all frequently sin daily against the absolutely loving God. If that is so, is it a big deal if we blame depression on sin? If everybody steals, does it matter if you just jump to the conclusion that Joey stole your geranium plant?
Christianity is a mental-health hazard. And its followers are as well each in their own right and in their own way.