Hegelian philosophy is the last refuge, the last rational refuge of Feuerbach theology
Feuerbach opposes idealism of Hegel by noting that it is no coincidence that Protestant theologians would have become Hegelian. Indeed, Hegel does nothing but deposit divinity in Nature and History, bringing God from the 'beyond' to 'hereafter'. Feurebach will say that the secret of theology must be sought in another discipline: anthropology, because this divine being is only the result of trying to project the essence of man into infinity. God, in short, is nothing other than the whole of human attributes, but converted into infinite attributes. Religion is, in conclusion, the alienation of man, since religious man renounces his essence and contemplates it in God, no longer as his own essence but as strange, infinite and divine.
He will then say that the 'progress' of religion depends on man regaining his own essence. Christianity, preaching that 'God has become man' does nothing but seek its own essence, because there is no more God for man than man himself.
For Feurebach, man is not only bodily and sensory unser, but also the 'communal' man: the essence of man is contained in the community, in the unity of man with man. This aspect is fundamental in Christianity: God is Love (Feurebach will interpret 'love is God'). Man is for himself is man (in the ordinary sense); man with man (insofar as the individual relates to the other), is God. This is interpreted as a critique of extreme individualism and explains in part that Marx in its beginnings, he would have identified himself with Feuerbach's thought.