Skolimowski is Professor of Ecological Philosophy at the University of Lodz, Poland A Brief History of Radical Theology The philoso shy of Karl Marx (1818-83), and ee _ of se is rooted in the thought of Georg re worked out were not original and are . no unique, but rather, were radical reworkings of Christian-oriented systems.
At the base of Marx’s philosophy lay his his view being the synthesis of th as of Hegel and Ludwig 72), a philosopher much »gel’s ideas. In the Hegelian considered to be ind was trapped by its own nature of the world. hat the individual mind is the Universal Mind the alienated from =n humanity finally came to realise its called it God. Thus humanity was in a state of self-denial and such essentially human facets as love and truth had become idealised and thought to be the property of God. And not until this stage of intellectual development had been passed through would men and women come to find true self-realisation.
In the philosophy of Marx this concept was to undergo further re-interpretation and further re-direction. For Marx mankind was not the mistaken but essentially spiritual creature of Hegel, but rather the Feuerbachian creature, alienated through his unconscious self-denial.
But if this was so, humanity, in a state of enlightenment must be fulfilled now, in this life and not in a non-existent other. People were perceived as being alienated not from God but from their own selffulfilment in life — from their own creativity.
For Marx then, the reorientation of an originally Christian system meant a necessary adjustment in the terms of reference with which his viewpoint dealt. Consequently the philosophy of Marx became grounded in a humanity which was seen to have an economic rather than a spiritual Feuerbach hus, for Hegel, liberation existence. Furthermore, as Marx turns away from theology and towards political philosophy, his theory of alienation yields up three more concepts that became fundamental to his theory. First there arises an understanding of a connection between ills and irrationalities in society. Secondly, an understanding that society’s irrationalities are fundamentally related to the kind of labour and methods of production it uses. Thirdly, he perceives this particular state as a transitory element in human and social development.
The concept of the development of human consciousness in history is again developed from Hegelian philosophy. According to Hegel’s theory of the dialectical development of human consciousness from unawareness to selfawareness there is in history an inevitable progression towards ultimate self-realisation. _ This dialectical development occurs through a series of unavoidable conflicts in whici the result is always what Hegel described as ‘the negation of the negation’, but which is, perhaps, better understood in the more commonly and coherently expressed form of thesis, antithesis and synthesis.
The theory posits that a system or thesis (Jewish or Christian, for example) is inevitably involved in a conflict with its antithesis (in this case Hellenism). The resultant synthesis is Hellenistic Christianity — a system that has taken the most dynamic aspects of the two traditions and united them in a more perfect system. This in turn, however, becomes a thesis itself and comes into conflict with its own antithesis to produce a more developed synthesis, and so on. For Hegel the dialectical development of human consciousness would cease only when humanity came to fully understand its true nature and thus achieve liberation, an occurrence that would coincide with the end of history.
It was from this philosophical background that Marx’s own theory of the historical dialectic was to emerge. With God rejected as no more than a projection of human consciousness, and Marx’s philosophy grounded in economic man, his theory of the historical dialectic became rooted in materialism, rather than idealism.
Consequently the theory was to become known as dialectical materialism.
The generative forces of dialectical materialism were private property and the proletariat. In the theory, however, both forces were seen as antitheses as both were in a state of contradiction. Private property could not exist without the Sof 56 November 2002 continued existence of the property-less proletariat, whilst the proletariat, in order to bring about an end to private property, must effectively abolish itself. The resulting synthesis will then not be structured on an Hegelian negation but rather on a completely new classless society.
In the Marxist dialectic the Hegelian role of religion is usurped by economic imperatives. Furthermore, consciousness and the desire for fulfilment occur only because the proletariat are both denied it and made aware of it by society. But even this state is transitory - a necessary stage in the development towards final self-awareness and the classless society. So Marx is able to complete his inversion of the Hegelian dialectic by observing that ‘consciousness does not determine life, but life determines consciousness’.
At times the historical aspect of Marxist philosophy bears a striking resemblance to the Judeo-Christian tradition that it denigrates as the product of inverted consciousness. This is perhaps not surprising when one considers the : social background and the Christian-based Rat philosophy from which much of Marx’s own thought emerged.
Marx, like Christianity, was teleological in outlook, greatly emphasising the eschatological nature of history. The end, however, would bring about not the Kingdom of God but, rather, the Kingdom of Man - the classless society.
Furthermore, just as Christianity needed Christ as Messiah through whom liberation and the Kingdom could be reached, so too did Marxism need and find a Messiah in the united suffering proletariat. So Marxism, like Christianity and Judaism before it, society - a symptom of the social disease from which man is suffering. So what is necessary and beneficial for man is not the abolition of religion, but rather the destruction or transformation of the social structures and conditions that perpetuate its existence. ‘The call to abandon their illusions about their conditions is a call to abandon a condition which requires illusions’ Marx has not been without his detractors, and his views on religion have come under the severest criticism. The qualities of abstractness and generality that may well be considered one of the strongest features of his political philosophy, but, when applied to religion, the same qualities have been seen to be the main weakness of Marx theology. A common response has been to argue that to view religion as Marx has done is not to understand it at all, for in essence religion is a personal or individual phenomenon. Marx, of course, did not legislate for individual or mystical experience nor for the human apprehension of the numinous and many, his Danish contemporary Seren Kierkegaard (1813-55) among them, expressed dissatisfaction at being considered little more than a cog ina cosmic wheel. The Marxist eschaton of the classless society has not yet arrived and religious faith, if confessed by fewer people in Western Europe than in previous years, still Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.
It is the opium of the people preached a form of salvation history.
So what does the replacement of religion by economics actually mean in terms of a Marxist response to religion?
Certainly religious objects are illusory - there is no God - but is religious belief actually the problem or a symptom of the problem that afflicts humanity? As Marx observed, ‘Religious suffering is at the same time an expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people’.
An eloquent summation, but perhaps religion’s opium-like power is a necessary indulgence for those members of a society not yet fully self-aware.
Marx sees religion not as a problem but as a symptom of the problem. It is the natural product of an alienated consciousness desperate for both a sense of meaning and a chance for fulfilment.
Marx again: ‘Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is indeed man’s selfconsciousness and self-awareness as long as he has not found his feet in the universe’.
Marx is not interested in the isolating and abolishing of religion, indeed in practical terms it would not be possible to legislate for the abolition of a natural phenomenon.
Rather, religion is seen as a byproduct of Sof 56 November 2002 remains a vibrant experience for many. Perhaps in summary we might conclude that Marx’s influence on the study of religion was greater than his contribution to its philosophy, though both would have been the poorer without him.
Trevor Greenfield is Associate lecturer in Religious Studies, University College Chichester Send your letters to: