The most intellectually satisfying book of philosophy I've read on
Marx's concept of religion is Nicholas Lash's A Matter of Hope: A
theologians reflections on the thought of Karl Marx, (Darton, Longman
and Todd,1981). Lash is Roman Catholic philosopher-theologian in
dialogue with Marx's thought from the standpoint of critical theology.
(image: Exodus - Bernard Deshler)
Lash
is certainly correct when he writes that Feuerbach's account of the
"essence" of Christianity is very weak, as well as elitist/classist. He
points to Feuerbach's question in giving primitive christianity failing
grades : "Did Christianity conquer a single philosopher, Historian or
poet of the Classical period? The philosophers who went over to
Christianity were feeble contemptible philosophers...The decline of
culture was identical with the victory of Christianity" (Essence of
Christianity, p 269). Surely this sort of class chauvinism and
valorisation of 'noble Rome' coloured Feuerbach's whole evaluation of
the character of 'Primitive Katholizismus'.
Feuerbach's
condemnation of primitive Christianity is based on a very speculative
and dismissive reading: he states that the images of God or Christ or the
kingdom,- that is the material content of christan religious faith, -
were the fanciful pre-conceptual projections of human
self-understanding. So religion for Feuerbach is human alienation from
itself. Marx took this theory as his own. Marx's historical method and
empathy surpassed Feuerbach's, and permitted him to see religion and
real human suffering in a grounded, original manner: viz. Marx's
statement in his Introduction to
A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right that religion is: "the sigh of the oppressed creature, the
heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is
the opium
of the people." But still Marx's theoretical reliance on
Feuerbach for a theory of religion and Marx's own formal and nominal
early religious instruction allowed a certain reductionism to remain
(religion as only and merely a fantastic reflection of human
alienation).
Marx assuming Feuerbach's central thesis ,
went on in his outline of the transit to the socialist-communist
society to state that religion possessing no content of its own and
being merely a projection born of human alienation, would wither away
with the State in socialist society. Marx unlike Feuerbach was not
elitist about the religion of the people, but he did not develop an
analysis of the social contradictions within the composition of early
christianity as Engels did, and neither Marx nor Engels dealt with the
power of "utopia' in the Bible. The 20th century Marxist philosopher
Ernst Bloch of
The Frankfurt School accomplished this retreival
in his investigations of the religions of the people, and his
explorations mark a great advance in a Marxist theoretical recovery of
the revolutionary iconoclastic use of the prophet's scrolls, Jesus'
iconoclastic way. Bloch's thesis in his work Atheism in Christianity is
that there are virtually two canons of Scripture, or two Bibles – one
interpreted by a church compromised by union with the ruling-class and
used in order to dominate the masses from above, and the other a
religion of the people, and providing the utopian social-revolutionary
aspect of christianity.
Thomas Aquinas,
the angelic doctor
of scholasticism made extensive use "Apophatic" theology (from Ancient
Greek root meaning"to deny") — also known as negative theology or via
negativa, in his opus
Summa Theologica. This is a theology that attempts to describe God, the Divine Good, by negation, that is to say only of what
may not be said about the ineffable mystery of God. . Apophatic theology found its most influential expression in works such as those of Pseudo-Dionysius , an author Aquinas quotes extensively in
ST.
Aquinas states that all mediations/symbolisations of the divine such as
the sacraments will cease with the coming of the beatific vision in the
fullness of 'the kingdom of God'.
In contrast to the
modern "New Atheism" tendency of bourgeois secularism found in the
writings of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, the
Frankfurt School
thinkers are aware that Christian theological reflection
and Christian institutions of religion form the main root
of Western culture and moral norms. Consequently, they recognize
religion as a pre-eminent tool of cultural criticism, and they
acknowledge negative theology as an authentic form of reason.
So within christianity we find not only the anthropomorphic tendency of
an alienating religion but also a tradition of the prophetic voice as
well as an apophatic Mystical theology with its language of negation
regarding the limitations of symbols. Both these christian currents reject the fetishism of
penultimate forms and open the 'religion and revolt' question afresh for atheist and
theist alike..
Works cited:
1.Marx, K. Introduction to
A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right.Collected Works, v. 3. New York.1976
2. Lash, Nicholas.
Matter of Hope : A Theologian's Reflections on the Thought of Karl Marx. 1982. Univ. of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, IN.
3. Bloch, Ernst Jun 1 2009.
Atheism in Christianity: The Religion of the Exodus and the Kingdom.With an Introduction by Peter Thompson;
Translated by J. T. Swann. 2nd edition. Verso.
4. Aquinas, Thomas.
Summa Theologica,
Translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Benziger
Bros. edition. 1947-8. Note: cf. see "Of the Necessity of The
Sacraments" (Four Articles)
5.
Feuerbach,
Ludwig. The Essence of Christianity. Foreword by Helmut Richard Niebuhr;
Introduction by Karl Barth. HarperCollins, 1942.
. 
