WESTERN
Atheism in liberation Theology
Alfredo Fierro, The militant gospel
a critical introduction to political theologies
(Orbis: NY 1977)
Many of today's theologians, and almost all those who have concerned themselves
with political theology, seem to admit unreservedly the validity of the Marxist
analysis insofar as socioeconomic realities are concerned. Current political
theology takes for an accepted fact the historical-materialist interpretation of
production relationships, social classes, political power, and the social
processes of change. Up to that point a general consensus exists: Marxism
is valid as a social and economic theory, and theological anthropology can count
on it with the same assurance that it counts on the fact of phylogenetic
evolution.
Now historical materialism includes an explanation of the religious
phenomenon that reduces it to a mere ideological superstructure engendered by
relationships based on economic domination. At this point it seems that theology
cannot identify itself with Marxism, except under pain of losing its own
identity. It is at this point that the relationship of political theology to
Marxist thought begins to grow obscure. To begin with, theologians are not
unanimous in the way they try to evade the Marxist criticism of religion.
Furthermore, no matter what way out they choose, they do not offer satisfactory
reasons for their particular choice or explain it in clear-cut terms. Some
theologians restrict the validity of the Marxist analysis to the socioeconomic
order, though they do not offer reasons why. In their opinion the Marxist method
is valid only in the analysis of societal relationships, not in the realm of
religious signification. This restrictive interpretation of Marxism, which
rejects its pretensions to extend its criticism to religious reality, usually
goes hand in hand with an ideological understanding of Marxism. Marx himself is
then seen as one more link in the chain of philosophers who have criticized the
Christian religion in ideological terms. He is viewed specifically as an epigone
of Feuerbach, adopting his thesis about religious alienation and
introducing certain modifications and complementary ideas by underling
productive, revolutionary praxis. When Marxist atheism is understood along
such lines, there is every reason to suspect a basic misunderstanding of some
sort. The early writings of Marx in particular do indeed contain features of
religious criticism taken over from Feuerbach. But they are not the typical
features of Marxism, which specifically ridicules any desire to combat one set of
ideas (religious ones) by using another set of ideas (atheistic ones). Marx takes
for granted the fact that ideological or philosophical criticism of religion has
been fully completed, and he is not in that. What he is interested in
contributing is a set of principles for a practical criticism of the
socioeconomic base.
114-116
Many theologians, sharing this view, are taking advantage of the present-day
theology of secularity to evade the blow dealt by Marxist criticism. If one
starts off from the premise that there is a distinction between faith and
religion, then one can say that the Marxist method dissolves the religious
phenomenon but does not touch faith at all. The validity of Marx's religious
criticism is one of the factors forcing us to accept a nonreligious Christianity,
a secular faith. Such a secular faith would have the virtue of permitting us to
evade the criticism levelled by Marxism against religion.
... The distinction, in short, is functional and effective only when used
intramurally by Christians; it has no real apologetic or polemic value in
confrontations with those outside Christianity. For Marxist thought, of course,
this alleged distinction between religion and faith is an illusion without any
real existence. 117
One may go all the way in accepting Marx's criticism of religion. The Christian
believer may accept the conclusion that all religion, including the Christian
religion, is an ideological superstructure engendered by certain specific
production relationships, but a superstructure which is capable in turn of
reacting to the economic base and thereby demonstrating its relative autonomy.
This is the position of Marxist-Christians, who forthrightly state:
"Our problematic depends entirely on the acceptance of historical
materialism as an indubitable fact. As Marx himself puts it, 'In general the mode
of material production dominates the development of social, political, and
intellectual life.'" 118
There are few theological studies designed to integrate theology into a
material-based dialectical anthropology. Marxism is tacitly assumed by many
theologians, but there is no reflective or thematic treatment of the fact. The
possibility of a theology based on Marxist theses or hypotheses still stands in
need of full verification. ... Some Marxist theoreticians have attempted to lay
hold of the fact of Christianity and theological ideology not in terms of
dissolving them completely but rather in terms of critically recovering and
rehabilitating the content embodied in them. Without meaning to slight the
contributions of other contemporary authors, we might note here the work of
Ernst Bloch and Lucien Goldmann. It is
Bloch who has perhaps shown most earnestness and sympathy in trying to work out a
historical-materialist theory of Christianity that would salvage its legitimate
heritage. Bloch pictures Marxism, and Marxist hope in particular, as
"religion in its heritage." 119
From that precise perspective, then, it may be of some advantage to consider a
question which has loomed large in some discussions between Christians and
Marxists. It has to do with atheism. Is atheism essential to Marxism? Is
it as essential to Marxism as belief in God is to Christianity? In the 1965
discussion in Salzburg, there seemed to a consensus that one could answer those
questions in the negative, or at least the second one, so long as one spelled out
what one meant. A Catholic theologian, Marcel Reding, dedicated a whole
presentation to trying to show that Marxists are not obliged, by virtue of their
Marxism, to profess atheism. A scientist, Paul Weingartner, likewise maintained
that "atheism is not a logical consequence of Marxism, if Marxism is taken
to be a science." Finally a Marxist, Cesare Luporini, agreed that Marx's law
of the base-superstructure relationship, which Reding saw as the essence of
Marxism, is neither religious nor atheistic; hence Marxist atheism is not
grounded in any scientific principle and is rather a "postulatory
atheism" rooted in humanism and ethics.
376
The Marxist will be atheist almost as a foregone conclusion, just as the
Christian will naturally tend to be a believer in God despite the more recent
appearance of an atheistic brand of Christianity. At the level of
tradition and initial stance, Marxists and Christians confront each other as
atheists and believers in God respectively. Today this opposition remains
irreconcilable, and those who call themselves Christian Marxists must be aware
that they carry within them a historical contradiction awaiting resolution. 377
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