Separation of Church and State as Marx' Replacement Theology

Back, again, to my primary social concern:  Marxism.  No surprise there.

The first impression of Marxist motives usually leads us to the idea of statism.  The principle that Marx proclaimed, that religion is the opiate of the people, sets the church beneath the state.  That may seem more Hegelian than particularly Marxist, but still plays into the goals of Marx.

Today's popular Marxists, like the ACLU, proclaim the state and church as separate entities.  That is, there is to be no reciprocal relationship between then.  The church is best of being outside the control of government and likewise the government must not approach anything resembling the old theocracies.  So the question becomes plain:  How do we fit this into the Marxist paradim?

It is a simple error to miss the revolutionary intentions of Marx and his end game.  In the end the Marxist intends that the church serves the interest of the state.  To get there, that's another story.  It goes to Marx' view of virtue and ethics, of what is real and what is unreal.  For to Marx only the material is real and that leaves all religion and faith unreal.  And what is unreal is to be rejected, to be set aside and replaced with his materialism.

The process winds its way through two general steps.  The first is to marginalize the church.  The second is use this marginalized position to present the Marxist alternative to a church that is impotent.

Marginalization came by way of a redefinition of theology.  By employing Freuerbach and others of similar persuasion, religious belief was changed from the immanent God who is involved in human affairs to something unreal and merly emotional.  Bockmuehl states it this way (p. 31, The Challenge of Marxism):

Is Christianity real?  This attack leveled by Marx and Engels is of special concern to Christians because the slogan "real humanism," which sums up the attack, was also used to point out the alleged unreality of Chrsitian theology.  "Real humanism" was the battle cry shouted at the thin spiritualism of contemporary Protestant theology as well as at speculative, idealistic philsophy.  bot of these never got anywhere near the actual situation of the proletariat, because they were so occupied with more spiritual things.  Therefore, Marx and Engels looked at this kind of "religious inhumanity" as one of their main enemies.

This approach is part of the Marxist criticism.  His "critical thinking" was not what we would probably term "critical analysis."  For Marx it was an intentional attack on what has been heretofore assumed to be true.  Critical thinking was and his the Marxist method for tearing down obstacles for the establishment of his world view as a system.  This was his "ruthless criticism of the existing order" that we might today read on bumper stickers as Subvert the Dominant Paradigm.

The door has now been opened to replace an unreal and impotent Christianity (or any other religion) with a strictly human way of doing things. As Lennon said, and employing many of the core principles of a Marxist world view:Imagine there's no Heaven

It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today


Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one


Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world


You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

This criticism of religion is Marx' foundation.  Again, as Bockmuehl says (p. 51):

In 1844 Karl marx published his essay entitled "A Contribution to the Critique of hegel's Philosophy of Law: Introduction."  Contrary to its abstract title, this piece carried significant concrete weight:  It was the manifesto of early Marxism.  the very first sentence contained a two-point thesis:  For Germany the criticism of religion is in the main complete, and criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism."

This is intended to leave religious faith vulnerable, and that was his goal throughout.  But while we may philosophyically prove the assumption to be in error, the step that we must take is to raise our theology above the compromise of pluralism and to make Christianity more and more real -- practically beneficial -- to the world around us.  Calvin did this in Geneva.  Rome did this by ending slavery in Europe during the first millennium.  English protestantism initiated the end of secularism's slavery through Newton and Wilberforce.

And, looking back on the heritage of Marx, we can clarify the impotence and abuses of his world view despite the rantings of Obama and Schaeffer.  The compromise of faith is a plain dismissal of that faith, for the acceptance of Marxism is an acceptance of its atheism.

Today gods from the right and the left compete to impress the church and persuade it, causing it to reduce itself to nothing but the moderate expression of the accepted opinions of the day.  In contrast to this the first task of the church is to find and keep its identity. (Bockmuehl, p. 21)

Thoughts on Twentieth Century Philosophy, part 4

Tillich begins Courage and Individualization with this comment:
Existentialism is the courage to be.  It is the expression of the individualism of liberalism and modernity.  It is, as he says, founded in romance and there is no coincidence of its growth during the post-enlightenment period of the 19th c.  There is a distinct turn away from Hegel's theodicy:

Late romanticism, Bohemianism, and romantic naturalism had prepared the way for present-day Existentialism th emost radical form of the courage to be oneself.  In spite of the large amount of literlature which has appeared recently about Existentialism it is necessary for our purpose to deal with it form the point of view of its ontological character and its relation to the courage to be.

Working out this courage to be comes in three parts:

The Existential attitude and the Existentialist content have in common an interpretation of the human situation which conflicts with a nonexistential interpretation.  The latter asserts that man is able to transcend, in knowledge and life, the finitude, the estrangement, and the abiguities of human existence.  Hegel's system is the classical expression of essentialism.  When Kierkegaard broke away from Hegel's system of essences he did two things:  he proclaimed an existential attitude and he instigated a philosophy of existence.

Tillich finds the point of view of the existentialist not as a specific position of other philosophers but as a thread through time.  He sees it in Plato, and Augustine, but not in Pelagius, who appears more concerned about the essence of morality than about the expression.  This dualism is impossible to miss. 

Turning now to Existentialism not as an attitude but as a content, we can distinguish three meanings:  Existentialism as a point of view, as protest, and as expression.

He finds the courage of the existentialist within Christianity and the Christian concept of community.  Sort of.  It works out in an odd sort of way:

The Platonic distinction between the essential and the existential realms is fundamental for all later developments.  It lies in the background even of present-day Existentialism.

Here he sets up courage against the totalitarian systems as well as democracy.  And, while he finds a place for courage in the Church he still sets it against the authority of the Church and gives all of that to the individual.

The violent reactions against modern art in collectivist (Nazi, Communist) as well as conformist (American democratic) groups show that they fell serioiusly threatened by it. But one does not feel spiritually threated by something which is not an element of oneself.  And since it is a symptom of neurotic character to resist nonbeing by reducing being, the Existentialist could reply to the frequent reproach that he is neurotic by showing that the neurotic defense mechanisms of the anti-Existentialist desire for tradition and safety.

There should be no question of what Christian theology has to do in this situation.  It should decide for truth against safety, even if the safety is consecrated and supported by the churches.  Certainly there is a Christian conformism, from the beginning of the Church on, and there is a Christian collectivism -- or at least semicollectivism, in several periods of Church history.  But this should not induce Christian theolgians to identify Christian courage with the courage to be as a part.  They should realize that the courage to be as oneself is the necessary corrective to the courage to be as a part -- even if they rightly assume that neither of these forms of the courage to be gives the final solution.

For the evangelical, Tillich's argument has a bit of value.  We know the problems of conformity in our culture, and Tillich helps us maintain this awareness.  Yet his completely individualized approach ends up doing damage to the concept of body for the church. 

On Analogical Theology and the Trinity

One of the most popular argumentation methods is analogy. We often find ourselves engaged in conversations where the conclusion is driven by like and as comparisions. Pictures, after all, are the best way to communicate. But these pictures must be kept under control -- under some level of constraint -- so that the whole point is not missed.

Joseph Priestly, famous in both science and philosophy, left orthodox Christianity by way of his analogical approach to the doctrine of the trinity:

If, for example, bread and wine, philosophically, i.e., strictly and justly considered, cannot be flesh and blood, the popish doctrine of transubstantiation cannot be true. So also if one cannot be three, or three, one, mathematically considered, neither can the Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity be true. It certainly, therefore, behoves every rational christian to prove the consistency of the articles of his faith with true philosophy and the nature of things.

What he says might be true -- if God were a set of numbers. But the numerical analogy breaks down once we see that God is not numbers. Sounds simple to us, but not so simple to a rationalist. For the rationalist all things must be understandable. Reason, it is held, is the only source for truth as man is the measure of all things.

There is, of course, the potential for damage as well as reinforcement of proper trinitarian theology through reason. The Doctrine of Divine Simplicity, a philosophical principle much older than Christianity and clarified by Aquinas, provides a useful tool for dealing with analogical errors. The Trinity (God, that is) is defined by certain characteristics. He is not describable by the methods historically employed.

Specifically, is not, and does not contain, contingent properties. There is no potential (because that means a change might take place), no form (form is limiting), not an "accident" (the result of something else). There is more to Aquinas' argument, but it is not extremely complicated. The result of this is that God, not being of genus number cannot be described by that analogy.

Today's unitarian attitudes, even within evangelicalism, are doing damage to more than just the doctrine of the Trinity -- the doctrine of God. They are also affecting the primacy of the sufficient work of Christ as redeemer.

Thoughts on Twentieth Century Philosophy, part 3

A turn in Christian theology came with the invention and intervention of neo-orthodoxy. This movement attempts to reconcile some parts of historic orthodoxy with liberalism and a dialectical approach to faith (hence a link to both the continental philosophyical and theological movements), and to restore some sense of positivism. Arising after WWI, the demise of (at least secular) postmillennial postivism left a vacuum in both secular and Christian thought. Theologians attempted to fill this gap, hence men like Karl Jaspers and Karl Barth.

(These comments are in regard to Jaspers' work The Axial Period.)

Unlike Croce who sees little of value in history and Hegel/Marx/Lenin who viewed history as teleological but circular, Jaspers brought the traditional Christian linear view of history into view.

In the Western World, the philosophy of history was founded in the Christian faith. In a grandiose sequence of works ranging from St. Augustine to hegel this faith visualised the movement of God through history.

It is no accident that Jaspers viewed Hegel as part of the Christian framework. When one reads Hegel it is evident, at least to many though certianly not a concensus) that his is a sort of secular theodicy. He built a system that is teleological and coherent, much as did the medieval and reformation theologians. Yet he did it within the context of modernity and liberalism, creating an intentionally Godless emphasis. It amounted to Christianity without God. But this is about Jaspers, not Hegel.

Jaspers' dialectic shows itself in his dualistic explanation of what he perceives as the tradition Christian view of history.

For Christians sacred history was separated from profane history, as being different in its meaning. Even the believing Christian was able to examine the Christian tradition itself in the same way as other empirical objects of research.

Whether his perspective on this apparent dualism is accurate or not is immaterial to the point that he makes an identification of such a dualism. His conjecture is that the Christian world view has taken a dialectical view of history.

When Jaspers, and many others, use the term dialectic or describe events in that method, it does not mean that they take the materialist view of Lenin, Marx, Diderot, etc. It means simply that they are framing world history and world views in terms of two opposing positions. It is a more general application of the term and method.

The conflicts that are the dialectic can be seen through history in various venues. He cites a parallel example in Japan that closely resembles the Reformation:

In the sixteenth century the Jesuits discovered in Japan a Buddhist sect which had flourished there since the thirteenth century. It seems to bear (and actually did bear) an astonishing resemblance to Protestantism. According to the description given by the Japanologist Florenz (in the textbook by Chantepie de la Saussaye) their teaching was somewhat as follows: Man's own efforts contribute nothing toward his salvation. Everything depends upon his faith, faith in Amida's lovingkindness and aid. There are no meritorious good wroks. Prayer is not an achievement, but only an expression of gratitude for the redemption granted by Amida. "If even the good shall enter into eternal life, how much more so shall sinners", said Shinran, the founder of the sect.

By viewing history by way of these parallels, Jaspers limits his potential for the unique impact of actual divine intervention in human history. Why? Because events can be viewed as predictable, or at least estimable, as responses to certain conditions.

Jaspers takes a turn from the secular materialism of the post-enlightenment thinkers but continues to track with their dialectical and somewhat deterministic view of history. Sort of a fork in the road.

Thoughts on Twentieth Century Philosophy, part 2

The first politically impactful philosopher at the beginning of the 20th century (beginning his practical efforts at the end of the previous century) was V. I. Lenin. As Lenin built momentum for his, and I repeat his, Russian Revolution and the subsequent institutionalization of Soviet Communism, he wrote. Within his writing one can find clear defenses of the Marxist concept known as dialectical materialism.

(This comment discusses Lenin's Empirio-Criticism and Dialectical Materialism.)

Dialectical materialism amounts to a view of history that defines its movements in terms of conflict (the dialectic) in a world where material goods are the object of that struggle. This is known today as class conflict and is seen in the modern left's efforts at eliminating all classes in order to resolve all conflicts. Why? Because all struggles are against another class for the purpose of gaining land, food, and other material goods. Wealth. But I digress. Back to Lenin.

Lenin levels considerable and frequent criticism at Ernst Mach and other scientists who reject the Marx-Engels dialectic.

Here is a passage from Mach's latest, comprehensive and conclusive philosophical work that clearly betrays the falsity of this idealist trick. In his Erkenntnis und Irrtun we read: "While there is no difficulty in constructing (aufzubauen) every physical experience out of sensations, i.e., hysical elements, it is impossible to imagine (ist keine Moglichkeit abzusehen) how any physical experience can be composed (darstellen) of the elements employed in modern physics, i.e., mass and motion (in their rigidity -- Starrheit -- which is serviceable only for this special science)"

Of the rigidity of the conceptions of many modern scientists and of their metaphysical (n the Marxian sense of the term, i.e., antidialectical) views, Engels speaks repeatedly and very precisely. ... Mach went astray, because he did not understand or did not know the relation between relativism and dialectics ... It is important for us here to note how glaringly Mach's idealism emerges, in spite of the confused -- ostensibly new -- terminology.

Of note in Lenin's work, more than his words, is his tone. One cannot read Lenin without reading at the same time his forthcoming revolutionary energy. He not only believes what he writes but he also constructs demeaning remarks against all those who disagree. One of his methods for doing this is to marginalize those who disagree.

But Mach, who constantly sets up his views in opposition to materialism, ignores, of course, all the great materialists -- Diderot, Feuerbach, Marx and Engels -- just as all other official professors of official philosophy do.

Get that hint of elitism? His people are "official" (correct, respectable, and best of all, on his side) while Mach (and so many others) are just out in left field. Notice the mockery in this statement:

Sensation, then, exists without "substance," i.e., thought exists without brain! Are there really philosophers capable of defending brainless philosophy? There are! and Professor Richard Avenarius is one of them.

Of course arrogance and elitism is not the property of the Left. By no means. But such confidence, as we see in those years past, certainly tracks toward the energy of the revolution.

But on the philosophy content of Lenin's argument, I find it ironic that he would spend so much time attacking realism, ostensibly to protect dialectical materialism, yet does this:

Human knowledge is not (or does not follow) a straight line, but a curve, which endless approximates to a series of circles, a spiral. Each fragment, segment, section of this curve can be transformed (transformed one-sidedly) into an independent, complete straight line, which then (if one does not see the wood for the trees) leads into the quagmire, into clericalism (where it is reinforced by the class interests of the ruling classes). Rectilinearity and one-sidedness, stiffness and petrification, subjectivism and subjective blindness -- viola the epistemological roots of idealism. And clearicalism (= philosophical idealism), of course, has epistemological roots, it is not groundless; it is a sterile flower undoubtedly, but it is a sterile flower that grows on the living tree of living, fertile, genuine, powerful, omnipotent, objective, absolute human knowledge.

Now I wonder. Is this absolute human knowledge something distinct from human existence? Of course it is. All of the components of the dialectic are held up as universal, transcendent principles. But is that not a form of idealism? Lenin was stuck with an unrecognized conflict. But inconsistency and error did not stop the revolution and the quagmire of 20th century socialism and communism.

There is a simple lesson in Lenin: We must not be arrogant in our knowledge. What matters, in practical terms, is the practical terms. As we apply the Christian ethic -- pro-life, pro-work, pro-liberty -- we must do more than talk. Ideas require mechanisms. They always have and they always do.

Thoughts on Twentieth Century Philosophy, part 1

If the 19th century was the era of the post-enlightenment philosophers (Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, and others) then the 20th century can be seen as the footprint of these philosophers. This past century saw the application of the efforts of these philosophers in various political and social venues, but that is not my first concern. Instead I would like to explore how subsequent philosophers made their respective turns either toward or away from (to varying degrees, of course) the ideas expressed during the post enlightenment century.

All philosophers and their works come accompanied by certain baggage and this baggage is often seen in differing lights. While we might reject certain aspects of one philosopher, another school of thought might embrace the very principles that we reject. Additionally, many valuable components that a philosopher provides do not come directly from the material but from the impact that the material has over time.

Over time we’ll take a look at several significant philosophers from the past century and make a few comments regarding their respective motion as it relates to the prior century’s efforts.

Benedetto Croce (1866-1952)

Croce’s dismissal of meaningful history presents a fascinating challenge. In History, Its Theory and Practice, he says that

Facts are brute, dense, real indeed, but not illumined with the light of science, in intellectualized.

The reaction to Hegel’s teleological view of history seems clear. For Croce

… whoever adopts the deterministic conception of history, provided that he decides to abstain from cutting short the inquiry that he has undertaken in an arbitrary and fanciful manner, is of necessity obliged to recognize that the method adopted does not attain the desired end.

With history so goes all real knowledge:

In poetry, facts are no longer facts but words, not reality but images, and so there would be no occasion to censure them, if it remained pure poetry. But it does not so remain, because those images and words are placed there as ideas and facts – that is to say, as myths: progress, liberty, economy, technique, science are myths, in so far as they are looked upon as agents external to the facts.

His method for dealing with the quasi-Platonist (dialectical) ideals of Kant, Hegel, & Marx was to turn it on its head.

By drawing the consequences of the dialectical conception of progress something more immediately effective can be achieved in respect to the practice and history of historiography. For we find in that conception the origin of a historical maxim, in the mouth of every one, yet frequently misunderstood and frequently violated – that is to say, that history pertains not to judge, but to explain, and that it should be subjective, not objective.

Here he takes the very premise of Marx, that revolution is a necessary part of past and future history, and of Hegel, that the processes of society are inevitable and predictable, and adds the most basic ethical wrapper - is vs ought. History, as it is, is not to be treated as a determiner of the future, and much more should not be used in that fashion.

Of course Croce wrote much more than this. But from even this short except his work has a value that we might keep in mind. When dealing with today's Leftists we might employ the fundamental principle that the progressive movement denies -- that history is not determinative.

Book Review: Why There Almost Certainly Is A God

Why There Almost Certainly Is A God
Keith Ward
Lion Hudson plc
ISBN: 978 0 8254 7843 7

The field of Christian apologetics is the accumulation of 2 millennia of methods and approaches. At the earliest stage there were the classic apologists and evidentialists who both saw Jesus and the resurrection and experienced all the events of the era. But as time progressed, as we moved further away from the events, and skepticism rose, it became necessary to build new methods and approaches to answer to the questions.

The most recent serious challenge to Christianity is naturalistic evolution. We are not talking about the principle of evolution, that is, change, but about a presupposition about the nature and character of all that exists. This presupposition sits behind the materialistic framework of Richard Dawkins view of nature, mind, and all of history. His book, The God Delusion, presents to the world his criticism of the existence of God and his reasons why.

In response to Dawkins’ claims, Keith Ward as given us Why There Almost Certainly is a God. This book is an excellent introduction to the field of Christian apologetics. Though there are some points where I would differ, that can be set aside just for the sake of his major point. Mr. Ward gives us a practical implementation of the Kalam cosmological argument. Following are some quotes from the book which are of immense value:

Most philosophers in the world have been in some sense idealists – that is, they have thought the ultimate reality is mind. Theists are philosophers who accept this, but add that the physical world does have its own proper reality, which originates from but is different from God, the ultimate mind. (p. 13)

The world of philosophy, of resolute thought about the ultimate nature of things, is a very varied one, and there is no one philosophical view that has the agreement of all competent philosophers. But in this world there are very few materialists, who think we can know that mind is reducible to electrochemical activity in the brain, or is a surprising and unexpected product of purely material processes.

In the world of modern philosophy, there are idealists, theists, phenomenalists, common sense pragmatists, scientific realists, sceptics, and materialists. These are all going concerns, living philosophical theories of what is ultimately real. This observation does not settle any arguments. But it puts Dawkins’ ‘alternative hypothesis’ in perspective. He is setting out to defend a very recent, highly contentious, minority philosophical world-view. (p. 14)

What is the point of being a materialist when we are not sure exactly what matter is? (p. 15)

Dawkins has a lot of fun with ‘supernatural entities’, as he calls them. He says that God might exist outside the universe – ‘wherever that might be’.

Arguments for God … are arguments to show that mind is the ultimate reality, and that materialism is a delusion caused by a misuse of modern science. The arguments do not ‘prove’ that there is one extra pseudo-physical thing in or just outside the universe. They provide good reasons for thinking that the ultimate character of the universe is mind, and that matter is the appearance or manifestation or creation of cosmic mind. (p. 20)

There is any number of ways in which the Darwinian process of slow, gradual, cumulative adaptation could fail. This is not an argument for God. But it shows that reliance on the predictability of nature, and on its tendency to produce increasingly complex and adapted organic life-forms, is dependent on a very specific adjustment of physical laws that is itself hugely improbable.

The design argument, in its seventeenth-century form – finding the existence of organic life-forms to be too improbable to have arisen spontaneously by chance – may have been superseded by Darwin. But the design argument still lives, as an argument that the precise structure of laws and constants that seem uniquely fitted to produce life by the process of evolution is hugely improbably. The existence of a designer or creator God would make it much less improbably. That is the New Design Argument, and it is very effective. (p. 39-40)

One of Christianity’s infrequently appropriated but highly effective arguments is one of theism’s (it pre-dates Christianity) is DDS, the doctrine of divine simplicity. It is a principle that keeps the doctrine of the Trinity coherent and makes a general understanding of God clear and, of course, simple. You can read it in Aquinas’ Summa Theologica and it is only a couple of pages in length.

Ward makes appropriate use of this argument on pages 48-50. Though he does not mention it by name, the principle is clear. He then builds on it when he employs Occam’s Razor in this context with the goal of critiquing the unnecessary complexity of Dawkins’ materialism.

Just as Ward criticizes Dawkins for leaving his field, evolutionary science, and entering philosophy with a good deal of incompetence, so also a reviewer of this book makes the same error. Mathematician Dr. Jason Rosenhouse critiqued Ward’s particular use of Occam’s Razor but missed the emphasis on DDS and how that approach contributed to his conclusion. The result is that a competent mathematician defends one inadequate philosophical construct with another.

Jason seems to be looking for the author to present some absolute necessity that amounts to an undeniable determination that God actually does exist. He has certain expectations that are clearly stated, and that belies his motivation:

If we believe God exists it makes perfect sense to think that he would at times communicate with us poor humans. He would want us to have some indication that He is there. Let us take that as a working hypothesis.

No. That’s not the working hypothesis that Ward began with. That is not the argument. But this is what happens when a mathematician, who lives in the world where 1 + 1 necessarily = 2 provides both certainty and security, enters a field where necessity takes on more meaning than he is used to.

Rosenhouse’s incompetence in this field is also expressed in his own, over-simplified conclusion.

In short, he is making it up as he goes along.

But going back to the book …

I would recommend this book for the Christian apologist. If you are not strong in apologetics, first read Five Views on Apologetics and then Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics (third edition). This book provides a useful tool for establishing the necessary existence of God. I will leave it to you to garner more evidence from the last chapters and make full use of it in your work and ministry.