The Atheistic Characteristics of Marx's Philosophy from the Perspective of Its Developing Logic
Adherence to thoroughgoing atheism is an inherent quality of Marx’s philosophy, and the transcendence of the religious conception of history was a vital prerequisite for the founding of historical materialism. Marx’s systematic critique of the religious conception of history is concentrated primarily in early works such as On the Jewish Question, the "Introduction" to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, and The Condition of England: Past and Present by Thomas Carlyle. In this process, Marx and Engels gradually realized that exploring the origins of religion was more important than a mere external critique of it: "Religious backwardness is no longer the cause of secular narrowness, but only its manifestation... once they eliminate secular limitations, they will be able to eliminate their religious limitations." [1] "We demand that the content of history be restored to history, but we do not see history as the revelation of 'God,' but as the revelation of man, and it can only be the revelation of man." [2] Subsequently, Marx’s philosophy increasingly dedicated itself to a deep analysis of the social foundations upon which religion arises. Grounded in practice and adopting a perspective of historical generation [3], Marx’s philosophy focused on revealing the internal contradictions of capitalist society, thereby exploring the laws of development of human society and the path toward true human liberation, thus facilitating the self-extinction of religion.
Through an interpretation of the key texts of Marx’s philosophy across different periods, one finds that the scientific quest for the laws of human social development to achieve true human freedom and liberation is the most fundamental value-aspiration of his philosophy. This value-aspiration remained consistent throughout, but its final realization underwent three stages: the value-oriented call for the liberation of individual subjectivity; the establishment of the social-historical generative paradigm of man based on practice; and finally, the formation of the path to the real liberation of man based on the unity of the individual and society. The process of the formation and development of Marx’s philosophy is precisely the unfolding of his thoroughgoing atheist thought. Presentation of this logical unfolding is the prerequisite and key to clarifying and grasping the atheist character of Marx’s philosophy.
I. The Value-Oriented Call for the Liberation of Individual Subjectivity
Marx’s doctoral dissertation, The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature, marks the starting point of his philosophical achievement and the emergence of theoretical self-consciousness regarding the value-aspiration for the complete liberation and comprehensive freedom of humanity. In the preface, Marx adopts Prometheus’s confession—"In a word, I hate all gods"—as the maxim of philosophy itself. He argues that Epicurus corrected Democritus’s mechanical determinism with the thesis that atoms swerve from the straight line, thereby breaking the shackles of fate and elucidating individual freedom of will, individuality, and independence from a natural perspective. Specifically, Epicurus believed that the atoms constituting the human soul possess a tendency to swerve from the straight line, making it possible for human actions to break away from fated necessity and attain freedom of will and action. He denounced the worship of gods and superstition, despised fate, and emphasized that "man makes his own way" [4], asserting that humans should understand nature and life through philosophy and plan their lives using reason. By defending Epicurus's atheism, Marx was effectively launching a thorough critique of religion in real life and the Hegelian system in theory, noting: "Because nature is poorly arranged, God exists." "Because an irrational world exists, God exists." [5] The task of philosophy is to overcome the objectively existing irrationality so that the world and man himself become rational. Through the highlighting of the philosophy of self-consciousness and the expression of atheist thought, Marx manifested his value-aspiration for subjective freedom and individual liberation. However, because Marx at this time had not yet come into direct contact with social reality and lacked firsthand experience of social life, he believed that the freedom of self-consciousness was thorough and true freedom; his philosophical thought and even the depth of his analysis of reality remained largely at the level of the "ought" [6] of value-presupposition.
During his tenure at the Rheinische Zeitung (Rhine Gazette), Marx encountered issues of real material interests. He gradually realized that only by critiquing religion in closer connection with a critique of political conditions could the principles of communism and socialism be discussed more effectively. He specifically pointed out that "religion itself is without content; its root is not in heaven but on earth. With the elimination of the distorted reality for which religion provides the theory, religion will disappear of its own accord." [7] Consequently, the young Marx shifted from the critique of religion to a secularized political opposition movement, from the realm of pure theory to the direct realm of practical politics, and from spiritual liberation to the real liberation of man. This shift is concentrated in the book Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right and the two essays On the Jewish Question and the "Introduction" to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right.
Having personally investigated various social and economic issues during the Rheinische Zeitung period, Marx recognized through social practice that Hegel had mysteriously deduced various elements of the state from the Absolute Idea, speculatively expounding on the separation of the state from civil society. This inverted the relationship between civil society and the state. Marx believed that before a scientific analysis was made of the foundation of various societies (including bourgeois society)—namely, the relations of production—it was impossible to conduct independent scientific investigations into law, morality, politics, and other categories of the superstructure. Linking his critique of Hegel's political views with his critique of speculative idealism, he pointed out that legal relations, just like the forms of the state, are rooted in the material relations of life: "The anatomy of civil society is to be sought in political economy." [8] This paved the way for Marx’s philosophy to delve into the specific fields of real society to seek the path for human liberation.
In On the Jewish Question, Marx pointed out that religion is no longer the cause of secular narrowness, but only its phenomenon; religion is not the cause of political oppression, but its manifestation. Therefore, it is not necessary to eliminate the religious limitations of free citizens to eliminate their secular restrictions, but rather "once they eliminate secular limitations, they will be able to eliminate their religious limitations." Consequently, secular questions should not be reduced to theological ones; rather, theological questions should be reduced to secular ones. History should not be explained by superstition, but superstition by history. Political oppression must be eliminated first before religious narrowness can be overcome. "The critique of the secular structure of the political state... is simultaneously a critique of its religious impotence." [9] Marx no longer limited the path to Jewish emancipation to the thorough elimination of religion—letting Jews liberate themselves from their own religion—as Bruno Bauer did. Instead, he sought to organize social forces, yet believed that "if there were a social organization that eliminated the preconditions for huckstering [10], and thus the possibility of huckstering, then this social organization would make the Jew impossible. His religious consciousness would dissipate like a thin mist in the real, life-sustaining air of society." [11] Marx argued that the secular basis of Judaism is practical need and egoism, that the Jew's secular cult is huckstering, and that their secular god is based on money. Therefore, Marx believed that liberation from huckstering and money would be liberation from actual, real-world Judaism, achieving its modern self-emancipation. He concluded that Jewish emancipation, in its ultimate sense, is the emancipation of humanity from Judaism (as a spirit of egoism). At this time, Marx had still not proposed a scientific path for the social liberation of man.
As his understanding of society deepened, Marx gradually realized the importance of philosophy engaging with reality. He further pointed out that the struggle against religion is, in fact, indirectly a struggle against that world of which religion is the spiritual aroma [12], but he placed greater emphasis on philosophy's concern for secular and earthly matters. He noted: "Once the 'beyond' of truth has disappeared, the task of history is to establish the truth of the 'here and now.' Once the holy form of human self-alienation has been unmasked, the immediate task of philosophy, which is at the service of history, is to unmask self-alienation in its unholy forms. Thus, the critique of heaven turns into the critique of earth, the critique of religion into the critique of law, and the critique of theology into the critique of politics." [13] Unlike during the Rheinische Zeitung period, when he did not yet see the proletariat as a brand-new social class, Marx's understanding of the proletariat at this point underwent a qualitative leap. He saw the power and future of the proletariat, finding the real force and impetus for human liberation.
At the same time, Engels also clearly pointed out the absurdity of the religious conception of history that ignores real history. He focused on analyzing the origins of the religious conception of history, noting: "Religion, by its very nature, drains the whole content of man and nature and transfers it to the phantom of a distant God, who then, out of his great mercy, lets man and nature receive a little of his abundance in return." [14] Engels believed that so-called "God" is actually nothing more than a creation of man through his reflection in the "chaotic matter" of his own undeveloped consciousness. The pretension of the things of man and nature to be superhuman and supernatural is the root of all untruth and lies. Contrary to Christians who declare that the world, man, and human life are lies and thus make the world and man dependent on the grace of some god, he proposed that we demand the content of history be restored to history. History is not the revelation of "God," but the revelation of man, and can only be the revelation of man.
In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx critiqued the alienated social system through an analysis of alienated labor. He understood wage labor, capital, and ground rent as the categories determining the class structure of capitalist society. Through an analysis of wages, profit on capital, and rent, he revealed the economic roots of the opposition between workers and capitalists/landowners. He pointed out that because the relationship between capital and wage labor leads to alienated labor, the subjectivity of the worker is severely obscured.
The evolution of Marx's early philosophical thought underwent a process: from pursuing individuality and freedom through the freedom of self-consciousness, to concluding through the critique of Hegel’s philosophy of right that civil society must be analyzed through political economy, moving from political liberation to human liberation, then to the discovery of the proletariat as the real force for liberation, and finally to the deep analysis of alienated labor. Although at this time Marx's philosophy had not yet completely broken free from the Hegelian mode of thinking or Feuerbach’s anthropological influence—and his philosophical method exhibited the coexistence of a real-historical approach with a humanistic approach—his philosophical value-aspiration for the liberation of individual subjectivity on the path to human liberation laid the foundation and direction for his further development.
II. The Practical Turn and the Establishment of the Perspective of Historical Generation
The liberation of man is not merely a value-aspiration or a movement of thought; it is a historical and real social movement. It requires, based on a scientific analysis of the basic structure of society and the basic laws of human historical development, reliance on the real force of transforming the world to be completed. The mark of Marx’s quest for the path of human liberation becoming scientific—that is, the mark of the true foundation of historical materialism—lies in the fact that Marx's philosophy established an analytical paradigm of the social-historical generation of man based on practice. The systematic expression of this scientific method was primarily completed in The German Ideology.
Marx and Engels pointed out that although the Young Hegelians launched a critique of the conservatism of Hegelian philosophy and the backwardness of the German feudal autocratic system, they accepted the viewpoint repeatedly maintained within the Hegelian system—namely, that "ideas, thoughts, and concepts produce, determine, and rule the real life of men, their material world, and their real relations." [15] This led to a situation where "not one of them has even thought of inquiring into the connection of German philosophy with German reality." Consequently, their theoretical critique inevitably "never left the realm of philosophy." Whether it was Strauss attempting to use rationalism to critique Christianity, Cieszkowski advocating for the use of rational laws to guide the future through a philosophy of action, Bauer aiming to eliminate alienation by igniting a revolution within self-consciousness, or Stirner’s glorification of the "Unique One," the struggles waged by the Young Hegelians were "confined to the criticism of religious conceptions." [16] Starting merely from actual religion and genuine theology, they attempted to "criticize everything by declaring it to be theological or by substituting religious conceptions for everything."
Therefore, although these ideologists of the Young Hegelian school spoke in terms of "world-shaking" phrases, they were in fact the greatest conservatives. Because they only fought against "phrases" with other "phrases," and merely opposed the phrases of this world, they were by no means opposing the actually existing world. "Despite the fact that this idea of transformation has been expressed a thousand times, it has no significance for practical development." The Young Hegelians could only logically present people with a moral demand: to replace their current consciousness with a human, critical, or egoistic consciousness, thereby eliminating the limitations that fettered them. This demand to change consciousness was essentially a demand to interpret existence in a different way—that is, to recognize it by means of a different interpretation. Marx and Engels believed that the only result this philosophical critique could achieve was to provide some explanations of Christianity from the perspective of religious history, and even these were one-sided. As for all their other assertions, they were merely further embellishments of a single claim: the desire to present world-historical discoveries through such trivial explanations. Marx and Engels maintained that this "philosophical critique," alienated as it was from social reality, could have no substantive impact on transforming the world: "If they dissolve philosophy, theology, substance, and all that trash in 'self-consciousness,' if they liberate 'man' from the domination of these phrases—under which he has never been subjugated—then the 'liberation' of 'man' has not advanced a single step."
Marx and Engels believed that to stand upon the foundation of material practice and historically reflect on the basis and laws of human existence and development, one must first prioritize the following basic fact: "In order to 'make history,' men must be in a position to live. But life involves before everything else eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things. The first historical act is thus the production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself." [17] Moreover, this historical activity of producing material life itself—which people must perform every day and every hour, from thousands of years ago until today, simply to sustain life—is the fundamental condition of all history. This is both the first premise of human existence and the first premise of all history. The first task of any historical outlook is to observe the full significance and scope of this basic fact and give it due weight.
Next, Marx analyzed the dynamic and process of the evolution of property [18]. He pointed out that this evolution, as a historical process, was first driven by the division of labor. The division of labor caused mental and material activity, enjoyment and labor, and production and consumption to be assigned to different individuals. This inevitably led to contradictions between the productive forces, the social state, and consciousness. These contradictions were based on the division of labor naturally formed within the family and the separation of society into individual, mutually opposed families. Having clarified the driver of property, Marx and Engels examined its evolutionary process from the perspective of historical development. They argued that the various stages of the division of labor were at the same time different forms of property. Each stage of the division of labor also determined the mutual relations of individuals to one another with reference to the material, instrument, and product of labor. The first form of property is tribal property; the second is ancient communal and state property; the third is feudal or estate property. By highlighting this historical-generative approach, Marx critiqued the abstract ideal of treating communism merely as a value-based postulate (to which reality should conform). "Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence." Marx and Engels were not concerned merely with clarifying the content of a "should-be" goal; rather, through the dissection of social laws, they moved toward a concrete, realistic-historical approach. They sought to elucidate that "genuine liberation can only be achieved in the real world and by using real means," [19] finding the scientific path to human liberation by revealing the internal contradictions of actual social existence and the ways to overcome them.
III. The Rationalization of Real Social Relations and the Path to Human Liberation
Marx and Engels established their philosophical thinking on a solid foundation of practice. Using a historical-generative method of analysis, they moved from dissecting the production and reproduction of the material conditions of human existence to exploring the production and reproduction of capitalist relations of production that generate these conditions. They conducted a thorough, incisive, and comprehensive analysis of the internal contradictions of capitalism. Through the discovery of surplus value, they revealed the root of proletarian poverty under capitalist conditions and pointed out that the rationalization of human social relations is the key to human liberation. Only by overthrowing capitalist society can the organic unity of man and society be realized and actual human liberation be achieved. However, the scientific grasping of essential, concrete, and historical social relations—and the subsequent gradual stripping away of the historical illusions that mask the surface of capitalist society—was a process of realization that was only gradually completed through the period of The Poverty of Philosophy, the Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858 (Grundrisse), and finally Capital.
In The Poverty of Philosophy, Marx pointed out that Proudhon did not understand the connotation of real social relations. Proudhon could only explain the logical relations between economic categories from the theoretical standpoint of an abstract human "ego." Facing the internal contradictions of economic categories in reality and the fact that workers could not solve the problem of poverty through actual modes of labor, Proudhon could only select so-called "good" and "bad" aspects using the abstract development of the human ego as a coordinate system, and then reveal the good side through a synthesis of categories. That is to say, "The idea is to take this secret thought from God, apply it, and all is well." The result was that for Proudhon, the historical movement to transform the modern world was reduced to the problem of discovering the correct balance or synthesis of two bourgeois thoughts. He replaced the great historical movement—born from the conflict between people’s acquired productive forces and their social relations which no longer correspond to these forces—with the "whimsical movement of his own head." In fact, Proudhon did not solve social problems through social action, but through "dialectical rotations" in his mind. Outputting only a search for a new formula, he treated the constituent parts of social life as eternal categories, believing that balancing these categories would solve the problem—much like discovering a formula to "balance the various social estates, the nobility, the king, the parliament, etc., and the next morning the king, the parliament and the nobility would have disappeared." Marx, however, argued that "the true balance of this antagonism is the overthrow of all social relations—the foundation of these feudal institutions and the antagonism of these feudal institutions."
Based on a critique of economic metaphysics and the discovery of class antagonism between capitalists and workers in the spheres of distribution and exchange, Marxist philosophy sought the root of this antagonism deep within the sphere of production. It argued that to resolve inequality in distribution and circulation, one must resolve inequality in production. In the "Introduction" to the Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858, Marx clearly stated: "The object before us, to begin with, material production. Individuals producing in society—hence socially determined individual production, is, of course, the point of departure." Marx revealed the scientific connotation of social relations and discovered the true reason for proletarian exploitation by exploring the mutual relations between distribution, exchange, and production. When discussing the capitalist production process, Marx emphasized that its significance is more expressed in the production and reproduction of the relations of production: "The result of the process of production and realization is, above all, the reproduction and new production of the relation of capital and labor itself, of the capitalist and the worker. This social relation, production relation, is in fact a more important result of the process than its material results. That is, in this process, the worker produces himself as labor-capacity, and also produces capital as the power over against him; likewise, the capitalist produces himself as capital, and also produces the living labor-capacity over against him." [20] Clearly, Marx had shifted his focus from the material results of labor to the reproduction of the relations of production. Crucially, while focusing on the concrete social relations of material production, Marx emphasized that "whenever we speak of production, then, what is meant is always production at a definite stage of social development." Specifying a "definite stage of production" makes the connotation of real social relations clearer. Only then did Marx speak of "production in general," which encompasses both the commonalities of production across different eras and identifies the specific production process that carries particular, real relations of production. The "production in general" understood by classical economists lacked the perspective of the production process of specific, real relations of production; thus, their "relations of production" remained at the level of fixed, innate, and natural relations. Their so-called material production process clearly did not include the production and reproduction of social relations; they interpreted the material production process only through the lens of material forms. Consequently, Marx pointed out several times that classical economics was merely "the science of enrichment."
Bourgeois economists explored the material production process only at the level of material form, seeking only the accumulation of wealth. When they spoke of economic categories such as capital and labor, they failed to see the real relations of production contained within them. For instance, in his understanding of capital, the bourgeois economist Adam Smith believed that capital was "a certain quantity of accumulated and stored-up labor"—a past, objectified labor. Since any productive labor process cannot be separated from some form of accumulated labor existing as a means of labor, they viewed the relation of capital as a general, eternal, and natural relation applicable to all societies. Marx, however, pointed out that accumulated labor becomes capital only within specific relations of production, specifically under capitalist conditions. Thus, "capital is not a thing, but a relation." Hidden behind capital is the exploitation of the worker by the capitalist. Bourgeois economists "exactly leave out the specific difference which alone makes 'instruments of production' or 'accumulated labor' into capital"—namely, they omit the real "relation of production." Clearly, once Marx realized that accumulated labor becomes capital only within a specific relation of production, his understanding of "relations of production" already carried the content of real social history (e.g., the production relation between the capitalist and the worker). Therefore, Marxist philosophy holds that the critique of capital must be based on a critique of the specific capitalist relations of production that make money into capital, rather than a critique of money as it appears on the surface of society. The search for the path to human liberation must also delve into the reproduction of capitalist relations of production. Because production is not merely a process of creating or transforming natural products governed by natural laws, the cause of inequality in the distribution of products between direct labor and accumulated labor can only be found in the inherent contradictions of capitalist relations of production.
Marxist philosophy proceeds from the most abstract concept of the commodity to the completion of the revelation of the mystery of the essence of money and capital. It explicitly points out that capital is not a thing, but a social relation between people mediated by things. The exchange between labor and capital is not a general exchange of commodities, but an exchange between wage labor and capital within the historically and economically unique capitalist relations of production. Marx thereby resolved the contradiction between the law of value and the exchange of labor and capital that classical economists were unable to crack. Employing the method of moving from the abstract to the concrete, Marx completed a scientific analysis of the total process of capitalist production. Through an anatomical study of the reproduction of capitalist relations of production, he discovered the secret of capitalist exploitation—surplus value. He pointed out that only by relying on the concrete force for transforming the world—the proletariat—to overthrow the irrational social system of capitalism and establish a communist society, can the genuine liberation of the human being be achieved on the basis of the unity of the individual and society.
Through an investigation into the history of the formation of Marxist philosophy, it is not difficult to see its trajectory: from abandoning the equation of freedom of self-consciousness with human freedom and moving past the sublation of alienated labor as the path to liberation, to grounding itself in the perspective of concrete practice and historical generation to analyze the internal contradictions of capitalist society, and finally to emphasizing that the rationalization of social relations is the key to human liberation. At no stage in the logic of its philosophical unfolding does it entrust human liberation to any supernatural or mystical power. The process of the formation and development of Marxist philosophy is the process of the thorough unfolding of its atheistic thought. By profoundly understanding the atheistic character of Marxist philosophy based on this process, we may better understand the conclusion of a Western scholar: "Atheism is essentially linked to Marx's Marxism." {24}
Elucidating the atheistic character of Marxist philosophy offers important enlightenment for current social construction in China. First, to realize human freedom and liberation, one must not place hope in any mystical power—just as the Internationale [21] sings: "There has never been any savior, nor do we rely on gods or emperors. To create human happiness, we must rely entirely on ourselves!" Exercising our own subjectivity and agency is the only path to achieving beautiful goals. Second, to realize human freedom and liberation, we must base ourselves on reality and practice, focusing on grasping the laws of social development to achieve comprehensive, sustainable development and effectively resolving concrete issues in the production and daily lives of the masses. Third, to truly realize human freedom and liberation, it is necessary to effectively resolve justice and equity in actual society, achieve the rationalization of concrete social relations, and truly "put people first" (yi ren wei ben [22]) within harmonious development. Only in this way will atheistic systems of thought, such as religion, naturally lose the soil in which they are generated and survive.