Zhang Man: Rethinking Marx's "Triple Transcendence" of Bauer's Critique of Religion
Scholarly discussion on the "Jewish Question" has been largely confined to analyzing Bauer’s attitudes and insights from Marx's standpoint—that is, understanding them through the way Marx quoted or paraphrased Bauer’s views in his famous essay On the Jewish Question. Regarding this, David Ingram once emphasized: "Since Bauer is rarely mentioned in citations about Marx, and even when he is it is in a pejorative sense, this point is easily overlooked." This phenomenon can also be traced in several influential intellectual biographies of Marx: the expositions related to the "Jewish Question" in these biographies mostly concentrate on discussing Marx's arguments, while Bauer’s views are merely sketched in paraphrase without an in-depth analysis of his thought. For instance, in McLellan’s Karl Marx: A Biography, the evaluation of Bauer’s views consists only of a description paraphrasing Marx’s letter to Ruge, stating that "Marx considered Bauer’s views 'too abstract.'" Domestic [Chinese] research is broadly similar, seeking to understand Bauer’s thought through Marx’s exposition or from within Marx’s critical horizon. Consequently, some scholars have suggested that analyzing the "Jewish Question" from a singular Marxian perspective may lead to confusion and a misunderstanding of the theoretical assertions of both Marx and Bauer. This research trend has caused many of Bauer’s insightful views to be ignored or incompletely presented, such that "the role Bauer played in the formation of Marx's thought has been inappropriately underestimated."
However, by deeply excavating the text of On the Jewish Question—written by Marx to critique and respond to Bauer—one finds that Marx, to a certain extent, took Bauer’s critique of religion as the starting point for his investigation into the problem of Jewish emancipation. Building upon the absorption of and reference to Bauer’s religious critique, Marx enriched and expanded his own theoretical conception. Therefore, the understanding of the "Jewish Question" cannot be entirely restricted to the Bauer interpreted in Marx’s On the Jewish Question; rather, one must unearth Bauer's unelaborated and latent ideas. As David Leopold pointed out, being unfamiliar with and vague about the thought of Bauer, the opponent Marx critiqued, is the greatest obstacle to our full understanding of On the Jewish Question. He suggested: "Without an acquaintance with Bauer’s thought, it is impossible to evaluate Marx’s critique of Bauer’s work, or the comparison between the two authors in scholarly literature." Therefore, this article takes Marx’s On the Jewish Question and Bauer’s The Jewish Question as core texts to distinguish the ideological divergences they exhibited on three core and critical issues: the object of critique, the theoretical line, and the path to a solution. By deeply interpreting the deficiencies in Bauer’s theoretical cognition and the points of transcendence in Marx’s thought, this will be beneficial for a comprehensive understanding and grasp of both Marx’s and Bauer’s critiques of religion.
I. The Shift in the Object of Critique: From the "So-called Christian State" to the "Real Christian State"
Faced with the difficult problem of Jewish emancipation, both Marx and Bauer launched profound critiques of the object where the Jews lived: the Christian state. However, their understandings and cognitions of the Christian state were diametrically opposed. Marx emphasized in a letter to Ruge that Bauer’s views were too abstract, and that "we must make as many breaches as possible in the Christian state and smuggle in as much of what is rational as we can." This "breach" refers precisely to Bauer’s erroneous cognition of the Christian state as an object of critique. Bauer analyzed the "Christian state" "boldly, sharply, wittily, and thoroughly." First, Bauer questioned the attitude of the Christian state toward the Jews: whether the "injustice and ruthlessness [of the Christian state] were rooted in the essence of the past state system." Regarding this, Bauer believed that if this premise held, then only by changing the state system could the Jews obtain emancipation. But in Bauer’s eyes, this was simply nonsense, because the relationship of mutual exclusion between Jews and Christians was the only "correct" relationship fostered by the Christian state. This was because the essence and foundation of the Christian state was religion (Christianity); within the Christian state, the exclusion and oppression of Jews were justified and perfectly natural. Therefore, Bauer firmly believed that it was fundamentally impossible for the Christian state to take the initiative to fight for the right of emancipation for the Jews.
Precisely because of this misjudgment of the Christian state, Bauer naturally concluded that the fundamental reason Jews had no right to enjoy human rights and citizenship lay within—the Jews themselves. The narrow essence inherent in the Jews' religious identity led to a relationship with non-Jews characterized by opposition, conflict, and exclusion; thus, the essence of the Jews "did not make them men, but made them Jews." On one hand, Bauer believed that human rights were not a product of nature, but the result of the struggle for privileges and education in history, and could only be enjoyed by those who fought for and deserved them. Therefore, not only did Jews lack human rights, but Christians also lacked them. On the other hand, in Bauer’s eyes, the Jewish nation was one characterized by strong exclusivity and sophisticated egoism; this selfish, egoistic, and narrow essence of the Jews made them unqualified to enjoy human rights. Based on this, Bauer further remarked sarcastically whether this Christian state—where the religious spirit was the ruling spirit, the king possessed absolute free will, and divine right was supreme—"knew citizens, rather than knowing only subjects." Therefore, Bauer believed there were no citizens in Germany (the Christian state). Neither Christians nor Jews were citizens in the true sense, and neither had obtained political emancipation and freedom; thus, Jews should not be treated differently. The reason Jews were entitled to neither human rights nor citizenship was that "although he is a citizen and lives in universal human relations, his narrow Jewish essence ultimately triumphs over his human and political duties." Furthermore, any citizenship Jews enjoyed was merely formal; in secular life, Jews remained shackled by "religious privilege." Although Bauer declared that Jews had no right to political power, he clearly recognized that in the reality of economic life, Jews were "powerful"—that is, "in theory, the Jew is denied political rights, but in practice, he possesses great power and exerts his political influence on a large scale, even if this influence is curtailed in specific details." In Vienna and Germany, Jews controlled the entire state with money; the same was true in guilds and corporations—the powerful monetary force held by Jews had quietly permeated the daily life of the European world. From this, it is evident that Bauer’s view on the political rights enjoyed by Jews was actually quite vague and contradictory—denying them in theory while acknowledging and affirming the political role Jews played in practical life.
Bauer believed that Jews, due to their religious faith and selfish nature, had no right to enjoy equal political rights; Marx launched a powerful rebuttal to this view. First, by citing the connotations of the concept of "human rights" in the North American and French constitutions, Marx clarified that the attainment of human rights was by no means predicated on the abolition of religion, powerfully refuting Bauer’s insight that the condition for obtaining human rights was the abolition of the "privilege of faith." On this basis, he further listed a series of legal provisions, such as the 1791 French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, to prove that freedom of religious belief is one of the specific contents recognized and acknowledged by human rights [N1], clarifying that "the privilege of faith is a universal human right." Second, by citing the explanation in the 1793 French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen that human rights are "natural and imprescriptible rights," Marx powerfully attacked Bauer’s view that human rights were not a product of nature. Third, through the explanation of the right to liberty in legal provisions, Marx demonstrated that liberty was not established on the basis of "the association of man with man" as Bauer claimed, but rather on the basis of the atomistic, independent individual; it was a narrow, independent, and egoistic right. Contrary to Bauer’s view that Jews had no right to human rights due to their egoistic nature, Marx, through quoting the legal formulations of equality, liberty, security, and property, powerfully demonstrated that "none of the so-called rights of man goes beyond egoistic man," and it is precisely egoism that is protected and recognized by these rights. Thus, through Marx’s logically rigorous demonstration, Bauer’s assertion that Jews were ineligible for equal political rights due to their religious faith and egoistic essence was clearly debunked.
Marx, on the other hand, calmly perceived that Bauer was deceived by the "so-called Christian state," and thus the target of Bauer's critique was inevitably misdirected. Regarding this, Marx conducted a detailed analysis of Bauer’s "so-called Christian state": first, he revealed that "the so-called Christian state is nothing but a non-state," because a Christian state is one that takes Christianity as its state religion and possesses strong religious exclusivity and a thick theological color. Second, such a state, which depends on religion and takes religion as its foundation of rule, causes the state to annihilate its own independence, coming into being through the form of "denying the state through Christianity." From this, Marx’s further logical deduction was that the so-called Christian state is, in character, an "imperfect state." For the state, religion acts as a means to supplement or compensate for the state’s defects, or as a role providing it with a sanctified cloak. Therefore, the Christian state is hypocritical and imperfect, and this inherent trait further proves that "the so-called Christian state needs religion in order to complete itself as a state." Religion occupies a core position in the overall construction of the Christian state, viewing the actual organs of state power as a "servant Church." Ironically, the state and its power organs, which claim to be religious rulers, instead become the objects deceived and suppressed by religion. Consequently, in the Christian state, politics is also religionized and shackled by religion, forming a state system that "treats religion from a political standpoint and politics from a religious standpoint." Thus, in the "so-called Christian state," religion and politics are tightly interwoven; in essence, this is an alienated manifestation of the relationship between church and state—a political power and state under the totalizing command [N2] of religious theology.
Marx identified that the "real Christian state" is the "atheist state, the democratic state, the state which relegates religion to the other elements of civil society." Here, the "real Christian state" explained by Marx is the modern state that has sublated [N3] the religious spirit. It is a state that no longer holds religion up as a supreme, unquestionable, or dominant factor, but rather relegates religion—alongside other elements such as private property—to the status of a prerequisite for the existence of the political state. It is precisely because of this that Marx held a completely different understanding of the Christian state. Although Bauer saw the religious-theological essence of the Christian state and recognized its limitations, he erroneously judged the critique of the Christian state to be a critique of the state itself. Marx, however, through the critique of the "Christian state," saw that religion is essentially a reflection of the defects of the political state—a "perspective mirror" of social reality that exposes the limitations and maladies of the political state. It is worth mentioning that Marx devoted considerable space to discussing the "so-called Christian state" and the "real Christian state" not only to clarify the basic concepts of these two objects of critique, but also to highlight that Bauer remained standing within the horizon of religious theology when discussing the problem of Jewish emancipation. To a certain extent, this was precisely due to Bauer's misjudgment of the Christian state.
II. The Positioning of the Theoretical Line: From Theological Questions to Secular Questions
Bauer continued the consistent tradition of the Hegelians—namely, a critical line of "using the eyes of the theologian" to discuss practical problems within a religious context. Naturally, he followed the conventional pattern by relegating the question of Jewish emancipation to a "philosophical-theological action," remaining deeply mired in the mist of religious theology. By analyzing Bauer's text On the Jewish Question, we might boldly speculate that Bauer may have also attempted to step outside the horizon of religious theology to explore the path of Jewish emancipation; hence his inquiries into whether the problem "must be solved through a religious answer" and whether the antagonism "must be solved through a religious interpretation." Unfortunately, however, Bauer ultimately failed to break the shackles of religious theology. As Marx summarized, Bauer judged the Jewish question as a "problem of the relationship of religion to the state, the contradiction between religious bondage and political emancipation." Bauer was convinced that as long as religious privilege existed, it would prevent people from achieving true emancipation in real life, and that laws only realized the equality of citizens in form, while in actual life citizens remained controlled and constrained by religious privilege. Bauer viewed religion as the "entire essence" of the Jew, exploring the Jewish question within the categories of religious theology, overemphasizing the influence of religion on the Jew, and ignoring other important dimensions that made Jewish emancipation a contradiction and a difficult problem. Even though Bauer had observed that Jews also faced many problems in the reality of civil society—for instance, as mentioned earlier, Bauer discovered that Jews could manipulate the state by virtue of the power of money—he did not further investigate the important role played by money in civil society or the many social issues regarding the connection between money and the Jew. Instead, he remained limited to viewing problems from the perspective of religious theology, adopting a somewhat circuitous route by using religion as a breakthrough point to conduct a certain critique of civil society, stubbornly judging the issue of Jewish emancipation as a pure and singular religious problem.
Although Marx gave a certain degree of recognition to Bauer's line of religious critique, he believed that Bauer’s logic of religious critique was precisely the fundamental limitation of his theoretical achievement. Bauer concentrated his focus on the critique of Judaism, vainly attempting to find a breakthrough in the ethereal realm of religious theology, failing to recognize that the critical method he employed—the "alienation of religious alienation"—simply could not strike the key point of the Jewish emancipation issue. The main reason was that even after removing religious elements from the political sphere, the Jewish problem in real life remained unresolved, and the social problems implied by the Jewish question remained uncured. Compared to Bauer's singular and superficial understanding, Marx had long since deeply realized that the critique of religion is the "premise of all other critique," but the more important significance of the "struggle against religion" lay in its being "indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion." He shifted the target of critique from the ethereal world of religious theology to secular society, solving the crux of the matter at its "root." Thus, in 1844, the Mannheimer Abendzeitung praised Marx for raising the question of Jewish emancipation "to the level of a radical transformation of the whole of society." Within civil society, Marx keenly captured that "the monotheism of the Jew is in reality the polytheism of many needs," revealing that the principle of civil society is "practical need, egoism." Under the rule of the secular god, "money," Judaism no longer needed to develop in a religious form because it had already successfully integrated its characteristic "Jewish spirit" into the blood of civil society and the real world; subsequently, civil society was continuously creating the "Jew." Within civil society, Marx found the final answer to the Jewish problem: "emancipation from Judaism." Marx saw the self-interested character displayed by the Jew in the money-dealings of civil society and discovered the close connection between egoism and civil society. As McLellan noted, "In fact, the German word for Judaism (Judentum) also means 'commerce,' and Marx was to some extent using the word in a double sense" [4]. In Marx's view, the question of Jewish emancipation was more like a typical microcosm of the many problems appearing in a commodity society. From this, it can be seen that Marx no longer remained within the religious context to discuss the Jewish question as Bauer did, but instead expanded and projected it into the economic categories of civil society to analyze the civil society shaped by the Jewish spirit. This laid a certain foundation for Marx's later investigations into commodities, money, and fetishism. In this sense, it can be said that On the Jewish Question prompted Marx to shift his research focus from philosophy to political economy—that is, "the anatomy of civil society should be sought in political economy."
Marx denounced Bauer's erroneous practice of "criticizing political conditions within religion," pointing out that the correct practice should be to "criticize religion within the critique of political conditions," because "religion itself has no content; its root is not in heaven but on earth." Marx thoroughly recognized that the root of religion is in real society and that the development of religion is closely linked to the process of socio-historical development. Therefore, the examination of the Jewish question cannot "set aside" or depart from the horizon of real social history; otherwise, any consideration of it is abstract, hollow, and invalid. It was precisely this error that led Bauer to put the cart before the horse by criticizing politics within religion. Consequently, in Bauer's eyes, the question of Jewish emancipation was reduced to a theological problem wearing a political cloak. Through his profound analysis of the Christian state, Marx saw that the existence of religion was essentially a reflection of the internal defects of the state; religious problems were actually social reality problems hidden behind religion.
Thus, Marx did not follow previous German scholars in adhering to the horizon and standpoint of religious theology to discuss the relationship between Jews and Christians or between Judaism and the Christian state. Instead, he leaped out of the swamp of religious theology to investigate the "Jewish question," casting his gaze upon secular society and proposing the theoretical line: "We do not turn secular questions into theological ones. We turn theological questions into secular ones." Just as Michael Maidan stated, Marx's argument "begins with the assumption that the Jewish phenomenon cannot be explained in religious terms, but according to the actual life of individual Jews." Marx believed that to obtain the key to cracking the "Jewish question," one should search within the secular society where Jews live and think within the soil that breeds religion—social reality—rather than going in circles in theology like Bauer. Marx wanted to put the question of Jewish emancipation "on a different track," pulling it back from the field of theology into the track of secular society. Regarding this, B. Slavin praised Marx as "the first thinker in history to point out how to truly solve the Jewish question and any other national question without religious coercion," leading the solution of the difficult problem of Jewish emancipation onto the correct track and "refuting the theological formulation of this question."
III. The Direction of the Solution: From the Abolition of Religion to Human Emancipation
Clearly, Bauer viewed the Jewish question as a purely religious problem and naively believed that as long as Jews renounced their faith in Judaism, and other believers correspondingly renounced their respective faiths, everyone would be equal citizens after removing the cloak of religious belief, thereby achieving their own emancipation. Bauer attempted to extract religion from politics to achieve a state of separation between religion and politics as a means to solve the Jewish question. To Bauer, the necessary condition for achieving political emancipation was the renunciation of religious faith, fully resorting to the path of abolishing religion to solve the Jewish dilemma.
Facing Bauer's idealized and illusory scheme, which placed political emancipation and religion in an incompatible and antagonistic relationship, Marx countered: "Political emancipation does not eliminate the actual religious piety of man, nor does it strive to eliminate it." This is because political emancipation does not require the restriction or prohibition of man's freedom of belief; the existence of religion is not contradictory to political emancipation. Using North America and France as examples, Marx used facts to explain that the completion of political emancipation did not require religion to be completely detached from people's political lives, as Bauer claimed. Because "even in those countries where political emancipation is completed, religion not only exists but is a vigorous and vital existence, it proves that the existence of religion and the completion of the state are not contradictory." Marx’s irrefutable examples powerfully clarified that religion remains in countries that have already achieved political emancipation, and that the completion of political emancipation does not conflict with the existence (Dasein) of religion. On one hand, Marx clarified the rational relationship that should exist between political emancipation and religion, which Bauer had distorted and confused, emphasizing that for the state, political emancipation means that religion is stripped of its political cloak—the state no longer takes religion as its criterion, and religion no longer dominates or directly controls the state as it did before. On the other hand, he emphasized that the existence of religion is never isolated or abstract, and the state and religion are not unrelated, independent entities operating in isolation; religion is precisely the reflection of the defects and limitations of the political status quo in the existing state.
In Bauer's view, the cause of political emancipation had to be completed through the path of the thorough abolition of religion. He naively thought that abolishing religion could resolve the contradictions and problems between the Jews and the Christian state, and that the state and the people would no longer be dominated and constrained by religion, thus allowing the Jews to obtain complete freedom and political emancipation. Marx, however, had long since soberly recognized how difficult and long the path toward the abolition and disappearance of religion would be. Marx always maintained a correct and objective attitude toward religion, as he clearly elucidated in the later Capital: "The religious reflection of the real world can, in any case, only then finally vanish, when the practical relations of everyday life offer to man none but perfectly intelligible and reasonable relations with regard to his fellowmen and to Nature." By contrast, Bauer's understanding of the difficult problem of Jewish emancipation was relatively shallow; thus, Marx sarcastically called Bauer's work a "truly theological and pseudo-political investigation." In the text of On the Jewish Question, Marx emphasized the opposing terms "true" and "pseudo" in bold, relentlessly exposing the defects of Bauer's analysis, which remained within a theological framework and approached the Jewish question from the perspective of religious critique. Marx sarcastically noted that while Bauer appeared to be seeking a path for the political emancipation of the Jews, he was actually still deeply trapped in the speculative logic of religious theology, seeking what he considered a flawless solution: the delusion of solving the Jewish emancipation through the abolition of religion. This was clearly a dead end, for thousands of years of human development history have proven self-evident that even in a highly developed modern society, no regime or state has ever completely eliminated religion, and political contradictions and problems are often inevitably entangled with religious issues. By comparing the understandings of Marx and Bauer on the issue of the abolition and disappearance of religion, Marx's foresight and wisdom in handling religious issues are fully displayed.
Bauer’s pure, one-dimensional, and narrow religious-theological perspective caused him to overlook the close correlations existing between religion, civil society, and the political state. By severing the internal connection between religion and society, he was unable to form a correct or profound understanding of the Jewish Question. Therefore, Marx pointed out: "Bauer’s error lies in the fact that he critiques only the 'Christian state,' not 'the state as such' [5]. He fails to investigate the relationship between political liberation and human liberation; consequently, the conditions he provides merely show that he uncritically confuses political liberation with universal human liberation." Although Bauer considered the issue of liberation, his cognition was partial and biased. Bauer not only conflated the relationship between "political liberation" and "human liberation," but also failed to delve into the heart of the matter—namely, as Marx proposed: "Critique must do a third thing. It must pose the question: what kind of liberation are we talking about here?" Where Bauer stopped at the surface, Marx seized the key to the problem and further dissected the issue of human liberation in depth.
Transcending Bauer’s partial and abstract understanding, Marx clarified these two concepts: on the one hand, he fully affirmed the progressive significance of political liberation; on the other, he profoundly pointed out its limitations, emphasizing that political liberation is not the final vision for achieving man’s true and thorough liberation as Bauer believed. Political liberation is not equivalent to human liberation. Marx made it clear that political liberation is still a long way from the completion of human liberation; only when "the individual, real human being has taken back into himself the abstract citizen" and "as an individual man, in his empirical life... has become a species-being [6]" can the cause of human liberation be completed.
Conclusion
Although Bauer’s reflections on the "Jewish Question" were somewhat shallow, failing to unearth the deeper connotations hidden behind the issue or to find a reasonable solution to the puzzle of Jewish liberation, the religious critical thought he exhibited nevertheless opened a window for Marx to reveal the mystery of the Jewish Question more thoroughly. As David McLellan [7] noted: "Bauer's influence on Marx was not a passing one which was then completely discarded. This influence was long absorbed by Marx into his method of thinking." Therefore, inquiring into the historical depths [8] of the "Jewish Question" and multidimensionally analyzing the classical interpretations of Marx and Bauer on this major practical problem helps us more profoundly understand and recognize their respective religious critical thoughts. At the same time, the religious critical ideas and methods presented by Marx in handling the "Jewish Question" retain significant value and meaning today; they provide useful inspiration for our better application of Marxist religious theory in practice to understand, guide, and handle contemporary religious issues.