Meng Fei and Yuan Xiaomin: The Formation and Development of Marx and Engels' Critique of Religion and Their Scientific Transcendence of Bourgeois Religious Views
The religious criticism in the thought of Marx and Engels gradually took shape and developed as they founded dialectical materialism and historical materialism. For Marx and Engels, the theoretical basis of their religious criticism was dialectical materialism and historical materialism. Their thoughts on the critique of religion were not only a scientific transcendence of the bourgeois view of religion but also provided concrete programs for religious work in various countries. Today, religion has developed close ties with different social spheres, touching upon all aspects of daily life. Studying the historical development of the Marxist critique of religion and grasping its revolutionary and scientific nature carries great theoretical and practical significance.
01. The Formative Process of the Religious Criticism of Marx and Engels
The Marxist view of religion is the sum of viewpoints formed by using historical materialism as the fundamental method for understanding religion and religious issues; it constitutes a component part of Marxism. The formation of historical materialism is contained within the Marxist critique of social phenomena, including religion: religion is a historical category that provides a transcendent theological narrative to explain earthly suffering. Historical materialism reveals the real sources that sustain the existence and development of religion—sources which likewise support the injustices of the social order in which it exists. Therefore, the purpose of Marx and Engels’s research and critique of religion was to pull religion from the heavens back down to the secular world, exploring the motives for action behind religion from within social reality. Thus, understanding religion itself based on its generative foundations—material conditions and conditions of life—and examining the history of religious development through the lens of basic historical materialist categories such as "matter," "history," and "productive forces and relations of production" has always been the standpoint and principle of the religious criticism of Marx and Engels.
(1) From Theism to Atheism
The era in which the Marxist view of religion emerged was a religious world steeped in and surrounded by faith. Influenced by his father, Marx expressed religious piety in the essays he wrote for his school-leaving examinations; as a seventeen-year-old student, his general view of religion was positive and functional. However, this piety transformed after he entered the University of Bonn and the University of Berlin. In 1837, Marx devoted great energy and time to a systematic study of Hegel’s works. The rationalism, Absolute Spirit, and doctrine of self-consciousness in Hegelian philosophy left a deep impression on him. Meanwhile, Engels was also a follower of Hegelian philosophy. From the start, Hegel denied any ultimate opposition between the finite and the infinite. All the ups and downs of finite existence were seen as necessary appendages to the movement of Spirit—that is, the process by which Absolute Spirit returns to self-realization by transcending the finite consciousness of the self. Hegel believed the mode of thinking necessary to understand this dynamic process was dialectical. It was precisely this insight that had a major impact on Marx, opening a path of thought leading from theism to pantheism and finally to atheism.
Subsequently, Marx’s enthusiasm for Hegel shifted. The Young Hegelians' emphasis on dialectics, their critique of religion, and their revolutionary tendencies piqued Marx’s intense interest. The Young Hegelians (particularly Bauer) conducted a systematic critique of religion. In Bauer’s view, religion was a product of self-consciousness; by regarding self-consciousness as the essence and driving force of the world, he gradually lapsed into nihilism. Marx pointed out that Bauer's theory of religion did not solve the problem but was itself a new theology, an idolatry of spiritualism. "In Bauer’s critique, what we are opposing is precisely speculation reappearing in the form of a caricature." Marx’s critique of Bauer displayed a clear materialist worldview, yet he had not yet truly stepped into the real world of existing materialism.
Following the acceptance of his doctoral dissertation (1841), Marx turned to journalism. In the process of engaging in journalistic work, he found the hollow rhetoric of most Young Hegelians’ commentaries increasingly intolerable. He consequently turned toward more empirical problems. For a period thereafter, Marx dedicated himself to the critique of Hegelian philosophy. During this time, Engels also wrote several works on religion; his critique of religion likewise shifted from the level of ideas to the perspective of social change. By around 1841, both Marx and Engels had realized the transition from theism to atheism, though their atheistic thought at this time was still in a stage of continuous development.
(2) From Anthropological Psychology to Social Psychology
Feuerbach’s study of religion from the perspective of psychology exerted a tremendous influence on subsequent thinkers and accelerated the transformation of Marx and Engels’s religious criticism. In terms of religious critique, Feuerbach replaced Bauer as Marx's mentor and friend. Hegel believed that man was God self-alienated, but Feuerbach inverted this view. He argued that God was man self-alienated, and that religion displayed the most beautiful parts of human nature in an alienated form. Feuerbach broke through the shackles of Hegelian idealism, leading the German philosophical critique of religion into an entirely new stage and providing a major source of materialism for Marx. Consequently, between 1841 and 1843, Marx and Engels gradually divested themselves of idealism and rationalism, parting ways with the Young Hegelians in the process and accelerating their break with Hegelian philosophy.
The publication of Marx’s On the Jewish Question marked his break with Bauer. In this work, through a study of the issue of Jewish emancipation, Marx expounded on the relationship between religion and the state and explored human emancipation versus political emancipation. Marx refuted Bauer’s treatment of Jewish emancipation as a religious problem and initiated the approach of starting from the relationship between religion and society to speak of the social roots of religion: "Theological questions must be transformed into secular ones." He further wrote that we should examine not the "Sabbath Jew" but the "everyday Jew." Starting from the common stereotype of the Jewish obsession with money, Marx described the Jew as a specific manifestation of what he called "Judaic civil society"—that is, "Money is the universal, self-constituted value of all things." Bauer believed the solution to the Jewish question was the thorough secularization of German society. But in Marx’s view, this method could not thoroughly break free from religion or achieve political emancipation. The general conclusion Marx reached was: human emancipation is the only solution to social problems, achieved by rejecting religious and political alienation and organizing their social forces in a communal way. Regarding Marx’s understanding of religion, the importance of this article lies in Marx viewing economic factors, rather than religion, as the primary form of human alienation.
How could such a "human" liberation be realized? A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction (1843–1844) announced the answer. In this article, Marx’s religious criticism began to shift from the exaltation of self-consciousness toward excavating the material reality hidden behind consciousness, forming a materialist view of religion integrated with his own reflections and shifting from an anthropological basis toward the fields of sociology, politics, and history.
(3) From Economic Reality to Historical Materialism
Between 1841 and 1844, the religious criticism of Marx and Engels still bore Feuerbachian colors, but a new historical materialist view of religion was gradually taking shape in their thought. The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (1844) was the first work in which Marx turned to the study of political economy. In this work, Marx applied his interpretation of Feuerbachian religious alienation to the field of political economy, deepening the discourse on alienation: religious alienation will only disappear with the disappearance of the alienating forces of society. He discovered the similarities between religion and socio-economics: both are characterized by alienation. The former incubates religious alienation, the latter economic alienation. Marx subsequently combined the two, explaining that this connection was not accidental. Furthermore, Marx discussed the decisive role of the economy over politics and provided a more scientific materialist exposition of social consciousness.
As Marx refined historical materialism, his thought underwent a pivotal shift: whereas alienation was previously the core concept, it was now ideology. The critique of Feuerbach best illustrates this. In the Theses on Feuerbach (1845), Marx critiqued Feuerbach’s view of religion from three aspects: the religious world, essence, and sociality. Feuerbach's humanist theory pushed the movement of religious critique to a new climax and brought about a new atheism; he clearly pointed out the connection between religious self-alienation and human self-alienation, tracing the religious world back to its secular basis. However, he failed to reveal the reason why this secular basis bifurcates itself into an imaginary religious world and a real world. In Marx’s view, the "human" understood by Feuerbach was an abstract, isolated human, ignoring human historicity and activity and failing to see the social basis of religion. Feuerbach's humanist view of religion was grounded in old materialism; therefore, "with him, materialism and history are completely divorced." In this work, we can also see Marx and Engels’s commitment to exploring social conflicts based on secular foundations and the possibility of resolving these conflicts through the resulting practice. The publication of The German Ideology (1845) and The Communist Manifesto (1848) marked the final completion of the Marxist historical materialist outlook.
In short, Marx’s religious criticism contributed more intellectual fruits during the foundational stage of the Marxist view of religion. Starting from historical materialism, Marx guided people to examine the development and changes of religion within the changes of economic and social reality, forming a scientific system. The Marxist critique of religion belongs to the lineage of atheism in the history of Western religious thought, and it is the most absolute and thorough atheistic thought in that history.
02. Engels’s Adherence to and Development of the Marxist Critique of Religion in His Later Years
In his later years, Marx conducted little research on religion; at this time, compared to Marx, Engels engaged in a broader scope of religious criticism. Among these, the relationship between religion and science was an important aspect of his religious criticism and a unique contribution of Engels to the Marxist view of religion. In Engels’s later years, the powerful and rapid development of natural science propelled the advancement of philosophy; dialectics was developing on the basis of natural science. Using concise and precise language, Engels revealed the natural and social roots of religion and concluded that religion would wither away with the development of science and technology. In summary, in his later years, Engels persisted in developing the Marxist critique of religion, firmly constructing the foundation of dialectical materialism and seeking to incorporate it into a set of universally applicable laws—into natural and historical processes. Consequently, Engels spent much of his time understanding the latest developments in natural science as comprehensively as possible; these developments would greatly influence Engels’s formulation of Marxism as a scientific worldview.
(1) Systematizing the Critique of Religion through the Debate with Dühring
In Anti-Dühring (1876–1878), Engels provided his first extensive evaluation of primitive religion and refuted Dühring’s view that religion would be summarily abolished in a future socialist society. In this work, Engels used concise language to argue from three aspects: first, revealing the essence of religion; second, revealing the laws of development from natural gods to social gods, and from polytheism to monotheism; third, proposing that religion will gradually move toward extinction along with the progress of science and technology and social development. This work did not merely apply the results of Engels’s research into the dialectics of nature but also elevated his research to the level of a dialectical materialist worldview. Engels realized that refuting Dühring’s views provided him with an important opportunity to further develop the Marxist critique of religion.
"All religion, however, is nothing but the fantastic reflection in men’s minds of those external forces which control their daily life." From the perspective of historical materialism, Engels elucidated the fundamental difference between the Marxist view of religion and the idealist view. As a "fantastic reflection," religion often veils itself in a shroud of mystery, appearing as if it "does not consume the food of the mortal world," [7] yet in reality, it is closely linked to the daily material lives of people. Engels explained the roots of religion's existence through the lens of human development, concluding that the evolution of religion underwent a process from natural gods to social gods, and from polytheism to monotheism. In this same work, through a comprehensive exposition of the primacy of matter, Engels pushed the critique of religion into the deeper realm of ontology, thereby strengthening the Marxist position on religious critique. In Engels' view, only a "new" materialism possessing the concept of "matter in motion" can escape the conclusion that the world requires a Creator. If matter were not in eternal motion but could exist in a state of rest, and if motion were not an integral attribute of matter, then we would encounter no contradictions in things, for "motion itself is a contradiction." Once we accept the dynamic theory of matter in modern science, we shed the religious cloak and return to reality—"the last memory of a Creator outside the world is vanished." In contrast, the shadow of a Creator, a "first impulse," or "God" is visible everywhere in Dühring’s doctrine, marking him as an incomplete materialist.
(2) Demonstrating Historical Materialism Through a Comparative Argument of Natural Science and Religious History
In the Dialectics of Nature (1873–1883), Engels profoundly analyzed the relationship between the development of modern natural science and religious change: the development of natural science is closely related to the history of religious transformation; the laws governing nature and history are essentially the same; and religious ideas change alongside the progress of natural science. Religion is an "important way for people to explain the world and solve many of their own practical difficulties," but the study of natural science originated in the era of the Reformation. In discussing the emergence of religion and the concept of God, the understanding of the forces of nature served as the decisive cause. The emergence and development of science challenged the authority of the Church and struck at the ideological system of theology. Despite the fact that natural scientists suffered religious persecution, natural science and the dialectical materialist worldview gained new territory in this struggle, becoming more systematized along with the development of society and the era.
In Dialectics of Nature, Engels also engaged in a critique of pseudo-science. He sharply exposed those who, relying solely on empiricism and scorning dialectical thinking, fell into fantasy, blind following, and superstition (mainly manifested in spiritualism and necromancy [8] facilitated by empiricism). In this process, Engels illustrated the vital importance of theoretical thinking for natural science and for understanding various natural and social phenomena, while simultaneously pointing out the illusory nature of all manifestations of spirits and deities.
It is evident that Engels consistently linked the development of natural science with the impact on theological narratives: the development of natural science and the dialectical materialist worldview continuously destroy the [theological framework], [9] change people’s view of nature, and liberate them from religious theology while freeing them from the constraints of old views of nature. Therefore, through a holistic review of the historical development of Marx and Engels’ thought on religious critique, one finds that grounding the religious question upon the foundation of historical materialism provided the guiding direction for the formation of their thought; it also marks the fundamental difference between the Marxist view of religion and all other forms of religious perspectives.
In short, Engels further developed Marx’s thought on religious critique in Anti-Dühring and Dialectics of Nature, contributing enlightening significance for future work on religion: religion should be appropriately guided, never strictly prohibited by decree. Dühring regarded religion as a "childish, primitive imagination" and thus believed it should be banned in a free society. However, Engels recognized the reality of religion's existence under certain conditions and defended the freedom of religious belief; if the natural and social roots of religion's emergence are to be eliminated, one must master the laws of religious development and resolve the contradiction at its source.
03. The Scientific Transcendence of the Bourgeois View of Religion by Marx and Engels’ Thought on Religious Critique
Tracing the historical development of the bourgeoisie, one sees that while the bourgeoisie promoted social progress on one hand, it also promoted the emergence of a new "theology" on the other. Building upon Feuerbachian materialism, Marx and Engels’ thought on religious critique broke through the limitations of humanism. By standing on the ground of economic relations, they revealed the origin of religion from the perspective of private property and clearly identified the social basis for religion’s existence and the path Toward its witherng away. This was a theoretical innovation in the Marxist view of religion and a scientific transcendence of the bourgeois view of religion.
(1) A Profound Analysis of the Essence of Religion
Different from the research of bourgeois thinkers on religion, Marx and Engels profoundly analyzed the essence of religion. For them, in the initial stages of human development, religion arose from fear, ignorance, and powerlessness regarding natural phenomena. As Marx and Engels discussed in their early writings via the dimensions of consciousness, worldview, and fantasy: first, man is the creator of religion, and religion is the self-expression of those who have either not yet gained themselves or have already lost themselves again; second, religion is a general theory of this inverted world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic, its general basis for consolation, and thus a form of consciousness; third, "religion is the fantastic realization of the human essence because the human essence has no true reality." This was the exploratory answer provided by Marxism at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries regarding the essence of religion. Its main ideological content includes two aspects.
On one hand, religion is the fantasy of the alienated human being. Characterized by faith, religion is an inversion of the relationship between man and God, thereby presenting the characteristics of alienation. Bruno Bauer was the first within German Classical Philosophy to explicitly use the idea of alienation for the critique of religion. As an inheritor of Hegelian alienation, he treated alienation as a critical weapon for dissecting the religious question. However, Bauer’s thought carried the flavor of bourgeois democratism. "In the history of modern thought, Feuerbach was the first thinker to discuss religious alienation on the basis of materialist anthropology." Feuerbach did not simply declare religion to be the result of ignorance and superstition; in his view, the roots of religious ideas should be sought in the real conditions of people’s lives. Thus, he analyzed religion profoundly from the fields of cognition, psychology, and anthropology, revealing the complex machinery of religious psychology, reducing the content of the supernatural world to human thoughts, feelings, and desires, and uncovering the secret of religious fantasy. However, Feuerbach’s limitation lay in his failure to reveal the social character of man. Marx and Engels took economic facts as their starting point to study the internal connection between economic relations and religious phenomena. Realizing the importance of basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, and transportation to humanity, they enriched and developed the concept of "alienation." In class society, alienation is linked to different classes in different ways. Thus, for Marx and Engels, religion—as a manifestation of this state of alienation—turned the human essence into a fantastic reality.
On the other hand, religion is a specific form of ideology. The ideological nature of religion is expressed very clearly in the relevant discourses of Marx and Engels’ religious critique, conforming to the laws of ideological development. For example, bourgeois ideology is not merely a set of beliefs to promote the interests of a class by justifying its claims; it is also a social phenomenon, expressing how the bourgeoisie can use forms such as law, institutions, philosophy, and religion to oppress and exploit the masses. Therefore, for Marxists, religion is a specific form of ideology.
In sum, Marx and Engels asserted at the very beginning of their research that religion is nothing more than a socio-psychological tool regarded as a consolation for real human beings. In itself, religion can be explained exhaustively from the pathological perspective of the social organizations constituted thus far. In a future society, there will exist correct forms of philosophy, art, literature, and law, but there cannot exist a correct form of religion. By placing religion within the historical social reality they observed, Marx and Engels contributed a methodological basis for our understanding of the role of religion in history from the perspective of historical materialism.
(2) Objective Evaluation of the Roots and Functions of Religion
The early development of human society was closely related to religion. Marx and Engels analyzed the profound impact of religion on humanity and society from a higher perspective. For them, the real driving force behind the dialectical movement of world history is the constantly changing productive forces and the constantly changing relations of production into which humans enter during their historical process—rather than the "Idea" or "Absolute Spirit" posited by Hegel. Therefore, Marx and Engels’ explanation of historical development begins with the material conditions of people’s lives, emphasizing the historical role of material life in the study of religion, mainly manifested in the following two aspects.
On one hand, they revealed the social roots of religion. Marx and Engels assumed that man is not only the object of history but also its subject, pointing out clearly that "man makes religion, religion does not make man." On one hand, religion expresses the feeling that humans cannot adapt the alien forces of nature and society to their own needs or control them; on the other hand, it comforts and compensates for the frustration of the human inner world and the misfortunes of real life. Thus, religion satisfies human needs when facing infinity. It does not merely reinforce morality by promising rewards and threatening punishments after death; it also attempts to appease malevolent spirits and appeal to benevolent ones. In reality, it reflects the human condition at a certain stage of the historical process, performing functions as a worldview, a compensation, a cohesive force, and a "cloak." But Marx and Engels, as firm materialists, emphasized the real roots of religion’s existence. In their view, religion is not just a fantasy; it is created by humans and dominated by forces that humans cannot understand or master.
On the other hand, the essence of religious struggle and reform is the struggle for political power between classes. Tracing the historical process of bourgeois revolutions, the main purpose of advocating or opposing a certain religion was to seize power and consolidate rule, not out of religious fanaticism. Consequently, religious disputes became the fuse for revolutions between classes. In the history of every class society, there exist opposing classes. As an ideological weapon in class struggle, the role of religion is to help a specific class obtain interests. It is a weapon that has been used by both the oppressed and the oppressors in history. Therefore, Marx and Engels shifted their attention away from "religion" itself and concentrated on material social reality.
(3) Scientific Demonstration of the Final Witherng Away of Religion
Before the rise of the bourgeoisie, "science was but the humble handmaid of the Church" and was not science in the fundamental sense. The bourgeoisie, realizing the close link between development and science, had to join the ranks of rebellion. However, with the progress of science and social development, religion will inevitably move gradually toward its withering away. In the future society, religion will gradually lose its footing. Everything that people sought in religion in the past will become a thing of the past, because religion has no goals or motives beyond man, nature, or human society—only the desire to establish a harmonious relationship with these and with oneself. In communist society, humans will achieve free and well-rounded development, and the study of religion is part of the revolutionary struggle to realize this condition. The withering away of religion is a long and complex process. In Marx's view, the disappearance of the religious reflection of the real world is not only built upon a powerful social material foundation but also requires the realization of communism. In Engels' view, the disappearance of the religious reflection itself must satisfy three conditions: first, the abolition of private ownership of the means of production; second, the planned use of the means of production; and third, "when man proposes and man also disposes." [10]
04. Conclusion
Marx and Engels’ thought on religious critique constitutes a scientific understanding of religion. It is a search for truth in the "world of the here and now" [11] based on historical materialism, and a search for the path to human liberation from a realistic perspective. It holds significant value for cultural construction, social construction, and the Party's work on religion. Studying the development of Marx and Engels’ thought on religious critique leads to the conclusion that its formation and development were indispensable steps toward the scientification of the Marxist view of religion. Research in Marxist religious studies in the New Era should fully absorb and draw lessons from Marx and Engels’ thought on religious critique, and—combining it with China’s national conditions and the specific realities of religion in our country—build a Sinicized Marxist religious studies.