Books Reviewed Nicholas Lobkowicz

Notre Dame Law School NDLScholarship Natural Law Forum 1-1-1963 Books Reviewed Nicholas Lobkowicz Frederick J. Crosson Ernan McMullin Edward McWhinney Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/nd_naturallaw_forum Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Lobkowicz, Nicholas; Crosson, Frederick J.; McMullin, Ernan; and McWhinney, Edward, "Books Reviewed" (1963). Natural Law Forum. Paper 99. http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/nd_naturallaw_forum/99 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by NDLScholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Natural Law Forum by an authorized administrator of NDLScholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BOOKS REVIEWED MARXISMUSSTUDIEN. Fourth Series. Edited by I. Fetscher. (Schriften der evangeli- schen Studiengemeinschaft 7) Tiibingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1962. Pp. vi, 258. DM 12. When, sometime around 1952, the Research Commission of the German Evangelical Academies decided to establish a special committee for studies in Marxism, it probably did not foresee that within a few years the projected study group would become one of the West's major centers of studies in this field. However, in 1954, as the first collection of articles appeared in print, it was at once obvious that the Evangelical Academies had succeeded in gathering a number of highly competent historians, sociologists, economists, lawyers, phi- losophers, and theologians who had in common the desire to evaluate Marxist thought as objectively as possible and, at the same time, to rethink the tenets of Christianity in the light of this challenge. Though not all of them were Protestants, they all seemed to share in an attitude characteristic of today's German Protestant intellectuals, the conviction that in recent decades man and his centuries-old culture have set foot in a danger area and that this danger can be coped with only by a genuine understanding of the past and, in particular, by calling to account the contemporary relationship to the great spiritual tradition originating from German Idealism. Thereby, from the very beginning, the study group in question markedly differed from two other Christian groups interested in Marxism, from Catholic students of Marxism such as J. M. Bocheliski and Gustav Wetter, on the one hand, and from Christian progressists such as the collaborators of the French review Esprit and the German monthly Frank- furter Hefte, on the other hand. Contrary to the former, it was interested more in Marx, especially the young one, than in contemporary Soviet ideology; also, it believed that original Marxism contained a number of valuable clues for the understanding of human history. Contrary to the latter, it clearly was aware of the abyss which separates Marx from his contemporary followers and of the impossibility of reaching any kind of spiritual agreement with orthodox Com- munists. Probably the best way to characterize the intentions of the study group is to quote a passage from the introduction to the first volume of Marxismusstudien, Written by the committee's late chairman, Erwin Metzke: Too often we content ourselves with opposing Marxism and Christianity as two fixed magnitudes, in an oddly ahistorical way. If, moreover, we characterize Christianity, as opposed to Marxist "materialism," by empha- sizing its "spiritualism" and "other-worldliness," we completely forget that the Christian message is not an unworldly doctrine of the beyond, but that it centers around God's personal coming unto this reality of ours. Therefore, Marx's break through the spiritualist and idealist tradition is relevant pre- NATURAL LAW FORUM cisely to the Christian ... Do we consider sufficiently whether the* iremises from which our discussion with dialectical materialism proceeds are basic enough? Do we consider that Marx has called in question the whole history of the occidental understanding of the world and of human life? Does not this history appear in a new light as soon as we consider Leninism and Stalin- ism - in a twilight, as it were? Are we certain that, within our own walls, we are not dominated by ways of thinking which we oppose in others? Do we not often fight against consequences of principles which still operate at our own foundations? Is it not precisely the seeming obviousness of certain starting positions which requires a self-critical re-examination? Is it not true that only such a self-critical deepening of our criticism will lead us beyond discussions in which each side simply holds the opposite of that which the other side maintains? One may disagree as to the reasonableness of so radically critical an attitude. However, its fruits are without doubt remarkable. The three issues of Marxismusstudien, published in 1954, 1957 and 1960 respectively, contain some of the best articles ever written on Marx and Marxism. To mention only some of them: in the first volume, the study on the history of interpretations of Marx by E. Thier is a basic essay which anyone interested in Marxism should study before approaching other secondary literature; in the second volume, I. Fetscher's paper on Marx's notion of the proletariat analyzes the difficult question as to the relation between Marx's philosophy proper and Marxist political ideology; in the third volume there is a probing analysis of Marxian dialectics by Hus- serl's pupil and last assistant, L. Landgrebe, presently professor at the University of Cologne. The recently published fourth volume comprises five studies, of which three are concerned with Marxism and religion. The first essay, by far the longest (143 pages), entitled "The Marxist Critique of Religion and Christian Faith," is by H. Gollwitzer, professor of Protestant theology at the University of Bonn. Although he was a Soviet prisoner of war from 1945 to 1949 (an experience which he described in a famous book, Another Will Lead Thee), Gollwitzer belongs to the circle around the "red pastor" Niem6ller and thus, politically at least, to the extreme left. The second article, "The Secularization of Politics and the Political Thought of Modern Times," is by a well-known professor of philosophy and sociology at the University of Lille, Eric Weil, author of Hegel et I'Etat. The third article, by H. D. Wendland from the University of Miinster, discusses the "religious socialism" of Paul Tillich. The other two articles concern the starting point and the most recent effect of Marx's critique of private property. The first analyzes paragraphs 34 to 81 of Hegel's Philosophy of Right; the author, J. Ritter, professor of philosophy at Miinster, and presently rector magnificus, is one of Germany's greatest experts on Hegel. The last essay covers the present Soviet right of possession; its author, F. Christian Schroeder, is assistant to one of the world's outstanding experts on Soviet law, R. Maurach, of the University of Munich. I shall restrict myself to discussing the papers of Gollwitzer and Weil. Those not too well acquainted with Marx often believe that the founder of Communism was a militant atheist who considered the abolition of religion and, in particular, of Christianity one of his major tasks. This assumption is, to say NICHOLAS LOBKOWICZ the least, 'inexact. Of course, Marx was an atheist. He did not, however, ascribe to the antireligious fight the importance which it has, for example, in the view of contemporary Communists. Rather, he considered religion as a consequence of a more basic evil, the evil of a society in which man "has not yet found himself or has already lost himself again." This society "produces religion, a perverted world consciousness," because it is itself "a perverted world," just as an inflamed organ produces pus. Religion is nothing more than a perverted world translated into consciousness; it is "the general theory of that world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritualistic point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn completion, its universal ground for consolation and justification."' 1 Consequently, Marx was always somewhat astonished and, indeed, annoyed at the unswerving inveighing against religion of militant atheists such as the brothers Bauer or Feuerbach. He considered this frontal attack against religion both useless and misplaced: useless, because religion simply cannot be abolished as long as "the world" is not put straight; misplaced, because the real enemy is the perverted social order of which, as Marx puts it, religion is only the "spiritual aroma." After all, an efficient treatment has to be radical, it has to reach the roots of the evil. Religion is of interest only as a symptom. It is, of course, true that "the criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism," exactly as the discovery of pus is the premise of all treatment of an abscess. But as soon as the purulent character of religion has become obvious, one has to turn to its cause. Therefore, in 1844, less than three years after the publication of Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity, Marx could calmly declare that, for Germany at least, "the criticism of religion 2 is in the main completed." Both Gollwitzer and Weil rightly insist on this point. As the latter puts it, Marx is not antireligious, but rather a religious thinker. He hardly needs to be an atheist; after all, one makes no fuss about one's being opposed to morbid delusion. However, as Gollwitzer points out, this almost indolent attitude towards religion is, to the Christian, more shocking than pleasing. Indeed, in a sense at least, it is far more shocking than the profound hate which many of Marx's followers, such as Lenin, displayed. For it indicates with unsurpassable clarity the claim of Marxism to be the fulfillment of man's most ultimate needs. By shoving off religion as a minor matter, Marxism implies not only that it can answer all the questions concerning the end of man and the meaning of human life without borrowing anything from religion, but it implies further that it can answer such questions at a level fundamentally different from that of religion.

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