The Human Dialectic of Absolute Premises:
Christianity and Marxism
By Joe E. Dees
I. The Fundamental Contention
In the comparative analysis of two systems of belief, one
immediately encounters problems as to the validity of one’s
methodology. If the belief systems in question are not amenable to
correlation, one has three choices: (1) to bias the analysis by assuming
one belief system’s methodology over the other’s, (2) to render the
analysis non-relational by choosing a methodology foreign to both, and
(3) to beg the question by synthesizing the methodologies of the two
systems prior to the comparative analysis.
Since a comparative analysis cannot take place without two distinct
belief systems to compare, the question arises whether or not such an
inquiry is possible. Certain pairs of systems, however, are indeed
correlative and at the same time distinct. This occurs when two belief
systems directly oppose one another; they are then relational as
correlative opposites, and mutually contradict in their conclusions as a
result of the operation of a single logic upon mutually exclusive
premises. Two belief systems bearing this relationship may be viewed as
thesis and antithesis and compared dialectically.
Such is the relationship between Christianity and Marxism. One
asserts primordial Mind as the ground of being for the presence of
matter, while the other asserts primordial Matter as the ground of
becoming for emerging mind. One sees history as the temporal
manifestation of transcendent intention, while the other sees it as the
temporal evolution of immanent action. Both are absolutist, both are
deterministic, and both accept deductive logic as valid and the principle
of noncontradiction as sound.
If these are indeed systems of belief, the basic premise of each must
lie outside the purview of knowledge. This means that neither premise
may be undeniably demonstrable by example, nor may either be
unequivocally denied by counterexample. Furthermore, induction
proceeds from empirical data to statistically probable conclusions. The
presence of a single measurable and repeatable datum would, due to their
mutually antithetical nature, render one of the premises untrue while
placing the other within the realm of probability, which is not belief, but
statistical knowledge. Our two systems thus must be grounded upon
absolute and not relative premises. This entails that neither premise may
be statistically probable, in other words, neither may be either empirically
verifiable or empirically falsifiable. This of course means that neither
system may proceed from induction.
This is true of Christianity and Marxism. Our sciences, which
proceed by induction according to the Verification Principle, are sciences
of matter and energy. The sine qua non (condition in the absence of
which they would not be what they are) of matter and energy is that they
be sensorily perceivable phenomena. These immanent objects of
perception are then measured by relating our perceptions of them to our
perceptions of intersubjectively agreed-upon standards of measurement
which are themselves physical. These quantified perceptions must then
be amenable to repetition at will by means of any duplication of the
conditions under which they appear. This method cannot be used to
either verify or falsify the presence or absence of transcendent
nonphysical Mind. Our sensuous perceptions, our technological
augmentation of them, our devices of measurement, our method of
repetition are all immanent and physical; they are categorically incapable
of this task. We cannot prove God is anywhere, and neither can we
prove that there is anywhere God is not. Induction is useless with
respect to either Christianity of Marxism; the basic premise must be
believed in, rather than known, and in either case, conclusions must
follow by means of deduction from the basic premise, not induction from
empirically obtained data. This explains why both belief systems accept
the principle of noncontradiction as apodictically (self-evidently) true.
They both proceed by means of deduction from assumed a priori
postulates.
What is this concept of Being, however, about the existence of
which these two dogmas incessantly contend? It is a concept of
absolute Wisdom, Justice, Goodness, Beauty, Power and Unity existing
both a priori to and simultaneous with the temporal universe. It is the
concept of a universal Creator, Circumscriber and Subsumer who
provides source, impetus and goal for every act, passion and inspiration,
and in whom is found the purified synthesis of all that is, was and will be,
the common essence of apparent multiplicity in space and time.
Capitalize any human virtue and it becomes an attribute of God, the
Perfect Mind.
Ludwig Feuerbach’s analysis of humanity’s relationship to this
concept proceeds according to the Hegelian dialectic. Declaring religion
to be anthropology and its evolution to be the history of humankind, he
states clearly the three movements of this dialectic and what is being
moved. They are:
(1) The animal, becoming human by becoming aware of the humanity
emerging within it (which is part of it and yet still controls it), purifies and
projects this awareness into an absolute and transcendent realm;
emerging mind becomes crystallized in Mind, an Other Mind. This
objectification of self as Other, Feuerbach contends, is necessary for the
humanization of humanity in abstract terms.
(2) Now, however, nothing is left to the human. It has all been invested
in the Other. Humanity finds that it has bankrupted itself by giving the
Other all that was recognizable in it as more-than-animal. Humanity finds
itself an object, having given its subjecthood away.
(3) Humanity now “really” emerges, or rather finally merges with itself.
Seeing that it has alienated itself from its own soul, which it has called
God, Humanity shreds the veil of self-delusion and reclaims its own heart
from the transcendent altar-prison that it had itself built. This synthesis
of animal and God becomes the new thesis, the thesis of the human.
However, the movements of the human dialectic are not at an end,
Feuerbach notwithstanding. The God of Absolute and Perfect Mind has
been disputed, true, and by a premise both as basic and as absolute.
‘God is’ found itself facing ‘God is not’. But then, what is to be held
holy? We must have some common unity or we must call ourselves
nothing – and for the great majority of us, that is existentially unbearable.
But an understanding once achieved could not in good faith be
forgotten, and once our eyes had been opened, we could not close them
again. Personhood had been fragmented into nonrelational persons;
what God could reclaim the altar, to replace the God whose throne
humanity had usurped - the God whom humanity had conquered, and
therefore lost?
The new God-concept was provided by Karl Marx, and was both as
absolute as the old God-concept and antithetical to it. In fact, it was not
addressed by the name God but by the name Reality. The geist of
Apollo was met by the geist of Dionysius. Jesus’ God was a God of
Mind; Marx’s God was a God of Matter. Jesus’ God inhabited our souls;
Marx’s God constituted our bodies. The invisible God promising the
invisible Heavens was faced with the visible God promising the visible
Earth. Dialectical idealism was opposed by dialectical materialism, and
contemplation by action. The doctrine of immanence as illusion was no
longer an imperative, but an alternative; now another alternative existed
– the doctrine of transcendence as illusion. The slave was to spend
nights no longer in pursuit of a justification of slavery and the
justification of self as slave in the higher order of things. Instead, both
days and nights were to be spent correcting the injustice that forced the
worker, the producer, the priest at the altar of the Material God, into
servitude for the sake of parasitic inferiors, the bourgeois masters.
Philosophy’s task was finished, and now its products must be
implemented. There was work to be done. The thesis, Christianity,
through Aquinas, Kant, Hegel and Feuerbach, had finally spawned its
antithesis, Marxism.
II. The Church as State
During the first few hundred years after the life of Jesus, the thesis
of God’s presence was accepted by many. These people worshipped
first in secret, and oppression by a state (the Roman State) unified these
believers in martyrdom and as conspiracy of clandestine religious
communion. When however, Constantine the emperor of Rome accepted
Christianity and proclaimed it the official religion of the Roman Empire, a
unifying structure became necessary. Since the dominant structural
model present at the time was monarchy, a monarchial form was adopted.
This choice fitted in very well with the idea of a sovereign God, and
allowed the bishops of each area to speak for their people. Soon the
bishop of Rome was recognized as Pope, and all Christians spoke with
one voice. That voice, however, was many times not what many would
have chosen; many times it spoke for itself and the people of Christianity
were coerced into accepting the trappings of totalitarianism as
incomprehensible to them, but ordained of God as the best way. God,
after all, could not be wrong – God was Perfect Mind. But none of the
elaborate ritual of the Roman catholic Church, and none of its clerical
hierarchy, were outlined by Jesus. It was created by the elite, and much
of it for the elite. For instance, the people of the church have no say in
choosing this elite; it is chosen by itself. Popes choose cardinals; when
the Pope dies the cardinals choose a new one. Election and popular vote
was never even considered as far as the laity were concerned;
appointment by a superior was and is the method of clerical
advancement. The only election is to the highest office, by those
immediately beneath, and it is for life. Diplomatic ties with other
sovereignties were formed with the intention of having the sovereignty
of the Church recognized by the states, so that dual sovereignty was
demanded of their people; allegiance to both King and Pope, and the
Pope first. Vast lands and riches, the price of heaven, were amassed.
Salvation was bought and sold for what the buyer possessed, be it
wealth or widow’s mite. Finally, a Pope granted himself infallibility when
speaking ex cathedra, thus grounding totalitarian authority upon the
declaration of the declarer.
There were difficulties encountered along the way. The Roman
Empire fell. There was a great schism and the Russian and Greek
churches broke away. The iron demands of conformity to the party line
and subservience to the religious sovereign and his clerical nobility were
refused by those who disliked what the Catholic Church had become.
Martin Luther sparked a Reformation that was actually a religious
revolution; the Pope was denied sovereignty over both Protestants and
Anglicans, who spurned Roman Catholicism’s claim to be the temporal
arm of God. Monarchy was opposed by democracy, and conformity by
freedom of religious choice. Now Christianity is a faith embodied in a
multiplicity of expressions and the Roman Catholic Church, while still the
largest voice, is one of many which people are free to choose to or not to
heed in most areas. Only in a few countries is the manner of Christian
expression not a matter of personal choice. It is significant to note that
such freedom has never been given, only taken. Spain and Portugal,
until recently authoritarian states welded to an institutional church, are
the most recent to take such freedoms for their people, but only after the
people took their freedoms from the state.
III. The State as Church
Marx, like Jesus, had not specifically outlined a form for Marxism to
take. He had stated the purpose of his call for revolution, true; a
communist economic system maintained for the fair distribution of the
products of labor (goods and services), centrally administered and
collectively owned. But the structures of responsibility, decision and
communication had not been patterned out or their interrelations
delineated. Jesus preached mutual love between people through
mediation of Mind and Marx preached mutual service between people
through implementation of Matter. Jesus assumes that upon the
Apocalypse, which he expected soon, governmental forms would be
unnecessary, and Marx assumed that upon the advent of communism
that a temporary post-revolutionary organizing authority, the
dictatorship of the proletariat, would quite voluntarily ‘wither away’.
The Russian Revolution took the Marxists by surprise. Marx was
dead and could not lead; Lenin took command. He possessed a faith, the
shambles of a monarchial system, and many millions of religious people.
He instituted a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ modeled on the
monarchial structure, abolished private property, purged the opposition,
and installed himself as leader of a monarchial economic state.
Successors were to be chosen by the majority vote of commissars that
the previous leader appointed, and all members of the government were
to be members of the one party allowed, the Communist Party. The
Soviet government was built in the image of the Roman Catholic Church,
and Lenin became its first Pope. The communist parties in other nations
were required to accept the soviet party as absolute sovereign and not to
be questioned. Things move more quickly these days, for thirty years
after the Soviet republic was born Marshal Tito, the first harbinger of
schism, appeared on the scene. Soon after, we had socialist as well as
communist states, as we have predominately catholic and predominately
protestant countries; the Socialist Reformation has taken place before
our eyes, despite attempts by the Soviet Republic to repress same in
Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland. It is significant to note that
communists may form parties within socialist countries, but until
recently, when the issue was forced, not the other way around. This is a
duplication of the Catholic-Protestant paradigm of one-way (or
predominately one-way) discrimination.
IV. Church-State vs. People
Both of these systems of belief, as practiced by their dominant
organs, are monarchies - but not genetic ones. They are ideological
monarchies. Neither has much use for the criticisms of philosophy,
which they both distrust because they cannot control it. Both have
three dogmas that correlate nicely. These are: (1) the Statement of Faith
(Catholic - God is, and subsidiary dogma; Communist – God is not, and
subsidiary dogma), (2) the Personal Admonition (Catholic – love others;
Communist – labor for others), and (3) the Acknowledgement of
Authority (Catholic – the church/Pope is infallible; Communist – the
Party/President is infallible). One joins them only by publicly endorsing
their doctrines, and advances by being perceived by one’s superiors as
passionately conforming to them. The laity of each lack the power to
dictate the course of church-state actions; power issues from the apex –
the crowned head of the controlling minority of the ideological elite.
Each is plagued with the wide propagation of a more democratic
alternative (Protestantism, Socialism) which it regards as an obstreperous
and irreverent stepchild, for although each wants the world to accept its
views, each also desires the final disposition of them. Dissent is either
treasonous (contra people) or blasphemous (contra God); one punishes
it directly in this life, one indirectly through disposition of a believed-in
next. To join either is to forfeit it your rights. One is world negating, the
other is other-than-world negating. Each asserts that the only way to be
truly human is to embrace its faith. Both have collectively deterministic
views of history; one is determined by Mind (what happens is ordained
of God) and the other is determined by Matter (the evolution of the
distribution of material is the guiding force of history), and both
culminate in utopia. Both have a person to worship and a book to read,
and both have trained experts to communicate the orthodox meaning of
each to the mass herds, and to denounce forbidden concepts and
conceivers. The masses of each are constrained to take their words at
face value; the words of ideologues commissioned to propagate the
Faith.
That such similarities should manifest themselves in the relational
structures between these belief systems and their respective social
masses is not surprising. Correlative opposites mutually and
symmetrically define from a neutral or uncommitted perspective; us-them
only manifests itself after a Leap – in either direction. Marxism would
have to have a governmental system of absolute authority from below to
be in good faith with itself. Lacking time and a practicable paradigm from
which to develop such a system, the closest available, complementary
alternative was employed – a governmental system of absolute authority
from above, the model of its ideological antithesis and methodological
twin, Christianity. The adoption of this internal self-contradiction
festered in the heart of the Soviet system, and in the end, facilitated its
demise.
V. The Social Subsumption
Feuerbach’s work was brilliant and insightful, and at first one might
suspect that Marx had betrayed him by placing the God of Matter upon
the throne from which Feuerbach had only recently removed the God of
Mind. Actually, Feuerbach had only dealt with one side of the question,
and Marx embarked upon the first movement of the other side when he
crystallized Matter into an icon. That Apollo had been given away,
missed, and reclaimed by humanity was an incomplete resolution of the
situation; the same dialectic had to be traversed in Dionysian terms.
Chaos and Order are co-primordial, and neither can be apprehended
absolutely by humankind, only believed in (a major problem in computer
science is the inability to construct a truly random number generator;
any pattern – including the Kantian categories of space, time and
causality - necessarily begets pattern). At the same instant that
humanity became aware of mind, that is, when humanity began to
become human, humanity also became aware of body - a body that Marx
had enshrined and thus stolen from them. The thesis of Jesus, the
crystallizer of Mind, had been dialectically resolved by Feuerbach; who
would resolve the Marxian thesis?
It has been done, by Friedrich Nietszche. The majority of his work
concerns how humanity had divorced itself from its body. Nietszche
missed this body, and reclaimed it in his monumental work THE WILL
TO POWER. Nietszche did not write as Feuerbach did; he wrote not with
the Apollonian clarity of the dialectic, but with the Dionysian passion of
the hammer.
Feuerbach and Nietszche, the humanizers of Jesus’ God of Mind and
Marx’s God of Matter, the Promethean reclaimers of Order and Chaos,
formulated the restated thesis and antithesis of ‘God is’ and ‘God is not’,
which really said ‘Mindgod is and Mattergod is not’ and ‘Mattergod is
and Mindgod is not’. Their statements are, respectively, ‘Mindgod is
human’ and ‘Mattergod is human’. Now these must be combined into
the next synthesis, the synthesis not yet widely spoken but of which the
world is already implicitly aware. It is this: Mindgod and Mattergod are
the thesis and antithesis which are synthesized in humanity.
This can be intuited even in Aristotle’s hylomorphic composition of
the world, although he did not apply it to humanity. For Aristotle, things
are contingent phenomenal syntheses of noumenal absolutes. So are
humans, but incredibly enriched! Human contingency is the dynamic
and never-completed synthesis of opposing absolutes, which itself can
only apprehend in contingent terms, but in two opposing yet
complementary directions. There are in constant interplay with each
other and their names are intuitive right-brain synthesis into unity (from
Matter to Mind) and intellectual left-brain analysis into multiplicity (from
Mind to Matter). In these two modes of self-consciousness, which are
synthesis reflecting upon analysis (which assumes the synthetic whole
in order to analyze) and analysis reflecting upon synthesis (which
assumes the analytic parts in order to synthesize), the former views their
human conjunction as Mind ruling Matter and the latter views it as
Matter ruling Mind. Each, like Jesus and Marx, Feuerbach and
Nietszche, is partly right and partly wrong, for each focused on a single
aspect of the human coin. Neither rules and both do, each by consent of
the other. This is the paradox of contingency, which frees history from
the determinism of either side alone while still allowing for the interplay
of trends, and humanity from the imperative to follow one side of
existence exclusively, while still leaving humanity its humanness. The
bare existence or lack of same of either absolute is nonrelational to
humankind, which is free for each of its individual members to
subjectively and intersubjectively experience the plenitude of contingent
synthanalytic existence.
