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PARTISAN REVIEW
The answer is that for Marx the essence of the religious
tude is to be found in the
method 01 hypostasis
no matter what
objects hypostatized are. For Marx any introduction of
abstrac–
tions,
whose origin and reference are allegedly
rather than historical, and which are presumably tested by intuition
rather than by their functional use in concrete experiential situa·
tions, is religious. Literally it is super-naturalism. Marx's critical
method is
scientific method
used to disclose those problems and
interests of men which are concealed by the introduction of unana–
lyzable abstractions. He is always asking: what is the earthly and
empirical basis for unearthly and non-empirical dogmas? In the
abstractions of theology, he finds a fetishism of words which con–
ceals specific historical and organizational needs. In the abstrac–
Hons of jurisprudence, he finds a fetishism of principles which
conceals the genuine power distributions in society. In the abstrac·
tions of economics, he finds a fetishism of commodities which
conceals the fact that men today are controlled by the very forces
of production which they themselves create. Each set of abstrac–
tions is accompanied by a set of practices. Since these abstractions
are non-empirical and non-historical, the only meaning that can
be assigned to them is in terms of these very practices. Wherever
abstractions are worshipped
wheth~r
it be in theology, politics or
physics, the task of scientific (materialistic) method is to locate
the concrete situation in which they were first introduced, to observe
the practices (Praxis) which they set up, and their subsequent
career in estopping more fruitful modes of procedure in similar
situations.
It is in Marx's scientific critique of abstractions that his irre–
ligion lies and not in the village atheism with which it is often con–
fused by many Marxists and most non-Marxists alike. This critique
of abstractions constitutes the gravest challenge to M. Maritain's
philosophy and theology. For it cuts all dogmas at their root,
especially those based on what is called analogical knowledge of
proportionality, and reveals them as the conceptual instruments of
systematically cultivated
obscurantism.
Take, for example, the dogma of divine creation, so necessary
for M. Maritain's theology. To create is a natural and historical
process and in its usual sense implies either an end or an intent or
both. When we say that an individual creates, we mean that it is an
