Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id IAA24874 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 11 May 2000 08:13:04 +0100 Message-Id: <200005110711.DAA09810@mail4.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 02:13:57 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: Quoted-printable Subject: The Human Dialectic of Absolute Premises, Pt. 1 X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12b) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
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.
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