The Value Implications of Young Marx’s Critique of Religion

Marx’s profound insight into capitalist industrial civilization and his scientific demonstration of the “five forms of society” [1]1 The “five forms of society” (五种社会形态) refers to the Marxist theory of historical stages: primitive, slave, feudal, capitalist, and communist (with socialist as the first phase of communist). represent a dialectical unity of the critique of the real world and the construction of a future society. The critical mode of logic and linguistic expression is the unique style with which Marx constructed his academic theory. The American scholar Immanuel Wallerstein once evaluated Marx’s critical style as follows: “Marxism, which critiques the capitalist world-economy, is those critical discourses that inspire honest social forces to oppose the existing world system—Marx’s widely popular mode of expression.” [1]1 The “five forms of society” (五种社会形态) refers to the Marxist theory of historical stages: primitive, slave, feudal, capitalist, and communist (with socialist as the first phase of communist). Young Marx’s critique of religion is the starting point and premise of his social critique theory, and it possesses profound value implications in the generative process of Marxist theory.

马克思对于资本主义工业文明的深刻洞察和“五种社会形态”的科学论证是现实世界批判与未来社会建构的辩证统一，批判式的思维逻辑和语言表达是马克思建构其学术理论的独特风格。美国学者伊曼纽尔·沃勒斯坦对马克思的批判风格曾这样评价，“对资本主义世界经济体系进行批判的马克思主义,是激励诚笃的社会力量进行反对现行世界体系的那些批判性言说——深得人心的马克思的表达方式。”［1］青年马克思的宗教批判思想是其社会批判理论的起点和前提，在马克思主义理论的生成过程中具有深远的价值意蕴。

I. The Origin of Young Marx’s Critique of Religion

一、青年马克思宗教批判的缘起

Young Marx’s attention to and reflection on the question of religion were by no means accidental judgments, but rather arose from a specific historical background and intellectual-cultural lineage. His attitude toward religion underwent a process from belief to doubt to critique. European civilization is a typical Christian civilization, and a dense religious culture has accompanied the development of Western philosophy. Young Marx lived in Germany, where religious mysticism and feudal absolute monarchy were “married.” Religious belief became a spiritual means for the Prussian autocratic government to maintain rule, numb, and control the masses. The truth and happiness of the “otherworldly realm” that religious theology concerned itself with became the helpless spiritual consolation of the exploited, and religious belief manifested a powerful controlling force in both political life and social life.

青年马克思对宗教问题的关注和思考绝非出于偶然的判断，而是缘自特定的历史背景和思想文化渊源，其对宗教的态度经历了一个从信仰到怀疑、批判的过程。欧洲文明是典型的基督教文明，浓厚的宗教文化与西方哲学的发展如影随形。青年马克思生活于宗教神秘主义和封建主义君主专制“联姻”的德国，宗教信仰成为普鲁士专制政府维护统治、麻痹和控制群众的精神手段，宗教神学所关注“彼岸世界”的真理和幸福成为被剥削者无奈的精神慰藉，宗教信仰在政治生活和社会生活中都凸显出强大的控制力量。

The accumulation and permeation of religious culture naturally deeply influenced the young Marx, as is directly reflected in his middle-school essays on religious questions. In one of his middle-school essays, “The Union of Believers with Christ According to John 15:1–14, Its Causes and Essence, Its Absolute Necessity and Its Effects,” Marx still insisted on the motivating role of Christianity in the perfection of human nature and the elevation of morality, holding that God represented the supreme ethical entity and ideal moral state, and placing hope in “God’s salvation” for the suffering and torment of earthly life. [2]2 “Weapon of critique” (批判的武器) is a reference to Marx’s famous phrase in “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction,” where he distinguishes between the “weapon of critique” (theory) and the “critique of weapons” (material force). In another middle-school essay, “Reflections of a Young Man on the Choice of a Profession,” Marx took God’s revelation as the basis for young people to establish lofty moral ideals. From this it can be seen that young Marx’s attitude toward religion was a moralized cognitive model of ethical concern, and the pursuit of lofty values became the sustenance and destination of Marx’s religious sentiment. It was less a belief in religion than a belief in morality.

宗教文化的积淀和渗透当然也深深影响着青年时代的马克思，这在他中学时期关于宗教问题的论文里有直接的体现。马克思在他的一篇中学论文《根据约翰福音第15章第1至第14节论信徒和基督的一致，这种一致的原因和实质，它的绝对必要及其影响》中依然坚持基督教对人性完善和道德提升的激励作用，认为上帝意味着至高的伦理实体和理想道德状态，对于尘世生活的苦难和折磨寄希望于“上帝的拯救”。［2］在另外一篇中学论文《青年在择业时的考虑》中，马克思把上帝的启示作为青年确立崇高道德理想的根据。由此可以看出，青年马克思对宗教的态度是一种伦理关切的道德化认知模式，对崇高价值的追求成为马克思宗教情感的寄托和归宿，与其说是对宗教的信仰，毋宁说是对道德的信仰。

However, Marx’s pursuit of loftiness and freedom had almost no possibility of realization in the dark political reality of German society at the time. Against the backdrop of the vigorous development of capitalist economic and political systems in England and France, Germany’s reality was one where religion defended feudal autocracy, and the illusion of the otherworldly realm suffocated the passion to “change the world.” In stark contrast to Germany’s conservative backwardness was the progress and leap in the field of German speculative philosophy. In the field of German philosophy, which was the spirit of the age, the concept of the modern state had already far surpassed Germany’s backward state system. At the same time, the thinkers of the Enlightenment, which had a profound influence on society at the time, believed that only science and reason could drive out ignorance, while religion was a degradation and suppression of human nature. Thus, the rational critique of religion became the theme of philosophical argumentation.

然而，马克思对崇高和自由的价值追求在当时政治黑暗的德国现实社会几乎没有实现的可能。在英国、法国资本主义经济和政治制度蓬勃发展的时代背景下，德国的现实却是宗教为封建专制辩护，彼岸世界的幻觉窒息了“改变世界”的激情。与德国的保守落后形成鲜明对照的是德国思辨哲学领域的进步和跳跃，在作为时代精神的德国哲学领域，现代国家理念已经远远超越当时落后的德国国家制度。同时，对当时社会具有深刻影响的启蒙运动思想家们认为，只有依靠科学和理性才能驱逐蒙昧，而宗教则是对人性的贬损和压抑，因而对宗教的理性批判成为哲学领域论证的主题。

The severe “anachronism” between German theory and reality indicated that the only possible path for Germany’s progressive cause lay in relying on “philosophy” as the “weapon of critique.” [2]2 “Weapon of critique” (批判的武器) is a reference to Marx’s famous phrase in “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction,” where he distinguishes between the “weapon of critique” (theory) and the “critique of weapons” (material force). Consequently, following the ethical world in conformity with spiritual reason demonstrated by Hegel’s system of absolute spirit philosophy, the Young Hegelians turned to the philosophy of “self-consciousness.” They trumpeted the “self,” criticized everything, used religious concepts to replace everything everywhere, declared that politics, law, morality, and all other concepts belonged to the realm of religious theology, regarded religion as the source of evil and “the real chains of people,” and made the critique of religion the typical characteristic and historical task of the era. In his doctoral dissertation, Marx used “self-consciousness” as a rational weapon to critique the opposition between religion and human freedom. On the basis of the Enlightenment thinkers and the Young Hegelians, Marx inherited and surpassed Feuerbach to complete a critique of religion that was thorough and realistic on the basis of rational critique. His critique of religion is centrally embodied in “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction,” where Marx clearly realized that the critique of religion is the premise of all other critique.

德国理论和现实之间严重的“时代错乱”表明德国的进步事业惟一的可能就在于依靠“哲学”这一“批判的武器”。因而继黑格尔绝对精神哲学体系所论证的符合精神理性的伦理世界之后，青年黑格尔派转向“自我意识”哲学，他们鼓吹“自我”、批判一切，到处用宗教的观念来代替一切，宣布政治、法律、道德等一切观念都通归宗教神学的领域，把宗教视为罪恶之源，“人们的真正枷锁”，对宗教的批判是当时典型的时代特征和历史任务。马克思的博士论文以“自我意识”为理性武器来批判宗教与人性自由的对立。在启蒙思想家和青年黑格尔派的基础上，马克思继承并超越费尔巴哈完成了对宗教理性批判基础上的彻底性和现实性批判，其宗教批判思想集中体现在《〈黑格尔法哲学批判〉导言》中，马克思清醒地意识到，对宗教的批判是其它一切批判的前提。

II. The Theoretical Value of Young Marx’s Critique of Religion: Inheritance and Transcendence

二、青年马克思宗教批判的理论价值：继承并超越

In the evolution of young Marx’s critique of religion, Feuerbach’s rational critique of religion had a particularly profound influence on Marx. Feuerbach abandoned the eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers’ simplistic negation of religion as “a fool meeting a swindler.” Within his framework of materialism and humanism, he understood religion as the self-alienation of humanity and the loss of its free nature. Regarding the origin of religion, Feuerbach adhered to a natural-materialist position, holding that religion is humanity’s use of imagination to endow natural things and natural laws with personified power and then worship them. Feuerbach pointed out that the mystery and falsehood of religion arise from humanity’s lack of independence from and dependence on nature in its relationship with nature; the feeling of human dependence is the basis on which religion arises. In natural religion, humans indirectly deify their own spirit through tangible objects, while in spiritual religion, the human spirit directly deifies itself without any intermediary.

在青年马克思宗教批判思想的演进中，费尔巴哈的理性宗教批判思想对马克思的影响尤为深刻。费尔巴哈抛弃了十八世纪启蒙思想家把宗教简单化地否定为“傻子遇到了骗子”的观念，在其唯物主义和人本主义的逻辑框架内，把宗教理解为人的自我异化和自由本性的丧失。对于宗教之产生，费尔巴哈坚持自然唯物主义的立场，认为宗教是人类借助想象赋予自然事物、自然法则以人格化力量并进而对其顶礼膜拜。费尔巴哈指出，宗教的神秘和虚妄产生于人与自然关系上的不独立和依赖，人的依赖感是宗教所以产生的基础。在自然宗教中,人通过有形的物体间接地神化了自己的精神,而在精神宗教中,人的精神则不经过任何中介而直接地神化了。

Feuerbach took up the banner of the Enlightenment spirit, challenged the authority of the “doctrine of divine creation,” and clearly pointed out that religion is the realization of human essence in fantasy and falsehood. The absolute spiritual entity in religion—God—is precisely the incarnation of the human spirit and reason. “Man objectifies his own essence, and then makes himself the object of this objectified, subjectified, personified essence. This is the secret of religion.” [3]3 The “copy” (副本) and “original” (原本) refer to Marx’s distinction in the “Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law: Introduction” between criticizing the ideological reflections (the “copy”) of German society—such as religion, law, and politics—and criticizing the actual social conditions (the “original”) that produce them. Feuerbach’s revelation of religion shows that it is not God who created man in his own image, but man who created God in his own image. Religion is “the first, albeit crude and vulgar, cultural form of human life.” [4]4 The “absolute spirit” (绝对精神) is a central concept in Hegel’s philosophy, denoting the self-developing, self-knowing rational totality of reality, which Marx and Engels critiqued as an idealist mystification. The reason people worship an object as sacred is simply that the object is nothing other than the basis for sustaining human existence. In religion, the value that people affirm in God is in fact precisely the affirmation of their own value; that is, people’s love for God is in fact their love for themselves. Therefore, after criticizing the false essence of religion, Feuerbach advocated replacing God with a “religion of love” and using human will and spirit to realize the pursuit of happiness. It is in this sense that Feuerbach’s critique of religion “did not eliminate actual religious piety, nor did it seek to eliminate such piety.” [5]5 Bruno Bauer (1809–1882) was a German philosopher and Young Hegelian who argued that political emancipation required the abolition of religion; Marx critiqued this position in “On the Jewish Question” (1843).

费尔巴哈承接启蒙精神的旗帜，挑战“上帝创世说”的权威，明确指出，宗教是人的本质在幻想和虚妄中的实现，宗教中的绝对精神实体——上帝正是人类的精神、理性的化身。“人使他自己的本质对象化,然后,又使自己成为这个对象化了的、转化为主体、人格的本质的对象。这就是宗教之秘密。” ［3］费尔巴哈对宗教的揭秘表明，不是上帝按照自己的形象造了人，而是人按照自己的形象创造了上帝，宗教是“人类生活上最初的然而还粗鄙和庸俗的文化形式。” ［4］人之所以把对象作为神圣的东西来崇拜，只是因为对象不是别的，正是维持人类生存的基础。在宗教中，人在神的身上所肯定的价值，其实正是人对自身价值的肯定，也就是说，人对神的爱其实正是人对自身的爱。因而，在批判了宗教的虚妄本质之后费尔巴哈主张用“爱的宗教”来代替上帝，以人类的意志和精神来实现对于幸福的追求。正是在此意义上，费尔巴哈的宗教批判“并没有消除人的实际的宗教笃诚，也不力求消除这种笃诚。”［5］

Feuerbach’s exposure of the essence of God brought German philosophy from heaven down to earth, regarding religion as “the self-consciousness and self-feeling of man who has either not yet found himself or has already lost himself again.” [6]6 The phrase “I have no status, but I must become everything” is a paraphrase of a line from Georg Büchner’s play *Danton’s Death* (1835), which Marx cites in his early writings to express the revolutionary position of the proletariat. This is an important historical achievement of his critique of religion. However, based on an ethical presupposition of humanism, Feuerbach reduced man to an abstract rather than a real individual, and used the opposition between God and man to highlight the opposition between the religious world and the secular world. “In order to enrich God, man must become poor; in order for God to be everything, man becomes nothing.” [7]7 The “old system” (旧制度) refers to the pre-1848 German feudal-absolutist order, which Marx sought to overthrow through critique and revolution. This model of bipolar opposition had profound significance for enlightening thought in overturning the authority of God and restoring the value and dignity of man, but it neglected the significance of the secular society’s own self-division and contradictory movement for the emergence of religion. This is precisely the reason Feuerbach’s critique of religion ultimately fell into limitation and abstraction.

费尔巴哈对于上帝本质问题的揭露将德国哲学从天国拉回到人间，把宗教看作是“还没有获得自身或已经再度丧失自身的人的自我意识和自我感觉”，［6］这是其宗教批判的重要历史功绩。然而，基于人本主义的伦理悬设，费尔巴哈把人归结为抽象的而不是现实的个人，以上帝和人的对立突出宗教世界与世俗世界的对立，“为了使上帝富有，人就必须赤贫；为了使上帝成为一切，人就成了无。”［7］这样的两极对立模式对于颠覆上帝权威、回归人的价值尊严具有深刻的思想启蒙意义，但是忽略了世俗社会本身的自我分裂和矛盾运动之于宗教产生的意义，这也正是费尔巴哈宗教批判最终走向局限和抽象的原因。

“Marx inherited the materialist tradition of Feuerbach’s critique of religion, but the young Marx placed greater emphasis on the critical tension and profundity of the logic of humanist alienation.” [8]8 “Union of free individuals” (freier Menschenverein) is Marx’s term in *Capital* for the form of association that replaces commodity-producing society, where the associated producers collectively control their labor and its products. His critique of religion completely overturned religious mysticism, adhered to natural materialism, and demonstrated that religion arises from illusions about the actuality of human essence; every fantasy in heaven is a distorted reflection of human beings themselves. Starting from human essence, Marx exposed the secular foundation behind transcendent religion: “Man is not an abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man, the state, society. This state, this society, produces religion, an inverted world-consciousness, because they are an inverted world.” [9] Human essence is not an abstract concept existing in the mind, but a concrete existence in the actual state and society. The mystery and falsity of religion come from the human life-world, a world of oppression, exploitation, and enslavement—an “inverted” world relative to the ethical entity that ought to be, the rational state. Marx says that religion is the “general theory” of this “inverted world”; “the suffering of religion is both the expression of real suffering and the protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world.” [10] It is precisely the “inverted world” that produces this “inverted world-consciousness” of religion; thus Marx’s critique of religion necessarily advances to the depth of social critique.

“马克思继承费尔巴哈宗教批判的唯物主义传统，但青年马克思则更看重其人本主义异化论逻辑的批判张力及其深刻性”。［8］ 其宗教批判彻底颠覆了宗教神秘主义，坚持自然唯物主义，论证宗教产生于对人的本质的现实性的幻想，天国里的任何幻境都是对人自身的歪曲反映。马克思从人的本质出发揭露超验宗教背后的世俗根基，“人不是抽象的蛰居于世界之外的存在物。人就是人的世界，就是国家，社会。这个国家、这个社会产生了宗教，一种颠倒的世界意识，因为它们就是颠倒的世界。”［9］人的本质不是存在于头脑中的抽象概念，而是现实的国家和社会中的具体存在。宗教的神秘和虚妄来自于人的生活世界，这个世界是充满压迫、剥削和奴役的“颠倒”世界，这种“颠倒”是相对于应然层面的伦理实体——理性国家而言的。马克思说，宗教是这个“颠倒的世界”的“总理论”，“宗教里的苦难既是现实的苦难的表现，又是对这种现实的苦难的抗议。宗教是被压迫生灵的叹息，是无情世界的情感。”［10］正是“颠倒的世界”产生了宗教这种“颠倒的世界意识”，这样马克思的宗教批判必然走向社会批判的深度。

The thoroughness of the young Marx’s critique of religion lies in its completion of the turn from the critique of the “sacred image of human self-alienation” to the critique of the “self-alienation of the non-sacred image,” from a rational critique of religion to a social critique of religion, transforming the critique of religion into a critique of the vale of tears on earth. “The critique of heaven turns into the critique of earth, the critique of religion into the critique of law, the critique of theology into the critique of politics.” [10] The epochal value and transcendence of the young Marx’s critique of religion consist in its carrying out a critique of the “copy” while simultaneously linking it to German social reality to conduct a critique of the “original,” deepening the critique of religion through the critique of social reality; otherwise, the critique of religion would regress into a fantastic, rootless critique. Hence, the young Marx’s critique of religion is the starting point of his social critique, and social critique is the complete fulfillment of his critique of religion.

青年马克思宗教批判的彻底性就在于完成了从“人的自我异化的神圣形象”批判到“非神圣形象的自我异化”批判的转向，完成了从对宗教的理性批判到对宗教的社会批判的转向，把对宗教的批判转变为对苦难尘世的批判。“对天国的批判变成对尘世的批判，对宗教的批判变成对法的批判，对神学的批判变成对政治的批判。”［10］ 青年马克思宗教批判的时代价值和超越之处就在于其展开“副本”批判的同时也联系德国社会现实展开“原本”批判，从对社会现实的批判中来继续和深化宗教批判，否则宗教批判就会退回到幻想的、无根的批判。因而，青年马克思的宗教批判是其社会批判的起点，社会批判是其宗教批判的彻底完成。

III. The Value Appeal of Young Marx’s Critique of Religion: Human Emancipation

三、青年马克思宗教批判的价值诉求：人类解放

The young Marx’s critique of religion negates all forms of authority, completely overturns the ontological logic of the “absolute spirit” and eternal laws, directly touches the “center of the problem” of the society of his time, and realizes the realistic turn of the epochal mission and philosophical task. Marx holds that illusory religion is the opposition and rebellion against free human nature and the actual state and society; therefore, abolishing illusory happiness in the religious world is not abolishing happiness itself, but realizing real happiness in the life-world. The critique of religion must not only discard “the truth of the other world” and tear off the “imaginary flowers” adorning the chains, but also establish “the truth of this world.” This indicates that Marx’s critique of religion is permeated with concern for the human world of existence. Marx’s thesis that “man is the highest essence for man” contains “the categorical imperative to overthrow all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, abandoned, contemptible being.” [11] In its conclusions, the young Marx’s critique of religion transcends both the “actual reason” of Hegel’s philosophy of state and law and the establishment of Feuerbach’s “religion of love,” instead moving toward a new path of criticizing German society.

青年马克思的宗教批判否定任何形式的权威，彻底颠覆了“绝对精神”和永恒法则的本体论逻辑，直接触及了当时社会“问题的中心”，实现了时代使命和哲学任务的现实性转向。马克思认为，虚幻的宗教是对自由人性、现实的国家和社会的对立与反抗，因此，废除宗教世界里虚幻的幸福并不是废除幸福本身，而是要实现生活世界里真实的幸福。宗教批判不仅要抛弃“彼岸世界的真理”，撕碎装饰在锁链上的“虚构的花朵”，而且更要确立“此岸世界的真理”，这表明马克思宗教批判贯穿着对人类生存世界的关注，马克思关于“人是人的最高本质”的论断蕴含着“这样的绝对命令：必须推翻使人成为被侮辱、被奴役、被遗弃和被蔑视的东西的一切关系。”［11］青年马克思的宗教批判在结论上超越黑格尔国家哲学和法哲学的“现实理性”，也超越费尔巴哈“爱”的宗教的建立 ，而是走向了批判德国社会的崭新道路。

The value appeal of the young Marx’s critique of religion lies in establishing a world that truly belongs to man, pursuing human emancipation, and enabling man to think, act, and change the world according to actual reason rather than religious fantasy. Human emancipation, i.e., the complete emancipation of man, is the precondition and condition for realizing man’s free essence and actual happiness. In this regard, Marx once criticized Bauer for regarding the abandonment of religion by Jews as the path to human emancipation and political emancipation, emphasizing that the existence of religion is only a manifestation of political oppression, not its cause; the question of the relation of political emancipation to religion has become the question of the relation of political emancipation to human emancipation. Only by achieving human emancipation can religion be truly abolished and political emancipation be completely realized.

青年马克思宗教批判的价值诉求在于建立真正属于人的世界，追求人类解放，使人不再根据宗教式的幻想而是根据现实的理智来思考、行动以及改变世界。人类的解放即人的彻底解放是实现人的自由本质和现实幸福的前提和条件。对此，马克思曾经批判鲍威尔将犹太人放弃宗教视为人类解放和政治解放的途径，强调宗教的存在只是政治压迫的再现，而不是原因；政治解放对宗教的关系问题已经成了政治解放对人的解放的关系问题，只有实现人类解放才能真正消灭宗教和彻底实现政治解放。

In his “Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law: Introduction,” Marx for the first time explicitly articulated the significance of the awakening of subjective consciousness and the self-awareness of subjective forces for human emancipation. The thorough transformation of German speculative philosophy and, further, of German civil society requires a “practice that reaches the height of a principle,” [11] a practice that not only raises Germany to the level of capitalist countries but also to the height and level of the proletarian revolution that those capitalist countries are about to reach. Such practice is human emancipation, and its main subjective force is the proletariat. This force “cannot emancipate itself without emancipating itself from all other spheres of society and thereby emancipating all other spheres; in short, it forms a sphere that has a universal character by its universal suffering and claims no particular right because no particular wrong but wrong generally is perpetrated against it.” [12] This special subjective force is the proletariat, which has completely lost the free essence of being human. In Germany, apart from the proletariat, there seems to be no class that can represent universal suffering. The German proletariat is a class bound by complete chains; it is precisely because of the total loss of humanity that it can become the force for the complete emancipation of man. “I have no status, but I must become everything.” [13] “In France, it is enough for a person to have a little status to make him wish to become everything. In Germany, a person who does not want to give up everything must have no status.” [14] Thus, the emancipation of the proletariat implies the abolition of class antagonism and the dissolution of all estates. The proletariat’s demand for the negation of private property actually represents the interests and principles of society; therefore, the emancipation of the proletariat is simultaneously the emancipation of humanity.

马克思在《〈黑格尔法哲学批判〉导言》中首次明确提出了主体意识的觉醒和主体力量的自觉之于人类解放的意义。对德国思辨哲学进而对德国市民社会的彻底变革需要“实现一个原则高度的实践”，［11］这种实践不但要把德国提高到资本主义国家的水平，而且提高到资本主义国家即将达到的无产阶级革命的高度和水平。这样的实践就是人类解放，其主体依靠力量就是无产阶级。这一力量“若不从其他一切领域解放出来从而解放其他一切社会领域就不能解放自己的领域，总之，形成这样一个领域，它表明人的完全丧失，并因而只有通过人的完全回复才能回复自己本身。”［12］这个特殊的主体力量就是完全丧失了人之为人的自由本质的无产阶级。在德国除了无产阶级外,似乎再没有一个阶级能够代表普遍的苦难，德国无产阶级是被彻底的锁链束缚的阶级，正是由于人性的完全丧失才能够成为人的彻底解放的力量，“我没有任何地位，但我必须成为一切。”［13］“在法国，一个人只要有一点地位，就足以使他希望成为一切。在德国，一个人如果不想放弃一切，就必须没有任何地位。”［14］这样，无产阶级的解放意味着阶级对抗的消灭和一切等级的解体，无产阶级要求否定私有财产的原则实际代表了社会的利益和原则，因此，无产阶级的解放同时就是人类的解放。

Based on his analysis of the critique of religion, the young Marx clarified the tense relationship between religion and philosophy: the falsity of religion highlights the value of truth, while philosophy appeals to reason to pursue truth and sublimity. The cause of the proletariat’s struggle for human emancipation likewise requires philosophy as its spiritual weapon; the union of philosophy and the proletariat is the union of the spiritual weapon and the material weapon. “Philosophy finds its material weapon in the proletariat, just as the proletariat finds its spiritual weapon in philosophy.” [12] Philosophy is the “head” of human emancipation, and the proletariat is the “heart” of human emancipation. The “philosophy” here is distinct from speculative philosophy separated from reality; it is a critical philosophy capable of manifesting material force. “Philosophy cannot be realized without the abolition of the proletariat; the proletariat cannot be abolished without the realization of philosophy.” [15] Having concluded the critique of religion, Marx’s thorough philosophical critique inevitably turns toward the old system and the old world. It is precisely in the process of criticizing the old world that Marx discovers the new world. With the deepening of the young Marx’s social insight and philosophical critique, and the unfolding of the internal contradictions of the capitalist mode of production, the logic of his social critique penetrates into the sphere of the social economy, but the revolutionary goal of human emancipation never changes. In sum, the young Marx’s critique of religion provides an important value reference and starting point for argumentation for Marx’s scientific theory of human emancipation.

青年马克思基于宗教批判的分析，厘清了宗教与哲学的紧张关系：宗教的虚妄反衬真理的价值，而哲学则求助于理智追求真理与崇高。无产阶级争取人类解放的事业同样需要哲学这一精神武器，哲学和无产阶级的结合是精神武器与物质武器的结合，“哲学把无产阶级当作自己的物质武器，同样，无产阶级也把哲学当作自己的精神武器。”［12］哲学是人类解放的“头脑”，无产阶级是人类解放的“心脏”。 这里的“哲学”有别于和现实分离的思辨哲学，而是能够展现物质力量的批判哲学。“哲学不消灭无产阶级，就不能成为现实；无产阶级不把哲学变成现实，就不可能消灭自身。”［15］在结束了宗教批判之后，马克思彻底的哲学批判必然地指向旧制度和旧世界，马克思正是在批判旧世界的过程中发现新世界的。随着青年马克思社会洞察和哲学批判的深入，以及资本主义生产方式内在矛盾的展开，其社会批判的逻辑深入到社会经济的领域，但是人类解放的革命目标从未改变。总之，青年马克思的宗教批判为马克思科学的人类解放理论提供了重要的价值参照和论证起点。

IV. The Contemporary Value of Young Marx’s Critique of Religion

四、青年马克思宗教批判的当代价值

The contemporary world and the specific historical conditions of young Marx’s critique of religion have undergone earth-shaking changes, yet the ideological content and humanistic concern of his religious critique still penetrate history with profound value implications, demonstrating the truth-value of Marxist theory. To a certain extent, it can be said that modern society’s worship of commodities has become a religious-style adoration and faith stripped of its theological shell; commodity fetishism is the manifestation of a global spiritual crisis of belief in the present era. The superficial prosperity and wealth of modern society conceal and obscure people’s pursuit of freedom, value, and truth. The materialistic masses would rather exchange spiritual degradation for abundant external material benefits, thereby losing their pursuit of value rationality. The objects that originally belonged to human labor products openly become alien mysterious forces dominating and controlling people’s spiritual world. The “dependence on things” gives rise to the domination and enslavement of people by things, plunging people’s lives into emptiness, boredom, fear, and anxiety.

当代世界和青年马克思宗教批判的特定历史发生了沧海桑田的巨变，但是其宗教批判的思想内涵和人学关怀仍然穿透历史具有深刻的价值意蕴，展现出马克思主义理论的真理性价值。在一定程度上可以说，现代社会对商品的顶礼膜拜已经成为剥离了神学外壳的宗教式崇拜和信仰，商品拜物教是现时代全球性的精神信仰危机的体现。现代社会表面上的繁华与富裕掩盖和遮蔽了人对自由、价值、真理的追求，物欲的大众宁愿以精神的沉沦去换取外在物质利益的丰厚，因而丧失了对价值理性的追求。原本属于人的劳动产品的对象物堂而皇之地成为异己的神秘力量支配和宰制人的精神世界，“物的依赖性”衍生出的却是物对人的统治和奴役，致使人们的生活处于空虚无聊、惶恐、焦虑之中。

Religion originated from primitive nature worship, passed through the idolatry of absolute spiritual entities and the personal rule and enslavement by alienated things, and ultimately dissolves in the proletariat’s movement of human emancipation to create a new world. The secularization of theological questions—seeking the roots of religion from the contradictory movements of secular society—is the realistic dimension of young Marx’s critique of religion, and also the existential explanation of how modern civilization, after escaping nature worship, falls into a new “religion” and “myth” of object worship. Young Marx recognized that although religion is a false, prejudiced “inverted world outlook,” because this “inverted consciousness” is rooted in an “inverted world,” it is difficult simply to eliminate or reject it from people’s consciousness. Religion arises from an inverted life-world; the power to eliminate religion likewise exists in the real material world.

宗教产生于原始的自然崇拜，中间历经绝对精神实体的偶像崇拜和异己之物的人格化统治与奴役，最终消解于无产阶级创造新世界的人类解放运动中。神学问题的世俗化，从世俗社会的矛盾运动寻找宗教的根源是青年马克思宗教批判现实性的所在，也是现代文明在摆脱自然崇拜后陷入对象物崇拜的新“宗教”和“神话”的生存论解释。青年马克思认识到，尽管宗教是一种虚妄的、偏见的“颠倒世界观”，但由于这种“颠倒的意识”根源于“颠倒的世界”，因而很难从人民的意识中简单排除或者否弃。宗教产生于颠倒的生活世界，消除宗教的力量同样存在于现实的物质世界。

Religion, as an expression of false consciousness, cannot be eliminated through spiritual critique “by dissolving them in ‘self-consciousness’ or transforming them into ‘specters,’ ‘ghosts,’ ‘fantasies,’ etc., but only by actually overthrowing the real social relations that give rise to all these idealist fallacies.” [16] The historical condition for the disappearance of religion lies in the elimination of private property and the division of labor. As long as exploitation, oppression, fear, and mystery exist in social life, various religious forms of worship and delusion will inevitably persist. Just like the disappearance of religion, the source of power to escape modern society’s commodity fetishism likewise lies in a perfected and rational economic and social structure; destroying the irrational social system and eliminating private property and the division of labor are the ultimate solutions. The salvation of the modern spiritual crisis lies in the establishment of a new mode of production. The power of human self-affirmation exists in the social practice of transforming the world. In this process, social production becomes a “union of free individuals,” [8]8 “Union of free individuals” (freier Menschenverein) is Marx’s term in *Capital* for the form of association that replaces commodity-producing society, where the associated producers collectively control their labor and its products. the comprehensively and freely developed human being becomes a reality, religious delusions and fantasies will no longer exist, and the clarity and independence of the human spiritual world will become possible.

宗教作为虚假意识的表达，不是可以通过精神的批判“把它们消融在‘自我意识’中或化为‘怪影’、‘幽灵'、‘怪想’等等来消灭的，而只有通过实际地推翻这一切唯心主义谬论所由产生的现实的社会关系，才能把它们消灭。”［16］宗教消亡的历史条件在于消除私有制和社会分工，只要社会生活中存在剥削、压迫、恐惧、神秘，就必然会存在各种宗教形式的崇拜和虚妄。如同宗教的消亡一样，摆脱现代社会商品拜物教的力量源泉同样存在于完善而合理的经济社会结构中，摧毁不合理的社会制度，消灭私有制和社会分工是其最终的解决途径。现代精神信仰危机的拯救在于新型的生产方式的确立，人类自我确证的力量存在于改造世界的社会实践中，在此过程中社会生产成为“自由人的联合体”，全面而自由发展的人成为现实，宗教式虚妄和幻想将不复存在，人类精神世界的澄明和独立将成为可能。

References:

参考文献：

[1]1 The “five forms of society” (五种社会形态) refers to the Marxist theory of historical stages: primitive, slave, feudal, capitalist, and communist (with socialist as the first phase of communist). [US] Immanuel Wallerstein, *The End of Liberalism*, trans. Hao Mingwei and Zhang Fan, Social Sciences Academic Press, 2002, p. 216.

［1］ ［美］依曼努尔·沃勒斯坦：《自由主义的终结》，郝名玮、张凡译，社会科学文献出版社，2002年，第216页。

[2]2 “Weapon of critique” (批判的武器) is a reference to Marx’s famous phrase in “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction,” where he distinguishes between the “weapon of critique” (theory) and the “critique of weapons” (material force). *Marx and Engels Collected Works* (Vol. 40), People’s Publishing House, 1982, p. 820.

［2］ 《马克思恩格斯全集》(第40卷)，人民出版社，1982年，第820页。

[3]3 The “copy” (副本) and “original” (原本) refer to Marx’s distinction in the “Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law: Introduction” between criticizing the ideological reflections (the “copy”) of German society—such as religion, law, and politics—and criticizing the actual social conditions (the “original”) that produce them. [4]4 The “absolute spirit” (绝对精神) is a central concept in Hegel’s philosophy, denoting the self-developing, self-knowing rational totality of reality, which Marx and Engels critiqued as an idealist mystification. [7]7 The “old system” (旧制度) refers to the pre-1848 German feudal-absolutist order, which Marx sought to overthrow through critique and revolution. [DE] Ludwig Feuerbach, *Selected Philosophical Writings of Feuerbach* (Vol. 2), trans. Rong Zhenhua, Wang Taiqing, and Liu Lei, Commercial Press, 1984, pp. 56, 71, 52.

［3］ ［4］［7］［德］路德维希·费尔巴哈：《费尔巴哈哲学著作选集》(下卷)，荣震华、王太庆、刘磊译，商务印书馆，1984年，第56页、第71页、第52页。

[5]5 Bruno Bauer (1809–1882) was a German philosopher and Young Hegelian who argued that political emancipation required the abolition of religion; Marx critiqued this position in “On the Jewish Question” (1843). [6]6 The phrase “I have no status, but I must become everything” is a paraphrase of a line from Georg Büchner’s play *Danton’s Death* (1835), which Marx cites in his early writings to express the revolutionary position of the proletariat. *Marx and Engels Collected Works* (Vol. 1), People’s Publishing House, 2009, pp. 32, 3.

［5］［6］《马克思恩格斯文集》(第1卷)，人民出版社，2009年，第32页、第3页。

[8]8 “Union of free individuals” (freier Menschenverein) is Marx’s term in *Capital* for the form of association that replaces commodity-producing society, where the associated producers collectively control their labor and its products. Zhang Yibing, *Returning to Marx: Philosophical Discourse in the Context of Economics*, Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 1999, pp. 217–218.

［8］ 张一兵：《回到马克思——经济学语境中的哲学话语》，江苏人民出版社，1999年，第217-218页。

[9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] *Marx and Engels Collected Works* (Vol. 1), People’s Publishing House, 2009, pp. 3, 4, 11, 17, 15, 16, 18, 544.

［9］ ［10］［11］［12］［13］［14］［15］［16］《马克思恩格斯文集》(第1卷)，人民出版社,2009年，第3页、第4页、第11页、第17页、第15页、第16页、第18页、第544页。

(Author’s bio: Lecturer, Department of Social Sciences, Xinxiang Medical University.)

（作者简介：新乡医学院 社会科学部讲师。）

Online editor: Cai Hong

网络编辑：彩虹