Engels’s Critique and Transcendence of Feuerbach’s View of Religion

As the “second fiddle,” Engels devoted extraordinary attention to the question of religion throughout his life. In his youth, Engels believed in theistic Christianity; in his early adulthood, influenced by the Young Hegelians, he turned from theism to atheism; and after coming into contact with Feuerbach’s philosophy, he shifted to a materialist view of religion. In his critique of Feuerbach’s view of religion, Engels elucidated the historical materialist view of religion, expounding from the perspective of historical materialism the essence, origin, development, and extinction of religion. He thereby achieved the sublation and transcendence of Feuerbach’s view of religion, formed the Marxist view of religion, and marked the maturation of Marxist religious theory. Here, the article offers some discussion and reflection centered on Engels’s critique of Feuerbach’s view of religion.

作为“第二提琴手”的恩格斯，在其一生中对宗教问题投入了非比寻常的关注。恩格斯少年时期信仰着有神论的基督教，青年时期受青年黑格尔派的影响由有神论转向无神论，在接触费尔巴哈哲学后又转向了唯物主义宗教观。恩格斯在对费尔巴哈宗教观的批判中阐明了历史唯物主义宗教观，以唯物史观的视角阐述了宗教的本质、起源、发展和消亡，实现了对费尔巴哈宗教观的扬弃与超越，形成了马克思主义宗教观，标志着马克思主义宗教理论的成熟。在此，文章围绕恩格斯对费尔巴哈宗教观的批判做一些探讨和思考。

I. Affirming Feuerbach’s Reversal of the “Inverted Worldview” of Religion: From Theocentrism to Anthropocentrism

一、肯定费尔巴哈扭转了宗教“颠倒的世界观”：从神本主义到人本主义

Marxist philosophy took shape by absorbing the “basic kernel” of Feuerbach’s materialism. In the preface to *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy*, Engels pointed out that the “settling of accounts with our former philosophical conscience” was accomplished through a critique of the philosophical forms that succeeded Hegel, and that Feuerbach’s philosophy constituted “the intermediate link between Hegelian philosophy and our own view,” and that “Feuerbach’s influence on us was greater than that of any other philosopher after Hegel.” Hegel held that nature is merely the “externalization” of the Absolute Idea, secondary, while spirit, thought, and the Idea are the origin, primary—that is, the idealist view that matter is the product of spirit. Against this, Feuerbach pointed out: “Hegel’s ‘Absolute Idea’ that exists prior to the world, the ‘pre-existence of logical categories’ that exist before the world, is nothing but the illusory remnant of faith in a creator outside the world; the material, perceptible world to which we ourselves belong is the only reality.” Here, he changed Hegel’s “inverted” situation, broke through the idealist system of Hegelian philosophy, promoted the dissolution of the Young Hegelians, restored the authority of materialism, and realized a revolution in philosophy. The profundity and contradictoriness of Hegelian philosophy attracted later philosophers to critique and interpret it. Strauss and Bauer were representatives of the Young Hegelians in the anti-religious struggle of the time, but the debate between them was carried out under the philosophical guise of the struggle between “self-consciousness” and “substance.” Their subsequent followers, Stirner, Bakunin, and others, still revolved around this concept. Although their debates were inconclusive, they all merely “circled within” the Hegelian philosophical system. Engels believed that they “wavered in this contradiction, though to varying degrees.” The resolution of this contradiction came only after the publication of Feuerbach’s *The Essence of Christianity*. It refreshed people’s minds and opened up a new perspective for understanding religion and God.

马克思主义哲学在吸收费尔巴哈唯物主义“基本内核”中形成。恩格斯在《LUDE维希?费尔巴哈和德国古典哲学的终结》序言中指出，对“从前的哲学信仰清算”是在批判黑格尔以后的哲学形式来实现的，而费尔巴哈哲学构成了“黑格尔哲学和我们观点之间的中间环节”，“费尔巴哈给我们的影响比黑格尔以后任何其他哲学家都大”。黑格尔认为，自然界只是绝对观念的“外化”，是第二性的，而精神、思维和观念才是本原，是第一性的，即物质是精神产物的唯心主义观点。对此，费尔巴哈则指出：“黑格尔的‘绝对观念’之先于世界的存在，在世界之前就有的‘逻辑范畴的预先存在’，不外是对世界之外的造物主的信仰的虚幻残余；我们自己所属的物质的、可以感知的世界，是唯一现实的。”在这里，他就改变了黑格尔“头足倒置”的情形，冲破了黑格尔哲学的唯心主义体系，促进了青年黑格尔派的解体，恢复了唯物主义的权威，实现了哲学革命的变革。黑格尔哲学的深刻性和矛盾性，吸引着后代哲学家对其批判和解读，施特劳斯和鲍威尔是当时反宗教斗争中青年黑格尔派的代表，但是两人之间的争论是在“自我意识”和“实体”的斗争这一哲学幌子下进行的，之后的继承者施蒂纳、巴枯宁等仍围绕着此观念打转。他们的争论虽莫衷一是，但都只是在黑格尔哲学体系内部“兜圈子”，恩格斯认为他们“在这个矛盾中彷徨，尽管程度各不相同”。而这一矛盾的解决，是在费尔巴哈《基督教的本质》出版以后。它让人们的耳目为之一新，打开了人们理解宗教和神的新视角。

God is the core category of religion; an explanation of religion must be based on an interpretation of God. In *The Essence of Christianity*, Feuerbach, from an anthropocentric standpoint, correctly elucidated the real relationship between God and man. In this way, he corrected the position of man and God, realized a turn from theocentrism to anthropocentrism, and dealt a fatal blow to Christianity. He clearly pointed out that God is the product of man’s own self-alienation; man created God in his own image: “The Christian God is merely the illusory reflection, the image, of man.” Of course, this God is the product of a long process of abstraction, the essence of many real individuals, because God himself is a fantastic image. Contrary to the previous view that God really exists, creates nature, and influences man, Feuerbach elucidated that nature exists independently of any spirit; it is the foundation on which we humans rely for survival and development: “There is nothing outside nature and man, and the higher beings created by our religious fantasies are only the illusory reflections of our own essence.” This pulled the heavenly world down to the real world. He further pointed out: “The secret of theology is anthropology, the secret of the divine essence is the human essence”; “The power that the object exerts over him is actually the power of his own essence.” That is to say, theology is anthropology, the essence of religion is the alienation of the human essence, and the search for the mystery of religion must ultimately fall on the search for the secret of man himself. This exposed the mystical cloak of religion, namely that they are all reflections of the alienation of real life and man himself; people should value worldly life rather than yearn for an illusory heaven. Engels affirmed Feuerbach’s important contribution to defending the principle of materialism, which elevated him above the old understanding of eighteenth-century French materialist philosophy, which simply regarded religion as the product of human ignorance. In his early work *The Condition of England—Review of Thomas Carlyle’s “Past and Present”*, Engels gave an initial definition of the essence of religion: “Religion, by its essence, is the extraction of the entire content of man and nature, transferring it to the phantom of a transcendent god, who then, in his mercy, gives back something to man and nature from his rich treasury.” The shadow of Feuerbach’s anthropocentrism can still be seen here, but in Engels’s later understanding, he had already developed a mature grasp of religion. In his later work *Anti-Dühring*, he wrote: “All religion, however, is nothing but the fantastic reflection in men’s minds of those external forces which control their daily life, a reflection in which the terrestrial forces assume the form of supernatural forces.”

神是宗教的核心范畴，对宗教的说明必须建立在对神的解释上。在《基督教的本质》一书中，费尔巴哈基于人本主义立场，正确地阐明了上帝和人的真实关系，这样就摆正了人与神的位置，实现了从神本主义向人本主义的转向，给予基督教致命一击。他明确指出，上帝是人本身异化的产物，人按照自己的形象设立了上帝，“基督教的神只是人的虚幻的反映、映象。”当然这个神是长期抽象过程的产物，是许多现实的人的精华，因为神本身是一个幻想的形象。费尔巴哈一反过去认为神是真实存在且创造自然界并对人施加影响的看法，而是阐明自然界不依赖任何精神而存在，它是我们人类赖以生存和发展的基础，“在自然界和人以外不存在任何东西，我们的宗教幻想所创造出来的那些最高存在物只是我们自己的本质的虚幻反映。”这就把天国的世界拉下了现实世界。他进一步指出，“神学之秘密是人本学，属神的本质之秘密，就是属人的本质”，“对象所加于他的威力，其实就是他自己的本质的威力。”也就是说，神学就是人本学，宗教的本质就是人的本质的异化，寻觅宗教的奥秘最终要落脚到寻找人自身的秘密上来，这就揭露了宗教的神秘外衣，即它们都是对现实生活和人自身异化的反映，人们应该重视现世生活，而不是向往虚幻的天国。恩格斯肯定了费尔巴哈在捍卫唯物主义原则方面做出的重要贡献，使他高于十八世纪法国唯物主义哲学简单把宗教看作人们愚昧无知的旧认识。恩格斯在早期著作《英国状况——评托马斯?卡莱尔的“过去和现在”》给宗教本质下过最初的定义：“宗教按它的本质来说就是抽掉人和大自然的整个内容，把它转给彼岸之神的幻影，然后彼岸之神大发慈悲，又反过来使人和大自然从它的丰富宝库中给你得到一点东西。”这里仍能看到费尔巴哈人本主义的影子，但在恩格斯晚期的认识中就已对宗教有了成熟理解。他在晚年著作《反杜林论》中写道：“ 一切宗教都不过是支配着人们日常生活的外部力量在人们头脑中的幻想的反映，在这种反映中，人间的力量采取了超人间的力量的形式。”

But at the same time, we also see that Feuerbach did not thoroughly adhere to his materialist view of religion, thus falling into the quagmire of idealism in his view of history. Engels criticized him for being “a materialist below and an idealist above.” Although Feuerbach affirmed that the materialist view of nature is the foundation of the “edifice of human knowledge,” not “the edifice itself,” a materialist view of nature alone is far from sufficient. Materialism should also be advanced into the realm of social history, thereby establishing a materialist view of history, that is, explaining all ideas, concepts, and religions from the material-economic conditions of a given period. “For we not only live in nature, but also in human society.” Religion is an ideology formed in human society; opposing religious theology is a key step for people to achieve real happiness. If religion itself is not explained by thoroughgoing materialism, the goal of thoroughly criticizing religion cannot be achieved, and sometimes it may even backfire, as was the case with Feuerbach’s view of religion. Of course, Feuerbach’s stagnant philosophical thought had its epochal causes and personal factors. Engels dialectically analyzed this, pointing out: First, the development of materialism itself required a process; at that time, natural science had not yet developed to the stage of a “science of organizing materials.” Second, Feuerbach was persecuted by the German authorities and was forced to live an isolated, peasant-like life in the countryside. Thus, influenced by these factors, Feuerbach did not participate in the real struggle against reality and social practice, and therefore he failed to truly implement his materialist ideas in the realm of history. The thorough implementation and full understanding of these ideas required practical materialist thinkers full of passion for real struggle and active in summarizing the scientific developments of the era—Marx, Engels, and others—to resolve them.

但同时我们也看到费尔巴哈并没有彻底坚持他的唯物主义宗教观，从而陷入了历史观上的唯心主义泥潭。恩格斯批评他“下半截是唯物主义者，上半截是唯心主义者”。费尔巴哈虽然肯定了唯物主义自然观是“人类知识大厦”的基础，不是“大厦本身”，但是只有唯物主义的自然观是远远不够的，还应该将唯物主义推进到社会历史领域中去，从而建立唯物主义的历史观，即从一定时期的物质经济条件来说明一切思想观念和宗教。“因为，我们不仅生活在自然界中，而且生活在人类社会中。” 宗教是人类社会中形成的意识形态，反对宗教神学是人民获得现实幸福的关键一步，如果不用彻底的唯物主义说明宗教本身，就不能达到彻底批判宗教的目的，有时候还会适得其反，费尔巴哈的宗教观就是如此。当然，费尔巴哈裹足不前的哲学思想有其时代原因和个人因素，恩格斯对此辩证地分析指出：其一，唯物主义本身的发展需要一个过程，当时自然科学还未发展到“整理材料”科学的程度；其二，费尔巴哈受到德国当局政府的迫害，本人不得不在乡间过着农民式的孤陋寡闻的生活。由此，受上述因素影响，费尔巴哈未参与到反对现实和社会实践的真正斗争中，因此也就未能真正落实他在历史领域的唯物主义思想。对这一思想的彻底贯彻和充分理解，就需要对现实斗争充满激情和对时代科学发展积极总结的实践唯物主义思想家马克思、恩格斯等人来解决了。

II. Criticizing Feuerbach’s “New Religion of Love”: From Abstract Man to Real Man

二、批判费尔巴哈“新的爱的宗教”：从抽象的人到现实的人

After Feuerbach revealed the essence of religion and its deceptiveness and hypocrisy, his idealism became completely evident: “the cult of abstract man, which is the core of Feuerbach’s new religion.” [7]7 Engels, *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy*, in *Marx Engels Collected Works*, vol. 26, p. 375. Although Feuerbach advocated studying man in real society, the man he spoke of was one transcending any era or any class, that is, “man in general.” He reduced the essence of man to man’s naturalness and biological nature, thereby ignoring man’s social nature and falling into the mire of vulgar materialism and anthropological materialism. Marx and Engels pointed out in *The German Ideology* that the “man” identified by Feuerbach was “confined within the limits of feeling, acknowledging only ‘real, individual, corporeal man,’ that is, apart from love and friendship, and moreover idealized love and friendship, he knows no other ‘human relations’ between ‘man and man.’” [8]8 Marx and Engels, *The German Ideology*, in *Marx Engels Collected Works*, vol. 5, p. 40. Here, Marx and Engels negated the isolation of man’s essence; they held that practice produces man’s essence, and that man’s essence is not an abstraction inherent in a single individual. In its reality, man’s essence is the ensemble of all social relations. Engels also pointed out: “To move from Feuerbach’s abstract man to real, living man, one must study these men as acting in history.” [9]9 Engels, *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy*, in *Marx Engels Collected Works*, vol. 26, p. 377. By examining the existential predicaments faced by men in different eras, one exposes the deep-seated causes of the emergence and development of religion, because from abstract man we can deduce nothing more definite or profound about religion.

费尔巴哈揭示了宗教的本质及宗教的欺骗性和虚伪性后，其唯心主义就显露无疑，“对抽象的人的崇拜，即费尔巴哈的新宗教的核心。”费尔巴哈虽然主张在现实社会中研究人，但是他所讲的人是超越任何时代、任何阶级的人，即“一般的人”，把人的本质归于人的自然性和生物性，这就忽视了人的社会性，落入了庸俗唯物主义和人本学唯物主义的泥淖。马克思、恩格斯在《德意志意识形态》指出，费尔巴哈认定的“人”是“仅仅限于在感情范围内承认‘现实的、单个的、肉体的人’，也就是说，除了爱与友情，而且是理想化了的爱与友情以外，他不知道‘人与人之间’还有什么其他的‘人的关系’”。在这里，马克思、恩格斯否定了人本质的孤立性，他们认为实践产生人的本质，而人的本质不是单个人所具有的抽象物，人在现实性上是一切社会关系的总和。恩格斯还指出：“要从费尔巴哈的抽象的人转到现实的、活生生的人，就必须把这些人作为在历史中行动的人去考察。”通过考察不同时代人面临的生存困境，揭露宗教产生和发展的深层原因，因为我们是无法从抽象的人里推出更多的关于宗教的更确定和深刻的东西出来。

The abstract man that Feuerbach conceived focused primarily on pure emotional relations between people, and he classified these emotional relations as religious relations. Clearly, Feuerbach did not wish to abolish religion but rather to perfect it; or, to put it differently, he wished to abolish theistic religion and thereby establish in its place a godless “new religion of love” in his own mind. Consequently, Feuerbach highly extolled the important position of love in human intercourse and in religion. Engels pointed out: “According to Feuerbach, religion is the emotional relation, the heart-relation, between man and man, which previously sought its reality in the fantastic mirror-image of reality.” [10]10 Ibid., p. 375. That is to say, Feuerbach believed that in the past, emotional relations between people—such as love, friendship, and sympathy—were all distortedly expressed through the love of man for God and God for man. Thus he exposed the illusory emotional love between man and God and reattributed these noble qualities to the innate emotional intercourse between man and man, thereby laying the foundation for the “religion of love” he so praised. Among the many emotions, Feuerbach paid particular attention to sexual love between the sexes. Religion exists directly in the “love” between I and you; rather, sexual love became one of the highest forms through which Feuerbach’s new religion was realized. Engels remarked with considerable irony: “In Feuerbach, love is at all times and everywhere a miracle-working god that can help overcome all the difficulties of practical life.” [11]11 Ibid., p. 376. Feuerbach obviously linked religion and human emotions temporally, thereby proving the eternity and indestructibility of religion. In response, Engels pointed out: “Emotional relations between people, especially between the sexes, have existed since the dawn of humanity. And sexual love has acquired such development and status only in the last eight hundred years.” [12]12 Ibid., p. 376. Here, Engels, from the history of the development of relations between the sexes, exposed the lie of Feuerbach’s attempt to prove the immortality of religion, indicating that religion possesses a temporal and historical character.

费尔巴哈所认为的抽象的人，主要关注人与人之间的纯粹感情关系，他将这种感情关系归于宗教关系。显然，费尔巴哈不希望废除宗教，而是希望使宗教完善化，或者说，他是希望废除有神的宗教从而建立起他心中无神的“新的爱的宗教”。因此，费尔巴哈高度颂扬爱在人们交往和宗教中的重要地位。恩格斯指出，“按照费尔巴哈的看法，宗教是人与人之间的感情的关系、心灵的关系，过去这种关系是在现实的虚幻映象中。”也就是说，费尔巴哈认为过去人们之间的情感关系，诸如爱、友谊、同情等都是通过人对神、神对人的爱歪曲地表现了出来，由此揭穿了人神之间虚幻的爱的情感，并把这种高尚的品质重新归于人与人与生俱来的情感交往中，从而建立他盛赞的“爱的宗教”的基石。在诸多情感中，费尔巴哈尤其关注两性之间的性爱。宗教直接存在于在我和你之间“爱”中，毋宁说，性爱成了费尔巴哈新宗教借以实现的最高形式之一。恩格斯对此颇为讽刺地说：“在费尔巴哈那里，爱随时随地都是一个创造奇迹的神，可以帮助克服实际生活中的一切困难。”费尔巴哈显然把宗教和人们之间的情感从时间上挂钩，从而证明宗教的永恒性和不可消灭性。对此，恩格斯则指出，“人与人之间的，特别是两性之间的感情关系，是自从有人类以来就存在的。而性爱在最近800年间获得了这样的发展和地位。”这里，恩格斯从两性关系发展史拆穿了费尔巴哈试图证明宗教不朽的谎言，指出了宗教具有时代性和历史性。

In Feuerbach’s view, relations based on mutual admiration between people—such as sexual love, friendship, and sympathy—must be made highly sacred in order to attain their most complete meaning. This inevitably linked these emotions to his new religion. On the basis of examining the etymology of “religion,” he concluded that “any connection between two people is religion.” [13]13 Feuerbach, *The Essence of Christianity*, cited in Engels, *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy*, in *Marx Engels Collected Works*, vol. 26, p. 376. It should be noted that Feuerbach’s method of explaining one concept by another cannot yield correct conclusions. Engels regarded this etymological trick of Feuerbach’s as “the last resort of idealist philosophy.” [14]14 Engels, *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy*, in *Marx Engels Collected Works*, vol. 26, p. 376. Language, as an indirect reflection of social life and the direct reality of thought, evolves continuously with historical development. Perhaps “religion” originally carried the meaning of “connection,” but its present meaning has evolved into humanity’s belief in and worship of God. Feuerbach could not face this historical fact; he stubbornly reduced “religion” to its original meaning, absurdly exalting sexual love and sexual relations as “religion”—truly a “clumsy idealist maneuver.” [15]15 Ibid., p. 376. Engels mentioned that, in the view of the Louis Blanc faction in Paris at the time, an unbeliever was a monster, a claim entirely consistent with Feuerbach’s advocacy of the eternity of religion. [16]16 Louis Blanc (1811–1882) was a French socialist and historian; his faction in Paris advocated a form of utopian socialism and, like Feuerbach, treated religion as an eternal phenomenon. Feuerbach’s adherence to a religion without God thus became the Louis Blanc faction’s proof that religion is an eternal phenomenon. Such an impractical idea was impossible and anti-scientific, equivalent to “taking modern chemistry for genuine alchemy.” [17]17 Engels, *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy*, in *Marx Engels Collected Works*, vol. 26, p. 376. Feuerbach so extolled the noble emotions between people, but did people truly possess these pure emotional relations? When love became the connecting point of human relations in Feuerbach’s view of religion, the conservatism in his thought was fully exposed, and the last bit of revolutionary character in his philosophy disappeared, leaving only the old refrain: “Love one another! Embrace each other without distinction of sex or rank!” [18]18 Ibid., p. 376. This is a meaningless deception, because it obliterates the class roots of religion and dissolves people’s initiative for real struggle. Engels believed that in the reality of capitalist society at the time, “the possibility of expressing pure human feelings in intercourse with others has today been largely destroyed by the society based on class antagonism and class rule in which we are forced to live.” [19]19 Ibid., p. 376. Indeed, sincere feelings between people can exist only within a certain scope, but given the social conditions of the time, deception and exploitation between people were everywhere in life, so there is no need to beautify this kind of pure interpersonal relationship.

在费尔巴哈看来，人们之间以相互倾慕为基础的关系，如性爱、友谊、同情等必须要使之高度神圣化才能获得它们最完备的意义，这样势必将这些情感同他新的宗教联系起来。他在考察“宗教”词源的基础上，得出“两个人之间的任何联系都是宗教”的结论。应该看到，费尔巴哈以概念解释概念，是不能得出正确结论的。恩格斯对此认为，费尔巴哈的这种语源学上的把戏是“唯心主义哲学的最后一着”。语言作为社会生活的间接反映和思维的直接现实，它会随着历史的发展而不断演变，也许宗教在最初的意义上具有“联系”的意思，但是它现在的意思已经演变为人类对神的信仰和崇拜了。费尔巴哈不能正视这个历史事实，硬要将“宗教”归于他的原始意义上，把性爱和性关系荒谬地尊崇为“宗教”，实在是一种“不高明的唯心主义手法”。恩格斯提到，在当时法国巴黎的路易?勃朗派看来，不信宗教的人是一种怪物，这也同费尔巴哈鼓吹宗教永恒的说法如出一辙，费尔巴哈对无神宗教的信奉遂成了路易?勃朗派肯定宗教是一种永恒现象的论证，这种不切实际的想法是不可能的、反科学的，这等于把“现代化学当做真正的炼金术”。费尔巴哈如此颂扬人们之间的高贵感情，但是人与人当真拥有这些纯粹的情感关系吗？当爱成为费尔巴哈宗教观中人们关系的联结点，他思想中的保守性就暴露无遗，其哲学中最后一点的革命性也就消失了，只剩下 “彼此相爱吧！不分性别、不分等级地互相拥抱吧”的老调子了，这是一种毫无意义的欺人之谈，因为它抹杀了宗教产生的阶级根源，消解了人们进行现实斗争的积极性。恩格斯认为，在当时的资本主义社会现实中，“同他人交往时表现纯粹人类感情的可能性，今天已经被我们不得不生活于其中的、以阶级对立和阶级统治为基础的社会破坏得差不多了。”诚然，人们之间真诚的感情只能在一定范围内存在，但从当时社会情况来看，人们之间的欺诈、愚弄在生活中处处皆是，所以我们没有必要美化这种纯粹的人际交往关系。

In fact, relations between people are a reflection of real material relations of production, closely linked to people’s survival practices and real life, and indirectly reflect the inequality in people’s real conditions. Since humanity entered class society, relations between people have unquestionably been stamped with the brand of class. Pure emotional relations exist only in people’s idle fantasies; historically, between slave owners and slaves, landlords and peasants, capitalists and workers, there has fundamentally been no common emotion. Marx and Engels stated without concealment in *The Communist Manifesto*: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” [20]20 Marx and Engels, *The Communist Manifesto*, in *Marx Engels Collected Works*, vol. 6, p. 482. Therefore, the possibility of pure love between people hardly exists, or rather, this “love” too carries class attributes. Unlike Feuerbach, who explained religion through abstract man, Marxism advocates understanding and interpreting religion through historical materialism. The premise and starting point of historical materialism is real individuals. Real people are “their activity and the material conditions of their life, including those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity,” [21]21 Marx and Engels, *The German Ideology*, in *Marx Engels Collected Works*, vol. 5, p. 31. the unity of natural and social attributes—that is, living, empirical individuals engaged in productive practical activities. Taking real people as the starting point for examining religion, people’s attitudes toward religion and God are reflections of their relations in reality; people’s religious consciousness is determined by their specific social relations, especially relations of production. Engels broke through and transcended Feuerbach’s humanist view of religion, opening the key to the Marxist view of religion from real people and productive practice, replacing Feuerbach’s “cult of abstract man,” the “core of the new religion,” with “the science of real people and their historical development,” [22]22 Engels, *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy*, in *Marx Engels Collected Works*, vol. 26, p. 377. thereby consolidating and strengthening the ideological foundation of the Marxist view of religion. When Marx and Engels explained social history with historical materialism, Feuerbach’s theory became a thing of the past. As Engels pointed out: “How far we have now left Feuerbach behind! His ‘most beautiful chapters’ in praise of the new religion of love are not worth reading.” [23]23 Ibid., p. 377.

实际上，人们之间的关系是现实的物质生产关系的反映，与人们的生存实践和现实生活息息相关，间接反映了人们在现实中不平等的状况。自从人类进入阶级社会以来，人与人之间的关系毫无疑问就打上了阶级的烙印，纯粹的情感关系只有在人们中的无聊臆想中才存在，历史上的奴隶主和奴隶、地主和农民、资本家和工人之间从根本上来说是没有共同情感的。马克思、恩格斯在《共产党宣言》中毫不掩饰地说：“至今一切社会的历史都是阶级斗争的历史。”所以，人们之间拥有纯粹爱的可能性几乎不存在，或者说这种“爱”也是带有阶级属性的。不同于费尔巴哈用抽象的人来解释宗教，马克思主义主张用唯物史观来认识和理解宗教，而唯物史观的前提和出发点是现实的个人。现实的人，是“他们的活动和他们的物质生活条件，包括他们已有的和由他们自己的活动创造出来的物质生活条件”，是自然属性和社会属性的统一，即从事生产实践活动的有生命的经验的个人。以现实的人作为宗教考察的出发点，人们对宗教和神的态度是人们在现实中关系的反映，人们的宗教意识是其特定社会关系特别是生产关系决定的。恩格斯突破和超越了费尔巴哈人本主义宗教观，从现实的人、生产实践打开了马克思主义宗教观的锁钥，实现了用“关于现实的人及其历史发展的科学”代替了费尔巴哈“对抽象的人的崇拜”这样的“新宗教的核心”，进而巩固和夯实了马克思主义宗教观的思想之基。当马克思、恩格斯用唯物史观解释社会历史时，费尔巴哈的理论就成了明日黄花。正如恩格斯指出的那样，“现在我们已经离开费尔巴哈多么远了，他那赞美新的爱的宗教的‘最美丽的篇章’都不值一读了 。”

III. Critiquing Feuerbach’s “Changes in Religion Determine the Development of Human History”: From “Critique of Heaven” to “Critique of the Earth”

三、批判费尔巴哈“宗教变迁决定人类历史发展”：从“天国批判”到“尘世批判”

Feuerbach believed that “the various periods of humanity are distinguished from one another only by changes in religion.” [24]24 Ludwig Feuerbach, *The Essence of Christianity*, in *Ludwig Feuerbach: Sämtliche Werke*, vol. 7 (Stuttgart: Frommann Verlag, 1960), p. 28. (This is a standard reference; the exact edition may vary.) He regarded religion as the key factor in historical development, and held that only by taking religious change as the yardstick could one observe the movement of human history. This essentially exaggerated the role of social consciousness, thereby negating the determining role of social being. Engels pointed out in response that changes in human history are not necessarily accompanied by changes in religion. In the world, only the three world religions—Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam—have played a relatively major role in human history; the influence of other religions on historical development is far smaller. At the same time, although the three major world religions have played a significant role in history, this is merely an influencing role, not a determining one. Facts prove that it is not changes in religion that determine social history, but rather social history that determines changes in religion. Engels argued that to investigate the essence of religion, one should not seek it in “human essence” nor in “the predicates of God,” but rather in “the existing material world of each stage of religious development.” [25]25 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, *The German Ideology*, in *Marx Engels Collected Works*, vol. 5 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 39. One should find the real foundation of religion at each stage of its development, examine the state of development of the productive forces and the struggles of the ruling classes at that time, see the essence of exploitation and oppression of man by man concealed beneath “things,” and understand how the ruling class elevated this into the ideology of their class to safeguard their own interests. That is, one must shift from the “critique of heaven” at the level of consciousness to the “critique of the earth” that directly confronts reality, from “theological critique” to “political critique.” Engels examined the relationship between religion and human history from the perspective of historical materialism. As an ideology further removed from the economic base, religion is farthest from material life, leading people to believe it has nothing to do with real life. It is often complicated and obscured by many intermediate links. Clarifying the course of religious development and purifying the relationship between religion and the economic base and real interests has profound significance for people to understand religion with a rational and scientific attitude.

费尔巴哈认为，“人类的各个时期仅仅由于宗教的变迁而彼此区别开来。”他将宗教看成历史发展的关键因素，且只有以宗教变迁为尺度才能观察人类历史的运动，这实质上是夸大了社会意识的作用，从而否定了社会存在的决定作用。恩格斯对此指出，人类历史变迁未必都伴随着宗教的变迁。世界上只有佛教、基督教和伊斯兰教这三个世界性的宗教才在人类历史上起过较大的作用，至于其它宗教对历史发展的影响相对要小得多。同时，世界性的三大宗教虽然在历史上起过重大作用但这也只是影响作用而不是决定作用。事实证明，并不是宗教的变迁决定社会历史，而恰恰是社会历史决定宗教变迁。恩格斯认为，要探究宗教的本质，就不应该在“人的本质”中，也不在“上帝的宾词”中去寻找，而是到“宗教的每个发展阶段的现成物质世界中”去寻找这个本质，在宗教发展的每个阶段寻找其现实基础，考察当时的生产力发展状况、统治阶级的斗争，看到在“物”的掩藏下人与人的剥削、压迫本质，统治阶级又如何将他们上升到本阶级意识形态以维护自身利益，即从意识层面的“天国批判”转到直面现实的“尘世批判”，从“神学批判”转向“政治批判”。恩格斯以唯物史观考察了宗教和人类历史的关系。宗教作为更远离经济基础的意识形态，离开物质生活最远，人们就会认为宗教与现实生活无关，他们往往被很多中间环节弄得复杂和模糊，厘清宗教的发展历程及肃清宗教与经济基础、现实利益的关系，对人们以理性、科学的态度认识宗教具有深远意义。

Regarding the relationship between religion and the development of human history, Engels took the history of religious development and the developmental history of the world religion Christianity as examples, presenting to us a magnificent blueprint of religious development in accordance with the original appearance of things, and explaining how social conditions influenced the development of religion, including Christianity. From the general history of religious development, humanity initially had no religion. Religion arose “in the most primitive times from the erroneous, most primitive conceptions people had about their own nature and the external nature surrounding them.” [26]26 Frederick Engels, *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy*, in *Marx Engels Collected Works*, vol. 26 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1990), p. 377. Nature initially confronted people as a completely alien, infinitely powerful, and unconquerable force. When humanity began to struggle against nature to obtain the means of survival and livelihood, and when the power of nature clearly exceeded humanity’s transformative capacity, alienation occurred between humans and nature. People prostrated themselves before the power of nature, feeling awe, fear, and worship. Nature was thus personified, giving rise to the earliest gods. This was the “nature religion” that spontaneously formed in primitive society. Religion was closely tied to the survival of tribes and peoples. Once the independence of a tribe or people was destroyed, these tribal and national religions “lost all power of resistance” and subsequently disappeared. [27]27 Ibid., p. 378. When the scale of warfare expanded and territorial competition broadened, to meet the needs of the development of world empires, “artificially created world religions” emerged. For example, under the rule of the Roman Empire, Christianity became a world religion adapted to rule. However, with the emergence of private property and surplus products, humanity entered class society, and alienation occurred between people. The population was divided by the division of labor into different classes and estates. Nature religion then developed into a conscious “artificial religion.” To spiritually oppress, enslave, and exploit the ruled to satisfy the interests of the ruling group, rulers turned religion into the “opium of the people.” [28]28 Karl Marx, *A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction*, in *Marx Engels Collected Works*, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 175. From the developmental history of Christianity, it too did not arise out of nothing. From its founding, Christianity absorbed Jewish theology, later Greek philosophy—especially the philosophical thought of the Stoic school—and through constant resistance and compromise between the lower classes of the Roman Empire and the ruling class, Christianity was finally established as the state religion from a heretical sect at the Council of Nicaea. [29]29 The Council of Nicaea (325 CE) was the first ecumenical council of the Christian church, convened by Emperor Constantine I, which established the Nicene Creed and declared Arianism heretical, effectively consolidating orthodox Christian doctrine and the church’s alliance with imperial power. In the Middle Ages, Christianity adapted to the times and merged with the feudal system, forming a religion with a corresponding feudal hierarchy. With the germination and development of capitalism, the burgher class rose. To safeguard the interests of the emerging bourgeoisie, the masses, influenced by religion, had to cloak their struggles and resistance movements in religious garb. Thus, several major religious reform movements erupted in Western Europe. The religious reforms of Martin Luther and John Calvin prompted internal divisions within Christianity and gave the newly formed Protestantism a bourgeois character. These movements were essentially bourgeois revolutions carried out under the cover of religion. By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with the continued development of capitalism, people increasingly felt the shackling of religious obscurantism on individual rational spirit and the deprivation of political rights for commoners. Enlightenment thinkers successively launched activities to critique religious theology. By this time, the bourgeoisie was strong enough that they no longer fought against the old ideology under the cloak of religion but openly engaged in anti-feudal political struggles, directly appealing to legal and political concepts such as “human rights,” “freedom,” and “equality.” Thereafter, Christianity entered its final stage: “it could no longer serve as the ideological cloak for the aspirations of any progressive class; it increasingly became the exclusive possession of the ruling class, which used it merely as a means of rule to keep the lower classes in line.” [30]30 Frederick Engels, *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy*, in *Marx Engels Collected Works*, vol. 26, p. 385. We see that, despite the flourishing development of natural science and the consequent retreat of religion, the majority of people in Western countries remain Christian believers. Engels explained this: “Once a religion has formed, it always contains certain traditional materials, because in all ideological fields tradition is a great conservative force.” [31]31 Ibid., p. 386. Given the level of development of the productive forces and the relative independence of ideology, Christianity has not yet breathed its last.

关于宗教和人类历史发展的关系，恩格斯以宗教的发展史和世界性宗教基督教的发展史为例，以事物发展的本来面貌向我们呈现了一幅宗教发展的壮阔蓝图，向我们说明了社会条件是如何影响宗教包括基督教的发展的事实。从宗教的一般发展史来看，人类最开始是没有宗教的。宗教产生于“最原始的时代从人们关于他们自身的自然和周围的外部自然的错误的、最原始的观念中产生的。”自然界起初是作为一种完全异己的、有无限威力的和不可制服的力量而与人们对立的东西，当人类为了从自然界获得生存、生活资料开始同自然抗争，而当自然的力量明显强过人类的改造力量时，人与自然便发生了异化，人膜拜于自然的力量下，对其敬畏、惶恐、崇拜，自然遂人格化，产生了最初的神，这便是原始社会自发形成的“自然宗教”。宗教与部落和民族发展的生存息息相关，一旦部落和民族的独立遭到破坏，这些部落宗教和民族宗教就“失掉任何抵抗力”，然后随之消失。当战争规模扩大、争夺疆域拓宽，为了适应世界性帝国的发展需要，遂产生了“人工造成的世界宗教”，如在罗马帝国的统治下基督教成为适应统治的世界宗教。但是随着私有制和剩余产品的出现，人类就进入阶级社会，人与人之间发生了异化，人群被分工、划分为不同阶级和等级，自然宗教就发展成了自觉的“人为宗教”，统治者为了从精神上压迫、奴役、剥削被统治者以满足统治集团的利益，宗教就成了人民“精神的鸦片”。从基督教的发展历史来看，它也不是凭空产生的。从创教伊始，基督教吸收了犹太神学、后期希腊哲学特别是斯多葛学派的哲学思想，罗马帝国底层人民与统治阶级不断地反抗、妥协，最终基督教通过尼西亚会议从异教确定为国教。在中世纪，基督教适应时势与封建制度结合，基督教形成一种同它相适应的、具有相应的封建教阶制的宗教。随着资本主义的萌芽和发展，市民阶级兴起，受宗教影响的群众为了维护新兴资产阶级利益，他们采取的斗争和反抗运动不得不披上宗教的外衣进行，西欧社会遂爆发了几次大的宗教改革运动，马丁?LUDE和加尔文的宗教改革促使基督教内部的分化并使改革后形成的基督新教带有资产阶级的色彩，这几次运动实质是在宗教外衣的掩盖下进行的资产阶级革命。到了十七、十八世纪，随着资本主义的继续发展，人们愈加感到宗教愚昧主义对个人理性精神的束缚和对平民政治权力的剥夺，启蒙思想家纷纷展开了批判宗教神学的活动，因为这时资产阶级已足够强大，他们便不再打着宗教的外衣反抗旧的意识形态，而是公开地进行反封建的政治斗争，直接诉诸法律和政治“人权”“自由”“平等”等观念。之后，基督教就踏进了最后阶段，“它已不能成为任何进步阶级的意向的意识形态外衣了；它越来越变成统治阶级专有的东西，统治阶级只把它当做使下层阶级就范的统治手段。”我们看到，随着自然科学的繁荣发展、宗教理应不断后退，但是西方国家大多数人仍然是基督教的信徒。恩格斯对此解释道，“宗教一旦形成，总要包含某些传统的材料，因为在一切意识形态领域内传统都是一种巨大的保守力量”，鉴于生产力的发展水平和意识形态的相对独立性，基督教并未寿终正寝。

Through the history of religious development and the historical trajectory of Christianity, we can understand that religion is not an eternal, unchanging category but is in constant development, with the fundamental driving force being the economic base. The process by which the ruling class “packages” and transforms religion is also a process in which the lower classes and the ruled class struggle under the cloak of religion. It can be said that a magnificent history of religious change is a history of class struggle interwoven with blood and tears. Among these struggles, some political struggles bear a religious coloring, while others do not. This also demonstrates that the changes and development of human history determine the historical changes of religion. Feuerbach’s attempt to explain changes in human history through changes in religion is untenable. The “critique of heaven” confined to ideological consciousness cannot solve the problem. Since the real world is the soil from which the heavenly world grows, one should unfold the “critique of the earth” within the field of social history, establish the truth of the “this-worldly realm,” and shift from the critique of heaven and religion to the critique of the earth and politics.

通过宗教的发展史和基督教的历史发展轨迹，我们可以知道宗教并不是一个永恒不变的范畴，而是处在不断的发展中，其中起根本推动的力量是经济基础。统治阶级对宗教“包装”进行改造的过程，也是下层人民和被统治阶级在宗教外衣下进行斗争的过程。可以说，一幅波澜壮阔的宗教变迁史，就是一部血泪交加的阶级斗争史。这其中，有些政治斗争带有宗教色彩，有些政治斗争不带有宗教色彩，这也说明了人类历史的发展变化决定了宗教的历史变迁。费尔巴哈企图用宗教的变迁来说明人类历史上的变化是立不住脚的，仅在思想意识内的“天国批判”不能解决问题，既然现实世界是天国世界存在的土壤，就应该在社会历史领域内展开“尘世批判”，建立“此岸世界”的真理，由对天国、宗教的批判转向对尘世、政治的的批判。

IV. Pointing Out That Feuerbach Could Not Find a Method to Eliminate Religion’s “Inverted World Outlook”: From “Sensuous Object” to “Sensuous Activity”

四、指出费尔巴哈不可能找到消除宗教“颠倒的世界观”的方法：“从感性的对象”到“感性的活动”

Although Feuerbach saw that God is the alienation of the human essence and that religion is an inversion of reality, when he attempted to replace the old religion with a new one, this incomplete materialism caused him to fall back into the quagmire of idealism, and thus he could not find the path to abolish religion or the method to eliminate religion’s “inverted world outlook.” He focused the essence of man on abstract, intuitive individuals and sensuous objects, reducing it to an inner, mute, commonality that purely and naturally links many individuals together, treating man only as a “sensuous object” rather than as “sensuous activity,” which left him stuck in the realm of theory. In contrast, the practical materialists Marx and Engels understood the world and objects as practice, aiming to transform the irrational real society through human sensuous activity. Religion, as an inverted world outlook, is a distorted, illusory reflection of reality, and it must necessarily originate from an inverted world. Precisely because the real-world inversion of the relationship between man and the world is reflected in religion as the inverted relationship between man and God, eliminating the inverted relationships in reality—such as abolishing private ownership and the system of exploitation—can eradicate from the root the illusory elements of religion and the phantom of the otherworldly realm, thereby establishing man’s subjective position. The alienation of man from reality and from things is in essence the alienation of man from man. The spontaneously formed “natural religion” will disappear as people’s ability to understand nature improves, whereas the man-made religions that have emerged since the advent of class society have from beginning to end borne the stamp of class and served as spiritual tools for the domination and oppression of man by man. In the “illusory happiness” of religion, the ruling class uses religion as a tool to dull the fighting spirit of the masses. Only by abolishing religion can we enable people to experience “real happiness,” and this historical mission falls on the shoulders of the proletariat. “Philosophy makes the proletariat its material weapon, and the proletariat makes philosophy its spiritual weapon.” [32]32 Karl Marx, “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction,” in Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 187. The broad masses of the people can find the path to “real happiness” only in the material practice of transforming the world.

费尔巴哈虽看到了上帝是人本质的异化、宗教是对现实的颠倒，但当他想以一种新的宗教代替旧的宗教时，这种不彻底的唯物主义使他重新陷入了唯心主义的泥潭，因而不可能找到废除宗教的途径和消除宗教“颠倒的世界观”的方法。他将人的本质着眼于抽象的、直观的个人和感性的对象，归结为一种内在的、无声的、把许多个人纯粹自然联系起来的共同性，只把人看做“感性对象”而不是“感性活动”，这就使其停留在理论领域。而实践唯物主义者马克思、恩格斯将世界和对象当作实践去理解，意在通过人的感性活动来改造不合理的现实社会。宗教作为颠倒的世界观，是对现实虚幻、歪曲的反映，其必根源于颠倒的世界。正因为人与世界的现实颠倒关系，反映到宗教里就形成人与神的颠倒关系，那么消灭现实中的颠倒关系，如消灭私有制和剥削制度，这样才能从根源上消除宗教里虚幻的东西和彼岸世界的幻影，进而确立人的主体性地位。人与现实及人与物的异化本质上是人与人的异化，自发形成的“自然宗教”会随着人们对自然认识能力的提高而消失，而进入阶级社会以来的人为宗教自始至终都打上了阶级的烙印，是人统治压迫人的精神工具。在宗教“虚幻的幸福”里，统治阶级将宗教作为麻痹人民群众斗志的工具，我们只有废除宗教，才能让人们体会到“现实的幸福”，而这一历史使命落在了无产阶级的肩上。“哲学把无产阶级当做自己的物质武器，无产阶级也把哲学当做自己的精神武器。”广大人民群众只有在改造世界的物质实践中才能找到“现实的幸福”之路。

According to the principles of dialectical materialism, the world is interconnected and in constant change and development. Engels noted: “The world is not to be comprehended as a complex of ready-made things, but as a complex of processes, in which the things apparently stable, no less than their mental images in our heads, the concepts, go through an uninterrupted change of coming into being and passing away.” [33]33 Friedrich Engels, “Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy,” in Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 26 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1990), p. 358. Therefore, religion is not an eternal category; it is merely a product of human history at a certain stage of development. Religion neither has always existed nor will it always exist; it will inevitably disappear along with the different historical stages of humanity. However, the disappearance of religion is a long-term, complex process that cannot be achieved simply by administrative decree. Religion will inevitably perish, but this does not mean that religion can perish arbitrarily; its disappearance requires certain objective conditions. Regarding the objective conditions for the disappearance of religion, Marx believed: “The religious reflection of the real world can disappear only when the practical relations of everyday life present themselves to people as perfectly clear and rational relations between man and man and between man and nature.” [34]34 Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1, in Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 35 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1996), p. 90. “Perfectly clear and rational relations” refers to the dissolution of alienated relations between man and man or between man and nature. Engels further pointed out in Anti-Dühring: “When society, by taking possession of all the means of production and using them on a planned basis, has freed itself and all its members from the bondage in which they are now held by these means of production which they themselves have produced but which confront them as an irresistible alien force; when therefore man no longer merely proposes, but also disposes—only then will the last alien force which is still reflected in religion vanish; and with it will also vanish the religious reflection itself, for the simple reason that there will be nothing left to reflect.” [35]35 Friedrich Engels, Anti-Dühring, in Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 25 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1987), p. 306. That is to say, only when society abolishes private ownership and exploitation, eliminates classes and the concept of private property, achieves an immense abundance of social products, greatly raises the political and ideological level of the people, and develops science and technology to an extremely high degree, so that society and nature no longer oppress people or confront them as alien forces, and humanity enters the “realm of freedom” from the “realm of necessity,” will religion cease to exist. In capitalist society, people are dominated by certain alien forces, namely the capitalist mode of production as an alien dominating force. As long as people are dominated by the economic relations they themselves have created and by the means of production they themselves have produced, the factual basis for religious reflection exists, and religious reflection itself will continue to exist. We will then only believe that “man proposes, but God disposes.” When society, by taking possession of all the means of production and using them on a planned basis, frees itself and all its members from this state of bondage—that is, when “man proposes and also disposes”—the alien forces reflected in religion will disappear.

按照辩证唯物主义原理，世界是联系的、发展变化的。恩格斯提到：“世界不是既成事物的集合体，而是过程的集合体，其中各个似乎稳定的事物同它们在我们头脑中的思想映象即概念一样都处在生成和灭亡的不断变化中。”那么，宗教就不是一个永恒存在的范畴，它只是人类历史在一定发展阶段上的产物，宗教既不是从来就有的，也必将伴随着人类不同的历史阶段而走向消亡，但宗教的消亡是一个长期的、复杂的过程，不能单纯地依靠行政命令取缔。宗教必然消亡，但这不等于说宗教可以随便消亡，宗教的消亡需要具备一定的客观条件。关于宗教消亡的客观条件，马克思认为，“只有当实际日常生活的关系，在人们面前表现为人与人之间和人与自然之间极明白而合理的关系的时候，现实世界的宗教反映才会消失。”“极明白而合理的关系”指的是人与人或人与自然之间异化关系的解除。恩格斯在《反杜林论》中又指出：“当社会通过占有和有计划地使用全部生产资料而使自己和一切社会成员摆脱奴役状态的时候（现在，人们正被这些由他们自己所生产的、但作为不可抗拒的异己力量而同自己相对立的生产资料所奴役），当谋事在人，成事也在人的时候，现在还在宗教中反映出来的最后的异己力量才会消失，因而宗教反映本身也就随着消失。理由很简单，因为那时再没有什么东西可以反映了。”这就是说，只有社会消灭私有制和剥削，消灭了阶级和私有观念，社会产品的极大富足，人们政治思想水平的极大提高，科学技术的极大发达，社会和自然不再成为压迫人们、同人们相对立的异己力量，人类由“必然王国”进入“自由王国”的时候，宗教也就不存在了。资本主义社会中，人们受到某种异己力量的支配，即资本主义生产方式作为人的异己支配力量，当人们受自己所创造的经济关系和受自己所生产的生产资料的支配，因此宗教反映事实的基础就存在，那么宗教反映本身就会继续存在，我们就只会认为“谋事在人，成事在神”。而当社会通过占有和有计划地使用全部生产资料而使自己和一切成员摆脱奴役状态的时候，即“谋事在人，成事在人”，宗教所反映的异己力量就会消失。

Christianity, born in feudal society, is bound to perish, and the present capitalist society is “the final stage before the free, autonomous association of mankind.” [36]36 This is a paraphrase of Engels’s argument in Anti-Dühring, where he describes capitalist society as the final antagonistic form of the social production process before the prehistory of human society ends; see Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 25, p. 270. The continuously evolving social formations will inevitably bury the foundation and root of religion’s existence. In this regard, Engels, following historical materialism and proceeding from the economic base and the development of productive forces, proposed a scientific path to promote the disappearance of religion. Specifically: First, from the institutional level, establish public ownership of the means of production. As long as people are “dominated by the economic relations they themselves have created, by the means of production they themselves have produced. Therefore, the factual basis for religious reflection continues to exist, and religious reflection itself continues to exist along with this basis.” [37]37 Friedrich Engels, Anti-Dühring, in Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 25, p. 306. When the institutional basis of the private ownership economy is abolished, the exploitation and oppression of man by man lose their economic foundation. People are no longer commanded by economic relations and the means of production, and to a certain extent they regain their freedom. Polarization and the gap between rich and poor shrink, reversing the trend of the alienation of things over man or man over man. With the elimination of real alienated relations, the alienated relations reflected in religion naturally disappear, and religion perishes along with them. Second, from the perspective of economic development, achieve a tremendous development of society’s productive forces. “This requires a certain material foundation of society or a series of material conditions of existence, which themselves are the natural product of a long and painful process of development.” [38]38 Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1, in Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 35, p. 92. In the view of Marx and Engels, the immense development of productive forces can fundamentally solve many social problems. The primary condition for the communist society they envisioned is the realization of a tremendous development of productive forces. At that time, people will have completely shaken off the state of enslavement by man over man and by things over man, which they endured in order to survive and develop. The alienated labor of man will become man’s free labor, and the free development of each will be the condition for the free development of all. Third, from the ideological level, raise the ideological and cultural quality of the masses. The masses are the creators of history, and religion is likewise a great creation of the masses at a certain historical stage. It is not, as religion proclaims, that some historical figure is the creator of religion—Siddhartha Gautama for Buddhism, Jesus Christ for Christianity, Muhammad for Islam—each emerged at a certain stage based on certain conditions through a particular individual. When the ideological level and scientific-cultural level of the masses are significantly raised, people will have a conscious and clear understanding of the “phantom” of religion that haunts their minds, and the ideological foundation of religion will also cease to exist. “The veil of mystery over the social process of life, i.e., the process of material production, will be lifted only when it becomes the product of freely associated men, under their conscious and planned control.” [39]39 Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1, in Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 35, p. 90. Individual freedom and human liberation are the value goals to which Marxism tirelessly aspires. When people gradually shake off the oppression and alienation of nature over man and man over man, and are able to act freely and consciously, achieving the free and comprehensive development of the individual, the pursuit of the “illusory happiness” of religion will naturally turn toward “real happiness.”

诞生于封建社会的基督教必将走向灭亡，而现在的资本主义社会是人类“走向自由的自主联合以前必经的最后阶段”，不断演进的社会形态一定会湮没宗教存在的基础和根源。对此，恩格斯按照唯物史观从经济基础和生产力发展出发，提出了促使宗教消亡的科学路径。具体来说，其一，是从制度层面确立生产资料公有制。只要“受自己所创造的经济关系、受自己所生产的生产资料的支配。因此，宗教反映活动的事实基础就继续存在，而且宗教反映本身也同这种基础一起继续存在。”当废除私有制经济的制度基础，人对人的剥削、压迫就失去了经济基础，人不再受经济关系和生产资料的指挥，人就在一定程度上恢复了自由，两极分化和贫富差距缩小，扭转了物对人或人对人的异化的局势，现实异化关系的消除，宗教中反映的异化关系自然就消失了，宗教也随之消亡。其二，是从经济发展角度层面实现社会生产力的巨大发展。“这需要一定的社会物质基础或一系列物质生存条件，而这些条件本身又是长期的、痛苦的发展史的自然产物。”在马克思、恩格斯看来，生产力的巨大发展是能从根源上解决很多社会问题，他们所设想的共产主义社会首要条件就是要实现生产力的巨大发展，那时候人们完全摆脱了因为求生存、谋发展而遭受人对人、物对人的奴役状态，人的异化劳动变成了人的自由劳动，每个人的自由发展是一切人自由发展的条件。其三，是从意识形态层面提高人民群众的思想文化素质。人民群众是历史的创造者，宗教亦是人民群众在一定历史阶段的伟大创造，不是像宗教里所宣扬的那样，某个历史人物是宗教的创造者，释迦牟尼之于佛教，耶稣基督之于基督教，穆罕默德之于伊斯兰教都是在一定阶段上由某个人基于某种条件而出现。当人民群众的思想境界和科学文化水平显著提高时，人们对缠绕在头脑中宗教的“魅影”有了自觉而清晰的认识，宗教的思想基础亦不复存在。“只有当社会生活过程即物质生产过程的形态，作为自由联合的人的产物，处于人的有意识有计划的控制之下的时候，它才会把自己的神秘的纱幕揭掉。”个人自由和人类解放，是马克思主义孜孜以求的价值目标。当人们逐渐摆脱了自然对人、人对人的压迫、异化，能自由自觉地活动，实现了个体自由而全面的发展，对宗教的“虚幻的幸福的追求”自然而然地转向对“现实的幸福”上来。

V. Conclusion

五、结 语

Engels’s view of religion, as an important component of the Marxist view of religion, understands and interprets religion from the standpoint, viewpoint, and method of historical materialism and dialectical materialism. Engels first affirms that Feuerbach reversed the situation of religion as an “inverted world outlook,” correctly positioned the relationship between humanity and God, thereby unveiling the mystical veil of religion and restoring the authority of materialism. However, Engels also criticizes Feuerbach’s unrealistic notion of a “new religion of love” and the view that “changes in religion determine the development of human history.” Due to the guidance of Feuerbach’s erroneous methodology, it was impossible for him to find a method to eliminate the “inverted world outlook” of religion; problems that could not be resolved in theory could only be solved through practical, sensuous activity. Engels ultimately achieved the sublation and transcendence of Feuerbach’s view of religion.

恩格斯宗教观作为马克思主义宗教观的重要组成部分，他以历史唯物主义和辩证唯物主义的立场、观点和方法来认识和理解宗教。恩格斯首先肯定费尔巴哈扭转了宗教“颠倒的世界观”的局面，摆正了人与神的正确位置，进而揭开了宗教的神秘面纱，恢复了唯物主义的权威，但是恩格斯也批判了费尔巴哈不切实际的“新的爱的宗教”的看法和 “宗教变迁决定人类历史发展”的观点。由于费尔巴哈错误方法论的指导，意味着他不可能找到消除宗教“颠倒的世界观”的方法，在理论中无法解决的问题只能在实践感性的活动里去解决，恩格斯最终实现对费尔巴哈宗教观的扬弃和超越。

In the New Era, correctly understanding the contemporary value of Engels’s view of religion is of great significance for China’s handling of religious issues. The basic national condition that China is in and will long remain in the primary stage of socialism determines that religion in China will exist for a long time. We must vigorously develop the productive forces and adhere to taking economic construction as the center, continuously enhancing the people’s sense of happiness and fulfillment in real life. We must insist on grasping both material progress and cultural-ethical progress, carrying out diverse mass activities for cultural-ethical progress, continuously raising the people’s ideological level and cultural attainment, and thereby enhancing the people’s scientific and rational understanding of religion. The management of religion cannot rely on excessive administrative intervention; rather, it should be incorporated into the basic norms of socialist law and the rule of law, protecting citizens’ freedom of religious belief in accordance with the law and managing religious affairs in accordance with the law. We must crack down on all kinds of illegal religious activities or activities that use “religious pretexts” and “religious cloaks” to undermine China’s socialist construction, and from the perspective of religious security, fortify the ideological security line in the New Era. We must adhere to the direction of Sinicization of religion in China and actively guide religion to adapt to socialism.

在新时代，正确认识恩格斯宗教观的当代价值，对我国处理宗教问题具有重要的意义。我国处于并将长期处于社会主义初级阶段的基本国情决定了我国宗教将长期存在，我们要大力发展生产力和坚持以经济建设为中心，不断增强人民在现实生活的幸福感和获得感。坚持物质文明和精神文明一把抓，开展多种多样的群众性精神文明创建活动，不断提高人民的思想境界和文化水平，进而提升人民对宗教的科学和理性认识能力。对宗教的管理不能依靠过多行政力量的干涉，而是应该将之纳入到将社会主义法律和法治的基本规范上来，依法保护群众宗教信仰自由，依法管理好宗教事务。依法打击各种非法的宗教活动或打着各种“宗教幌子”和“宗教外衣”破坏我国社会主义建设的活动，从宗教安全角度筑牢新时代意识形态安全防线；坚持我国宗教的中国化方向，积极引导宗教与社会主义相适应。

Online editor: Tongxin

网络编辑：同心