Radical Hegelianism

19th Century History

Contents
German Developments
» Radical Hegelianism
» Pessimism
» Materialism
» Nietzsche
French Developments
British Developments

« Back to History

David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874), author of Das Leben Jesu (1835), followed Hegel in demythologising Christianity: at the level of Biblical exegesis the idea of 'mythus' became central. According to Strauss, the reports of the evangelists had projected the story of the expected Messiah onto an historical person and thus created a myth. The central claim of Christianity - namely, that God became man in Christ - was effectively denied.[1]

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872), author of Das Wesen des Christentums (1841) and in the eyes of many one of the most important representatives of atheism in the nineteenth century, claimed that the 'secret' of theology is anthropology, namely, humans project their own attributes onto the (imaginary) transcendent.[2]

Another much more celebrated left Hegelian, Karl Marx, found Feuerbach's atheism too theoretical, and believed it did not take enough notice of the socioeconomic causes of religion. According to Marx, Feuerbach's projection theory did not explain the real reasons why human beings project. Although Marx agreed with Feuerbach that humans project their attributes onto the universe and thus alienated themselves, the chief difference between Marx's explanation of religion and Feuerbach's is that for Marx religion is ultimately a product or 'echo' of socio-economic forces which determine human (religious) consciousness in a bottom-up way. Marx assumed that a revolutionary change for the better in the socio-economic form of society would have as an automatic consequence the withering away of religion.[3]

References

Minois, Georges. Histoire de L'atheisme. La Fleche: Fayard, 1998.

Bibliography

Footnotes

[1]↑ See, for example, Georges Minois, Histoire de L'atheisme (La Fleche: Fayard, 1998), 503ff.
[2]↑ Ibid., 496ff.
[3]↑ Ibid., 499-500.

Top of Page