Reflections on Communist Atheism

Recently opened in Ashkhabad, the capital of Turkmenistan, near the U.S.S.R.-Iranian border, is a University of Atheism now offering a six-month course to further the spread of scientific-atheistic knowledge. Graduates are expected to continue “the struggle against religion.”

The teaching content of this university is undoubtedly structured by Marx-Lenin atheistic materialism. The article on “Atheism” in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (second edition, 1950, Vol. III, pp. 347–354) surveys this theory. We summarize it here and evaluate the ideas in its introductory paragraphs.

1. Definition: “Atheism—godlessness, that world-view which denies religion, faith in supernatural powers, in God or gods, in a world beyond, explaining all processes occurring in nature and society by natural regularity [conformity with law—tr.], and leading the struggle against religious outlooks.”

This definition, it will be noted, reveals the basic philosophical assumptions of communism.

The world of reality is equated with nature; beyond matter there is no reality. Therefore, man is a time-bound creature and has no eternal purpose; his soul is meshed to the material world.

All phenomena are to be explained exclusively from data gathered and classified from nature. To explain the processes of matter, no appeal to supernatural forces may be made. (An elemental trustworthiness of sense perception is assumed.)

Explanations of nature are founded on laws inherent in matter and discoverable by man. Phenomena are measured by natural laws. Thus the existence and validity of natural law are avowed. This in turn assumes either that natural laws are immutable, or that, if changing and merely descriptive, no ultimate unchanging principle of explanation exists. If, however, natural laws are immutable, from whence comes their immutability? What guarantees their changelessness? If natural laws are mutable, conditioned by the changing flux of sense data (so that nothing is really changeless), by what right does atheism claim to be the absolute and final explanation of reality? So-called scientific atheism, whether affirming the mutability or immutability of natural law, must assume eternal fixed principles before it can speak confidently about itself. Communism has unconsciously borrowed certain “corrupted” notions of an absolute, despite its denial of dependency on absolutes. Most notable is the very foundational dogma of Marxism: dialectic materialism. In brief, atheism must assume eternal principles in order to disprove them.

Atheism cannot be defined merely abstractly; it always includes active hatred for religion. Thus atheism, to be atheism, must lead “the struggle against religious outlooks.” This discloses the “uneasy conscience” of the atheists. They lack calm confidence that their convictions will ultimately triumph through the sheer power of truth. Rather, atheism is always constrained to propagate its views by the sword. The initial arguments of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans remind us, relevantly, that men in revolt are forced to wage constant warfare against the convicting knowledge of God that burns in their consciences.

2. Atheism and society: “The manifestation and development of atheism is bound with the development of class struggle and with the development of (our) knowledge concerning the laws of nature and society.”

Here again, we note, the atheists make certain assumptions. Atheism is not primarily a theoretical or logical deduction; rather, it is assertedly the product of social needs. This view fits the anti-intellectual atmosphere of Marx’s times. The revolt against Hegelian rationalism led the founding fathers of communism not only into materialism, but into doubt concerning the very reliability and competence of reason to exhibit an all-inclusive world view. Communistic atheism is therefore not based on calculated philosophical speculation (which enters later only to support its conclusions); rather, it is existential: it breathes the air of social reform, hunger, and poverty.

“The laws of nature and society” are incompatible with religion, we are told. As comprehension of the processes of nature and society increases, man assertedly becomes aware that religion contradicts his findings. At very best, religion is seen to be useless as an explanation of life. But these claims call for comment.

We note, first, that any philosophy hammered out in the flames of social upheaval is likely to bear the scars of passionate but careless reasoning. In the writings and actions of the Communists contradictions abound. This is no concern to them, since their revolt against Hegelian confidence in reason brought with it a lack of concern for philosophical consistency. “Social consistency” is considered far more important: what advances the Communist social ideal is the “true.” However, can that which is inconsistent philosophically prove itself consistent socially?

Moreover, communism’s lack of primary concern to prove its atheism philosophically leads us to suspect that this is for them impossible. We have yet to be convinced that atheism is the basis of communism, as they claim, and not one of its many rationalizations.

Furthermore, if the laws of nature are relative and hypothetical, how can communism prove the absolute irrelevance of religion? How can it be shown that studies in natural law necessarily lead to atheism? Should not the atheist at least suspend judgment? Yet communism’s existential social commitment will not allow it to suspend judgment.

3. Atheism—the only road toward social reconstruction. In developing this theme, the Encyclopedia views religion as a “brake” on society, holding back the powers of production, science, and culture by those “foremost social classes, striving to cast off the old, outlived … orders.” “As far as religion justified the existing social order, so for each new class coming into power the battle was an inevitable one against religion as the ideological sanction of the old order. This struggle has been usually carried out under the slogan of a cleansing and a reformation of the old order, but in a more revolutionary manifestation it grew into present-day militant atheism, into the complete disavowal of religion. Although the history of nations gives not a few clear examples of the struggle against the religious narcotic, consistent scientific atheism became possible only with the development of the proletariat, with the emergence of the Marxist-Leninist scientific theory: dialectical materialism.”

Here again the atheists make sweeping assumptions. Religion assertedly justifies most of the ills of society. We must admit that, according to history, many social enormities were sanctioned or condoned in the name of religion.

However, let us note that to commit a crime in the name of a religion does not necessarily make the religion itself guilty of the crime. Many of the crimes performed in the name of religion are actually condemned by religion; this is especially true of Christianity. Those who have sought to glorify the Cross by means of bribery, the sword, economic injustices, the suppression of learning, and the like, all stand condemned by Christ. It is wrong to judge Christ by the disfiguring portraits that have been sketched of him; man must evaluate him as he is and what he can do in society if men will but submit to him. A religion must be evaluated in terms of its first principles, not according to perversions of its teachings in history.

To hold Christianity responsible for social sins of established churches is unjustified. Nowhere in Communist writings do we discover the pure and passionate sense of social justice that is found in the New Testament. Christ never sanctioned what communism calls the “religious narcotic in society.” Who can read the Prophets, the Sermon on the Mount, or the Epistle of James and say this?

Nor are Christ’s methods impotent for our times. He does not seek simply “to reform the old order.” In fact, he is far more revolutionary than communism. Communism seeks to reform man from without, by changing his environment, his economic setting. Christ’s revolution begins within, changing society by transforming the individual.

Christ proposes no mere “cleansing and reformation of the old order”; rather, he requires a rebirth of every man, a sweeping away of those prejudices and egocentric passions from which spring all social injustices, inaugurates a relationship with God that produces love and a new sense of justice and human value.

Should men accuse Christ’s methods of social reconstruction as being too slow, we would remind them that if they are (slow insofar as men fail to apply them), they are as thorough as any that can be utilized in this corrupt world. Christ reconstructs the soul first. Then society’s rebirth is given an immovable foundation. Communism seeks to renovate society superficially, and the individual is left bewildered and unconvinced.

By denying God, communism has fallen prey to the fluctuations of the material world. As such it lacks a well-reasoned and consistent argument against religion. Moreover, because of a denial of God, its definition of man is superficial and unsatisfactory.

Communism’s basic goal is the reconstruction of society. Yet, because of its weaknesses it is unable to rise above the vexing problems it seeks to resolve.

Christians should soberly judge themselves in the light of biblical standards. We have much for which to repent. But the Christian faith does what communism, no matter how hard it may try, can never do: Christ gives life eternal significance and a God-orientated purpose, and Christ alone can revolutionize man in society with a real fitness for eternity.

END

David V. Benson is President of Russia for Christ, Inc., which broadcasts the Gospel weekly to Europe and Russia from Voice of Tangier. He holds the B.A. from University of California, and the B.D. from Fuller Theological Seminary. Translations from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia are by Mr. Benson, who took graduate work in Russian at Harvard.

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