From Alienation to Critical Faith: Notes on the Relationship between Marxism and Religion
Abstract
This essay reexamines the relationship between Marxism and religion by challenging the orthodox assumption that religion is merely a historically contingent form of alienation destined to disappear with the development of socialism. It distinguishes between social alienation, which arises from historically specific relations of domination and can therefore be overcome, and existential alienation, which derives from the permanent conditions of human finitude, mortality, and the search for meaning. Drawing upon Marx, Engels, Gramsci, Mariátegui, Benjamin, Losurdo, and other thinkers within the Marxist tradition, the essay argues that religion is neither inherently reactionary nor revolutionary, but assumes historically and socially differentiated forms according to the class struggles in which it is embedded. It further develops an account of religious representation through Marx’s critique of commodity fetishism, arguing that capitalist social relations themselves exhibit a religious logic in which the products of human activity acquire an apparently autonomous power over their creators. Liberation theology is subsequently examined as a model of “critical” or non-alienated faith capable of transforming religion from a justification of existing social relations into a prophetic critique of capitalist idolatry and a force for revolutionary praxis. The essay concludes that Marxism and critical religion can converge in struggles against exploitation and domination without becoming identical, preserving a productive tension between revolutionary political power and religion’s prophetic critique of worldly authority.
Keywords
Marxism, Religion, Alienation, Liberation Theology, Critical Faith
