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| All Power to the Soviets, by Al Heuer |
Dooyeweerd:
From Idealism to Historicism:
Marxism as Messianic Faith
COMTE: STALLED TRANSITION FROM IDEALISM TO HISTORICISM
Meanwhile, the transition from the inconsistent to the consistent – or radical – historicism was only a question of time. This transition started as soon as the idealistic foundation of the historical mode of thought was itself submitted to an historical explanation. The French thinker, August Comte, the founder of modern sociology, was the first to subject both the Christian belief and the Humanistic belief in the so-called eternal ideas of human reason to the historicist view.
With him the idealistic philosophical position was replaced by a positivistic one. This meant, in fact, the restoration of the supremacy of the natural scientific mode of thought, but in such a way that the new historicist view of human society was retained. The latter should only be adapted to the general pattern of natural scientific research which seeks to explain empirical facts by tracing the general laws of their causal interrelations.
Thus Comte attempted to trace the general law of the social history of humankind. And he clearly realized that this attempt was ruled by the old Humanistic motive to dominate both nature and the social world by autonomous scientific thought; thus, he formulated his famous law of the three stages. According to it, human history proceeds from a theological to a metaphysical stage, and from the latter to a positivistic one. Each of them is ruled by particular ideas, corresponding to a particular type of society. The theological ideas, inclusive of Christian doctrine, must necessarily make room for the metaphysical ideas. The latter includes both the supposed eternal ideas of the rationalistic Humanist doctrine of natural law and those of its antipode, the idealistic metaphysics of history. These, in turn, must necessarily be overcome by positivistic, or scientific man.
But this historicist relativizing of the belief in eternal ideas was not yet carried through in a radical sense. For the last stage of human history is, according to Comte, the very aim of the entire historical process. It is the stage of a new humanity, which in complete freedom and autonomy rules the world, having developed to the highest level of social solidarity, welfare and morality, supplemented with a new Humanistic religion. In other words, Comte held to a strong belief in the future of mankind. The ideas of his positivist philosophy, evolved in the development of Western civilization, are to his mind, of a truly eternal value. And the idea of the steady and straight-lined progress of mankind by the autonomous power of science, which was characteristic of the period of the Enlightenment, lay at the foundation of his entire view of history.
MARX NO MORE RADICAL THAN COMTE: MESSIANIC FAITH
Marxism, the source of contemporary Communism, gave to the idealist and dialectical historicist worldview of Hegel a materialistic turn. According to Marx, all human ideas, inclusive of religious doctrines, are nothing but the ideological reflection of a particular technical system of economic production which arises, ripens and breaks down in the course of history with an inner dialectical necessity. Nevertheless, Marx was no more radical a historicist than was Comte – for he too was strongly committed to the belief in an eschatological consummation of history: the final redemption and liberation of mankind by the suffering proletariat, which will set in motion an earthly paradise of a classless communistic society after the destruction of capitalism. This Humanistic transformation of the Messianic faith became the gospel of international communism, which founded its Jerusalem in Moscow, after the Russian revolution.
DILTHEY AND RADICAL HISTORICISM: FEAR OF NIHILISM
However, the radical Historicism, which began to undermine the spiritual fundamentals of our Western civilization since the last decades of the 19th century, has not retained any positive belief. The famous German philosopher and historian, Wilhelm Dilthey, who in many respects was one of its most brilliant apostles, said that it would lead humanity to the highest level of freedom, since it liberates our mind from the last remnants of dogmatical prejudices. But at his seventieth birthday he added something to this eulogy which clearly testified to his fear of the nihilistic apparition he had evoked. “Yes,” said he, “historicism has freed the mind from the last remnants of dogmatism. But who will check the radical relativism which it has brought forth?”
SPELLBINDING HISTORICISM: RATIONALISTIC AND IRRATIONALISTIC
Historicism, whose rise and evolution we have briefly sketched, appears to exercise a magical influence upon those who have come under its spell. From the very beginning it displayed a strongly aesthetical trait. Schelling ascribed to the entire process of history an aesthetical aim, namely, the production of the perfect work of fine art, in which nature and creative freedom were supposed to find their ultimate synthesis.
We have also seen that in its initial irrationalistic form the historicist view captivated many Christian thinkers. But it should be noted that it is exactly the irrationalistic current in Historicism which, since the breakdown of the Humanist freedom-idealism, has resulted in the radical relativism of Spengler and his followers. The rationalistic trend, in the footsteps of August Comte, sought to trace general laws of history. This view, which found many adherents in Anglo-Saxon countries, never carried the historicist view through to its ultimate conclusions. However, the rationalistic form of historicism in general did not attract Christian thinkers, but it rather repelled them, especially after it joined up with Darwinian evolutionism. This should prompt us to ask the question: “What is the snare in the historicist view of our temporal world in both of its forms?” And, “what is the real place and meaning of the historical aspect in the temporal order of our experience?”
Excerpt from ‘In the Twilight of Western Thought’ by Herman Dooyeweerd, Paideia Press, 2012, pp 55-57)
For similar analyses of religious ground motives, see New Critique Volume I, Part II; and Dooyeweerd, The Roots of Western Culture, Collected Works, Series B, Volume 3.
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