A Possible Aide in Facing Our Fears of Marx as Christian Thinkers

[Hugh Williams]

An Aide in Facing Our Fears of Marx as Christian Thinkers: Etienne Gilson’s History of Philosophy on Marx and Marxism

 Perhaps we should begin by recalling what Pierre Whalon plainly said (email January 16/26) in a much earlier part of this exchange on “Christianity and Marxism” that at the time was largely centered on his good and important text written with John Raymaker, “Attentive, Intelligent, Reasonable, Responsible (2023)”. He implied that there really is this phenomenon of being “afraid of Marx”. And I would add that this is so especially in the heart of the Western Empire, America. He wrote that “Phil McShane was certainly not afraid of Marx. Nor should anyone.”   

As I’ve probed and poked about in this area that I call Christian-Marxism dialogue-dialectic, several people, that I assume are largely under the influence of the Western Christian intellectual tradition, slowly and cautiously have begun to express themselves here and there. I’ve made the claim that it is particularly difficult for Americans to engage with Marx seriously because of a particular history in their intellectual culture (and beyond) of 'anti-communism'. This anti-communism has been just as virulent in some of its forms and reach as has many of the excesses so often attributed to Marx and Marxism. This fear exists within most of the Christian churches as well in my view. And there continues today this standard type of apologetic against Marxism that simply ends up closing off real engagement with what I with many others, both Christian and non-Christian, would claim to be one of the richest and most important parts of the Western philosophical canon.

With that said, I thought it might be helpful to return to Etienne Gilson (for a few subsequent posts), to see what he might have to say on this topic. And in doing so I’ve come to renew my appreciation for his serious work in ‘the history of philosophy’, a perspective that often can help give us some more proper perspective and context for these thinkers and their more complex thought. It might help many of us as Christian thinkers, or thinkers under the influence, more or less, of Christianity … perhaps aiding us in overcoming our fears of this most influential and many faceted philosopher, or at least aiding us in better understanding our fears …..

So, in doing this I examined “A History of Philosophy”, a major project that Gilson headed up and edited, that appeared in four volumes with Anton Pegis, Armand Maurer, and Thomas Langan as co-editors and co-authors (see especially Recent Philosophy: Hegel to the Present (New York: Random House, 1962, 1966) pp.44-57). It is in this fourth volume written with Thomas Langan that we get, in my view, this exceptional treatment of Marx. Because this section is written by Langan under Gilson’s general editorship, I will refer to it as the Gilson-Langan critical analysis Marx and Marxism.

All the fears of Marx and Marxism, many of which were ‘nicely’ listed in a recent article provided by John and written by a young conservative American, Maxwell Bindernagel - ‘the inherent materialism’, ‘the materialist eschatology’, ‘the denial of the afterlife’, ‘the neglect of interior conversion’, and ‘the violence associated with Marxism’, mostly center around this abiding concern and worry regarding Marxism’s ‘materialism’, which it is felt leads to a type of ‘economic determinism’, and even on to what often is called ‘totalitarianism’.

Next ...

Part one: "Marx's Materialism"

Part two: "Marx's philosophical problematic (and the possible Lonergan/McShane connection)

Hugh