马克思论宗教与现代政治——重解马克思的《论犹太人问题》

Karl Marx on Religion and Modern Politics

在马克思批判黑格尔法哲学的整个过程中,《论犹太人问题》是一个关键性的文本。在该文中,马克思抓住政治意识这个重要环节,分三个层次具体阐述了宗教与现代政治之间的关系,进而对市民社会与国家之间的关系进行了重新解释。关于宗教与现代政治之间的关系,马克思明确指出,现代国家是类似宗教的抽象,它不仅以政治和宗教的分离为原则,而且还必然需要一种具有宗教性质的政治意识的支撑,而被下降到市民社会的宗教恰恰具有培育此种政治意识的功能;资产阶级政治意识的内部存在着矛盾,它一方面认现代国家是市民社会的目的,另一方面又反过来认市民社会中个体的权利为现代国家的目的,致力于促成和保障市民社会的充分发展;市民社会的充分发展必将导致货币拜物教的盛行和那种支撑着现代国家的政治意识的衰落,该政治意识的衰落必将使现代国家丧失其相对于市民社会的超越性,沦为市民社会的手段。透过对宗教与现代政治之间复杂关系的解析,马克思形成了自己对市民社会与现代国家之间的关系的全新判断。与黑格尔的判断正好相反,马克思断定在现代国家和市民社会之间没有从国家到市民社会再到国家的抽象发展过程,其现实的发展过程是:政治革命带来了市民社会与现代国家之间的分离和对立,现代国家必将促成市民社会的充分发展,充分发展了的市民社会又必将反过来吞噬掉现代国家。因此,思想的首要任务不再是对宗教或国家的批判,而是对市民社会的批判。

In the process of Karl Marx＇s critical dialogue with Hegel＇s philosophy of right,＂On the Jewish Question＂is one of the key texts,which are of key importance to the whole project. In this famous article,focusing on the key concept of political consciousness,Marx has concretely analyzed three aspects of the relationship between religion and modern politics. Based on this,Marx has put forward a new interpretation of the relationship between civil society and modern state,which is just to the opposite of Hegel＇s. About the relationship between religion and modern politics,Marx firstly pointed out that modern state is the Christian state in the true sense and that it necessarily needs the support of a kind of political consciousness,which is of religious nature. At the same time,Marx emphasized that those religions,which have been separated from the state and placed in the sphere of civil society,have been very effective in cultivating the religious spirit,which has functioned as this kind of political consciousness; Secondly,Marx pointed out that there has been a kind of self-contradiction within the modern bourgeois＇ political consciousness. On the one hand,it takes the state as the end of civil society,on the other hand it takes rights of the private individuals living in the sphere of civil society as the ultimate end of the state and thus taking promoting the full development of civil society as the ultimate end of the modern state. Thirdly,Marx argued that the full development of civil society would necessarily bring about the dominance of the practical Judaism（ money fetishism） as well as the decline of the abovementioned political consciousness. With the decline of the political consciousness,the state would necessarily be degraded into only the instrument of civil society. Based on this concrete analysis of the relationship between religion and modern politics,Marx has thus formed his own judgment about the necessary tendency of the development of the relationship between civil society and modern state,which is just to the opposite of Hegel＇s. While Hegel holds that the relationship is firstly the development from the idea of the state to civil society and then the transition from civil society to the state,Marx concluded that there has never been this kind of abstract development. The actual relationship between civil society is that,with the separation between civil society and the state,which is brought about by the political revolution,the state has necessarily promoted the full development of civil society and that the full-developed civil society will then necessarily degrade the state into its instrument. Thus the primary task for thinking itself is now not the critique of religion or the state,but the critique of civil society.