By David A. Noebel, Ph.D.
President
All worldviews contain a theology—that is, all begin with a religious declaration.
Summit Ministries -
Paul recognized that man cannot compartmentalize aspects of his life into boxes marked “sacred” and “secular.” He understood not only that Christianity was both a worldview and a religion, but also that all worldviews are religious by definition.
Indeed, he went so far as to tell the Epicureans and Stoics that they were religious—they just worshiped an “Unknown God.”
Most people have no problem recognizing that certain non-Christian worldviews are religious. Cosmic Humanists talk about god, so they must practice a religion. But how can the “religious” label apply to atheists like the Marxists or Secular Humanists?
It applies because all worldviews contain a theology—that is, all begin with a religious declaration. Christianity begins with “In the beginning God.” Marxism/Leninism and Secular Humanism begin with “In the beginning no God.” Cosmic Humanism begins with the declaration “Everything is God.”
The Marxist view demonstrates itself to be religious in a number of other ways, as well. Marxism’s philosophy of dialectical materialism grants matter god-like attributes, as Gustav A. Wetter acknowledges in Dialectical Materialism:
[T]he atheism of dialectical materialism is concerned with very much more than a mere denial of God. . . [I]n dialectical materialism . . . the higher is not, as such, denied; the world is interpreted as a process of continual ascent, which fundamentally extends into infinity. But it is supposed to be matter itself which continually attains to higher perfection under its own power, thanks to its indwelling dialectic. As Nikolai Berdyaev very rightly remarks, the dialectical materialist attribution of “dialectic” to matter confers on it, not mental attributes only, but even divine ones.1
We will discuss this further in the Marxist philosophy chapter. For now, it is enough to understand that Wetter perceives communism as religious in character.
Even Secular Humanists such as Bertrand Russell recognize the religiosity of Marxism: “The greatest danger in our day comes from new religions, communism and Nazism. To call these religions may perhaps be objectionable both to their friends and to their enemies, but in fact they have all the characteristics of religions. They advocate a way of life on the basis of irrational dogmas; they have a sacred history, a Messiah, and a priesthood. I do not see what more could be demanded to qualify a doctrine as a religion.”2
1 Gustav A. Wetter, Dialectical Materialism (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977), p. 558.
2 Bertrand Russell, Understanding History (New York: Philosophical Library, 1957), p. 95.
Dr. David A. Noebel, president of Summit Ministries in Manitou Springs, Colorado, has been involved in training students in Christian apologetics for more than 30 years. This article is taken from his book Understanding the Times.
