Marx's Critique of the Ontological Proof

[Anonymous No.13628967]

>I take this opportunity to touch on [...] the proofs for the existence of God. Hegel totally reversed, i.e. rejected, these theological proofs in order to justify them: strange clients that the barrister can only save from condemnation by striking them dead himself! Hegel interprets, for example, the argument from the world to God in this form: 'Because the contingent does not exist, then God or the Absolute does exist.' But the theological proof is the reverse: 'Because the contingent has true being, then God exists.' God is the guarantee of the contingent world. Naturally this also involves the opposite.
>The proofs for the existence of God admit of two interpretations:
>1. Either they are simply pure tautologies—for example the ontological proof merely amounts to this: 'What I really imagine is for me a real imagination' that reacts upon me and in this sense all gods, heathen as well as Christian, had a real existence [...] Even Kant's Critique does not make any sense here. If someone imagines that he has one hundred pounds and if for him this is no arbitrary fancy, but he really believes in it then the one hundred imagined pounds have the same worth for him as one hundred real ones. He will, for example, contract debts on the strength of his imaginings, they will have an effect, as the whole of humanity has contracted debts on the strength of their gods. Kant's example could, on the contrary, have strengthened the ontological proof. Real pounds have the same existence as imagined gods. Surely there is no other place where a real pound can exist apart from the general, or rather collective, imagination of men. Take paper money into a land where the use of such money is not known and everyone will laugh at your subjective imagination. Go with your gods into another land where other gods hold sway and it will be proved to you that you are suffering from fanciful dreams [...] [W]hat a particular land is for particular foreign gods, the land of reason is for God in general, an area in which his existence ceases.
>2. Or else the proofs for the existence of God are nothing but proofs for the existence of an essentially human self-consciousness and logical elaborations of it [...] What being exists as soon as it is thought? Self-consciousness.
>In this sense all the proofs for the existence of God are proofs of his non-existence [...] The true proofs should be reversed and read: 'Since nature is badly constructed, God exists.' 'Because the world is irrational, God exists.' 'Because there is no thought, God exists.' But this merely means that God exists for anyone who finds the world irrational and thus is irrational himself. In other words, irrationality is the essence of God.

(Karl Marx [1841], "Dissertation and Preliminary Notes on the Difference between Democritus' and Epicurus' Philosophy of Nature," in: David McLellan [ed., tr., 1971], Karl Marx: Early Texts, pp. 17-19).

Is he correct? Any refutations?

[Anonymous No.13628999]

dam marx said a lot of stuff

[Anonymous No.13629582]

bump

[Anonymous No.13629767]

> form of The Good or first cause
> tautological
> essentially human

Someone else who should've started the Greeks.

[Anonymous No.13629789]

>>13629767
His dissertation was literally on two Greek philosophers. I think he was pretty familiar with the Greeks.

[Anonymous No.13629795]

god exists just like your subconscious exists

[Anonymous No.13629812]

>>13629767
the sad thing is he did, he was a natural born feuerbachian

[Anonymous No.13630002]

I read Nature in capitals and Hegel and stopped. Marx was an idiot like all school marm lecture philosophers. How can you honestly read these word salads and pretend "critiques" are important?

[Anonymous No.13630037]

>>13630002
delete this

[Anonymous No.13630080]

>>13630037
You know it's true

[Anonymous No.13630177]

>>13628967
It's bad, no matter what one's opinion of the Ontological proof is. To refute it wholly would take quite a long time, since even his presuppositions are incorrect. Briefly put, his arguments fundamentally misunderstand what is meant by God in the Ontological proof, as he makes clear in his first point; his second point is completely absurd if one does not share his distinctly post Kantian presuppositions. His concluding paragraph is very murky, begs more questions than it answers, and barely rises above mere rhetorical ornament.

[Anonymous No.13630187]

>>13630177
>his second point is completely absurd if one does not share his distinctly post Kantian presuppositions.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by this?

[Anonymous No.13630367]

>>13630187
I mean that Marx presupposed that in looking for God, we only find the knowing subject. This echoes the Kantian notion of the "Copernican turn" to the subject, by which our thought no longer apprehends reality, but imposes itself upon it. Now, this only makes sense if you share Kant's premises, even if unaware and only intermittently. Calling proof for God merely discoveries of the self-aware subject seems to imply this sort of Kantian presuppositions, which were only partially done away with by Hegel.

[Anonymous No.13630373]

>>13630367
I should have not said echoes; since it rather follows from it.

[Anonymous No.13631450]

>>13628967
post your face when Marx was 22 when he wrote this

[Anonymous No.13631948]

Based Marx can't stop talking about money even when discussing theology

[Anonymous No.13631953]

>>13628967
holy shit, was marx just a pseud who worshiped hegel?