Theology after Marxism?

This chapter interrogates Marx’s early writings to identify the precise sense in which his critique of Feuerbach’s critique of Hegel takes Marx to a new philosophical position. It finds that this is not, properly speaking, a position that is beyond theology but rather one that is open to further engagement with it. Marx pushes beyond Feuerbach to recommend action in the world, connecting his ideas with social agency aimed at building community out of otherwise ‘pointless humans’. Scott points out that this project has affinities with theology and the relationship between Marxism and Christianity may therefore be explored by reference to mutual grammar of intelligibility. If Marxism provides clarity for theology on the nature of its social problem, it is equally true that Marx’s theory requires something like what Scott calls the ‘preterdeterminate’ of religious thought. That is, social criticism and social action are resourced by ‘the beyond’ and the ‘more than’.