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Chapter Title Ernst Bloch’s Theories Concerning Religion

Copyright Year 2017
Copyright Holder Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany
Corresponding Author Family Name McKnight
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Given Name Heather
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Email vanilla.starlet@gmail.com
 1
E

2 Ernst Bloch’s Theories Concerning minds that creates and perceives the new is there- 31

3 Religion fore absent. Bloch identifies a pre-consciousness, 32

the presence of the potential future in the now. 33

4 Heather McKnight Bloch focuses on the inward beginnings of 34

AU2 5 Law Department, University of Sussex, Sussex, change and a move toward a better future where 35
AU1
6 UK our hunger is sated. The hunger that he speaks of 36

manifests itself in a sense of waiting that cannot be 37

resisted or desisted; it moves things forward even 38

7 From Hunger to Hope in pain or disappointment. This lack of comple- 39

tion of being for humans creates awareness and 40

8 Ernst Bloch (1855–1977) is frequently described as anticipation, toward an undetermined future 41

9 being the philosopher of hope and is credited with (Bloch 1995). This marks the journey from “hun- 42

10 having returned dignity to the term utopia within ger to hope” which operates on a materialist basis 43

11 critical theory. Bloch’s theory begins with the indi- where matter is an active component in nature and 44

12 vidual self-experience and pre-experience. He humanity (Thompson 2013). 45

13 explains how the self is emergent from hunger,

14 from which emotions arise and understand us as
15 creatures created out of internal forward reaching Doctrine of Hope 46 AU4
16 conflicts. For Bloch, the original drive is not linked
17 with Freud’s life and death drives, but with hunger. Bloch proceeds to develop his philosophy from 47

18 Bloch notes that hunger is “the drive that is always here into a critical utopian process – a doctrine of 48

19 left out of psychoanalytical theory . . . it alone hope. For Bloch, Utopia is “a better world,” not 49

AU3 20 might be so fundamental” (Bloch 1995). In the necessarily perfected or complete (Bloch 1995). 50

21 immediacy, we die without nutrition; therefore For this inherent forward reaching motion to be 51

22 hunger accompanies and precedes all emotions, Utopian, to be orientated toward social good and 52

23 and emotions precede sensations and imaginings. not just selfish gain, Bloch identifies a critical 53

24 All other drives form contingently onward from utopian process that must take place. This occurs 54

25 this hunger which is subject to social conditioning. through the presence of both cold and warm 55

26 A fundamental flaw in psychoanalytical theory for streams, echoing those identified by Karl Marx. 56

27 Bloch is that the unconscious as defined by Freud is The warm stream is the possibility of a better 57

28 never a Not-Yet-Conscious progression but a world, it is the disruptive imagining of a positive 58

29 regression; there is “nothing new in the Freudian difference beyond what exists now. The cold 59

30 unconscious” (Bloch 1995) and the part of our stream is a critique of the now, of this historical 60

# Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2017

D.A. Leeming (ed.), Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-27771-9_200130-1
 2 Ernst Bloch’s Theories Concerning Religion

61 moment. In the cold stream, the difficulties and understanding of religion as key to understanding 106

62 limitations of the dream of the better world must human culture, as religious consciousness 107

63 be overcome and constantly accounted for. Both expresses deep and profound aspects of human 108

64 of these streams must be in place in order for the existence. As such, the analysis of religion is of 109

65 utopian horizon to exist, to create the space for a fundamental importance and should be read as a 110

66 material process that allows a better world to form of human self-expression (Geoghegan 111

67 begin to develop. 1996). 112

68 Beyond Marxist Critique of Religion Hope Content Within Religion 113

69 Bloch’s engagement with religion is apparent Bloch is not uncritical of religion and views it, 114

70 from his first book, The Spirit of Utopia (2000), alongside other ideologies, as having the potential 115

71 which used the language of Theism to explore and to oppress and stifle human potential by providing 116

72 explain the critical utopian process (Geoghegan false hope. The mystical entities within religions 117

73 1996). He differs from many Marxist philoso- do have the ability to reconcile people to unjust 118

74 phers in his refusal to comply with a wholesale situations (Bloch 2009). He looks at the preva- 119

75 rejection of the worth of religion as merely “the lence of religions all over the world in different 120

76 opium of the masses,” instead he sees it as having cultures, seeing a common theme as their 121

77 a valuable part to play. Bloch focuses on Marx’s “irrealism,” and that this is a key to their utopian 122

78 view of religion presented in his Critique of content (Hudson and Bloch 1995a). 123

79 Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (2009) and takes on In opposition to Marxist thought, Bloch views 124

80 Marx’s idea that it is also the “sigh of the masses, religion as normal, and healthy, while people 125

81 the feeling of the heartless world, and the soul of remain alienated, and the emancipation they 126

82 the soulless circumstances” (Marx 2009) and as hope for as unfulfilled (Hudson 1982). It is not 127

83 such part of the human path toward emancipation something to be dogmatically followed but to be 128

84 (Moylan 1997). Religion provides an illusory critiqued and explored, and through understand- 129

AU5 85 representation of the change that needed in the ing its inherent contradictions, we will gain a 130

86 world, as such Religion as the opiate did not better understanding of the human condition, 131

87 need abolished, but instead the social conditions and of emancipatory possibilities, as well as 132

88 that underpin the narratives of oppression and modes of oppression. Religion needs to be under- 133

89 desire of emancipation (Hudson 1982). stood as a revolutionary narrative. The notes that 134

90 For Bloch religion helps us understand what religions have “[f]ounders everywhere but they 135

91 emerges from the human hunger, a hope for a are not fully manifest unless they have pitted 136

92 better world. Religious narratives form the warm their new god against a traditional custom and a 137

93 stream, describing a hopeful place and the possi- manless nature religion” (Bloch 1970). Religions 138

94 bility of a better world; narratives of poverty and have their place in challenging orthodoxy, and in 139

95 oppression and struggle form the cold stream providing an alternative to the status quo. Reli- 140

96 (Bloch 1995a). Here Bloch moves beyond Marx, gion for Bloch becomes heretical and a protest 141

97 he does not believe the time for religion has gone, against the norm (Bloch 2009). 142

98 its legacy is in fact inexhaustible, religion does not Bloch examines this hope content within reli- 143

99 end with the death of God, but in a sense this is its gions, looking at various religions, Judeism, 144

100 genesis which reveals human potential to create a Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, 145

101 better world. (Geoghegan 1996) Toaism, Confusionism, and other ancient reli- 146

102 It has been argued that the role religion plays in gions of classical Greece, Babylonia, and 147

103 constructing and expressing humanity and society Chaldaea (Bloch 1995a), but privileges Judeo- 148

104 is of central concern to all of Bloch’s work Christian religions within his historical analysis. 149

105 (Thompson in Bloch 2009). Bloch views the He examines the characters within them as 150
 Ernst Bloch’s Theories Concerning Religion 3

151 disruptive influences on the times in which they nihilism, it is the opening up of a space of hope 196

152 exist and sees them as reappropriating celestial and possibility, where there previously sat a 197

153 power to provide substance and critique for social hypostatized God, a God that is seen as fixed 198

154 change toward an idealized goal. Both breaking and real (Bloch 1995a). 199

155 from and drawing on the Marxist critique, Bloch For Bloch the apocalypse is the transformation 200

156 provides an emancipatory reading of religions of nature and the end of all religion; it is what must 201

157 which removes God from a fixed figure of reality, be passed through for the totality of Christianity to 202

158 to be replaced by the human utopian function, be realized (Bloch 1995a). He sees Christianity as 203

159 where the stories of religion give agency to having a key transformative potential when it 204

160 human action on earth to create change for a better allows those following it to move beyond the 205

161 world in the here and now (Bloch 1995a). mythological orthodoxy. Essentially it provides 206

the realization that there is no God to change 207

things, or make things better, but the entire ability 208

162 Reinterpreting the Bible to control and shape the world for the better and 209

the drive to do so lies with the human community 210

163 Bloch’s book Atheism and Christianity (2009) (Bloch 1970). 211

164 explores atheism as the truth of the bible and the

165 deification of the human as the essence of religion.
166 Bloch explores Augustine’s statement that only Influence of Bloch’s Theology 212

167 the heretic can be a good Christian, adding

168 “Only an atheist can be a good Christian, only a Bloch has had a notable impact on theology in 213

169 Christian can be a good atheist” (Bloch 2009). He Europe and Latin America in the 1960s through 214

170 seeks to locate the cold stream of critique within his reinstatement of this focus on hope and provi- 215

171 the bible, as well as a grasping for a better world. sion of method of approaching emancipatory nar- 216

172 He looks at different interpretations of the bible, ratives without focusing on deities and 217

173 gnostic, heretical, and Judiaic, to influence and supernatural mythologies within the religions 218

174 inform his work; he sees these as “not outside of themselves. For example, Luthern theologist 219

175 the text but part of the text”; through this Bloch Jürgen Moltmann’s significant publication the 220

176 aims for a radial exegesis of the bible, reading it as Theology of Hope (1967) was significantly 221

177 deeply rooted in the political struggles of the poor influenced by Bloch (Hudson 1982). The political 222

178 (Geoghehan 1996). theology of Catholic scholar Johannes Metz also 223

179 For Bloch, Jesus utopainises God into the contains the influence of Bloch. This is apparent 224

180 Kingdom of God, thus returning the ability to in how he places the transformative end-of-days 225

181 bring about Heaven on Earth to the hands of the narrative in central to his interpretation, as well as 226

182 community (Moylan 1997). Through doing this, engagement with religion as critique rather than 227

183 Bloch is in essence rejecting the theistic basis of through control (Moylan 1997). Wolfgang 228

184 Christianity (Geoghegan 1996). He explores a Pannenberg, a German theologian, highlighted 229

185 reading of the bible that sees Jesus as rejecting the importance of Bloch’s work to the future 230

186 God to instead finding a place among his creations development of theology as it gave courage to 231

187 on earth. Bloch analyses what he views as the theology to consider the centrality of eschatology 232

188 transformative relationship that humans have and the incomplete future (Hudson 1982). 233

189 with God in the bible, viewing Jesus as a fighter However, Bloch’s greatest influence was on 234

190 or revolutionary (Geoghegan 1996). “God liberation theology where there was a struggle to 235

191 becomes the kingdom of God, and the kingdom overcome severe poverty, suffering, and political 236

192 of God no longer contains a God” and that “the struggle, in areas such as Latin America, 237

193 religious kingdom as such involves atheism, at South Africa, South Korea, and the Philippines 238

194 last properly understood atheism” (Bloch (Moylan 1997). Gustavo Gutiérrez’s Theology of 239

195 1995a). Atheism is not, however, the same as Liberation (1973) is one of the key texts within 240
 4 Ernst Bloch’s Theories Concerning Religion

241 liberation theology and contains influences of See Also 269

242 Bloch throughout, including the refusal to sepa-

243 rate reality and the supernatural kingdom of God, ▶ Liberation Theology 270

244 his focus on history as the site of human liberation

245 both material and spiritual, and on the utopian
246 function that allows human action to be mobi-
Bibliography 271
247 lized, linking “faith, utopia and political action”
248 together (ibid). Liberation theologist Franz Bloch, E. (1970). Man on his own. New York: Herder and 272
249 Hinkelammert also references Bloch in The Ideo- Herder. 273
250 logical Weapons of Death: A Theological Critique Bloch, E. (1995a). The principle of hope volume one. 274

251 of Capitalism (1968) and focuses specifically on Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. 275
Bloch, E. (1995b). The principle of hope volume three. 276
252 the conditions of exploitation and suffering in the Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. 277
253 capitalist world. Bloch has also been cited as an Bloch, E. (2000). The spirit of utopia. Stanford: Stanford 278
254 influence on non-orthodox liberation theologists, University Press. 279

255 such as Paulo Freire, whose work focused on Bloch, E. (2009). Atheism in Christianity. London: Verso. 280
Geoghegan, V. (1996). Ernst Bloch. London: Routledge. 281
256 liberation through education (Giroux and Mclaren Giroux, H. G., & Mclaren, P. (1997). Paulo Freire, post- 282
257 1997). modernism, and the utopian imagination: A blochian 283
258 Bloch became influential as a radical commen- reading. In O. D. Daniel & T. Moylan (Eds.), Not yet: 284

259 tator on theology and influenced a number of Reconsidering Ernst Bloch (pp. 96–121). London: 285
Verso. 286
260 thinkers, providing a much needed discursive Hudsen, W. (1982). The Marxist philosophy of Ernst 287
261 exterior to theology of the 1960s (Moylan 1997). Bloch. New York: St Martin’s Press. 288
262 Overall he provided a secular view of theology Marx, K. (2009). Critique of Hegel’s philosophy of right. 289

263 that modelled something post-theistic and post- Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 290
Moylan, T. (1997). The theological reception of Daz 291
264 individualist for theologians to work with, pro- Prinzip Hoffnung and the liberation of the utopian 292
265 claiming the primacy of hope as a virtue as God function. In O. D. Daniel & T. Moylan (Eds.), Not 293
266 becoming the future of humanity and relocating yet: Reconsidering Ernst Bloch (pp. 96–121). 294

267 the sense of self in relation to religion as one of London: Verso. 295
Thompson, P. (2013). The privatisation of hope and the 296
268 agency rather than servitude (Hudson 1982). crisis of negation. In P. Thompson & S. Žižek (Eds.), 297
The privatisation of hope (pp. 1–20). Durham/London: 298
Duke University Press. 299
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