Hungarian Church Press, 1968 (20. évfolyam, 2. szám)

1968-06-01 / 2. szám

HOP Vol XX Special Number

1968 No 2

—• 3.3

(07655)

In our country, Marxist humanism is a foroe shaping the life of our society and human consciousness; it is, first of all, with this type of humanism that we must compare the humanism of the Gospel, looking for certain things in common, in spittc of the differences between the two„

According to an Italian Marxist (C® Luporinl), both Christianity and Marxism are expositions of human freedomo And the two doctrines about freedom, if we compare them with the teachings of idealism and existentialism, display, at one important point, smilar viewsj The idealistic-humanism (sind existentialism, too, is idealism) presupposes man*s freedom; it considers freedom a given quantity,;, There is nothing else to do than to preserve, respectively develop this freedan0 Be what thou art! By developing your personality, or by consciously accepting the situation in which you are, be a free personality "authentic existence"q

This idealistic and individualistic interpretation of freedom which suggests Erasmus’ and Rousseau;s illusión about/freedom and essential goodness of man is equally rejected by Marxism and Christianity0 Freedom - says Marxism - under the conditions of class society, is not a given matter but a tasko

Hence humanism, as responsibility far the humanity of man, is not the matter of the self-training of the privileged few, neither of an apology for the statusquo, but a concern of the revolution which is destined to change the worlde For the essence,-of man is the world of man: the state, the society£ Whoever dreams about abstract and individual freedom, that man actually supports the injustice of the class society, the dictature of the existing world order0

Neither does Christian anthropology consider freedom as a given condition but as the goal of the work of "humanizing", of our call, of the "putting on of Christ", "If tlx: Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (John 8s36)0 Man is not free if he is left alone to do what Jhe pleases (laissez faire - laissez passer); he becomes free by being created anew. Regeneration, however, has not only an juidiyidua.1 but_ also a communal dimension. Biblical thinlcing does not recognize the category of the isolated individuum - except as the condition of alienation, that is, of sin*

Freedom as task, as event, as a matter of communal life - irrespective of the specific contents of the concept — is structurally similar in the Christian and in the Marxist interpretation.

Anti-individualism, of which we have repeatedly spoken above, and the responsibility for the body, society and world of man, are also common features of the two types of humanism, that is, of Christianity and Marxism, Neither type believes that humanism is only a matter of self-development, the building up of our personality or of our heroically accepting our fate; both affirm that humanism is also political action,® In both cases, philanthropy is the love which changes the wcrld0 The Marxist and Christian humanists are no humanistic dream-