| This question <38|38> overall <37|39> Hayduke: <461|87>. |
| Question 75: Why did God create something as imperfect as nature and humans? (And what does this have to do with the topic at hand?) Compare Chapter 1 in Cohen's Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence. |
| [38] Hayduke: God and Marx, Together at Last First of all, we need to clarify that Marx does not recognize God even in a religious sense, far less in an economic one. As Hans writes in the Annotations: “'Dasein' is translated with ‘being’ ...[i]t would not be in Marx's sense to write that labor mediates their existence, because this would be a creationist view” (Ehrbar, “Annotations, Bilingual Version”, pg. 28). Indeed, in the footnote 13 of 133:2/o, Marx denies creation, preferring to view things as a ‘reordering of matter’ whether by ‘the hand of man, ...or the universal laws of physics’. |
| However, before we all turn into atheists to get an A in this class, it is possible to reconcile creationism and Marxism, and answer why God would create imperfect nature and humans. This can be framed within the debate between Marx and Hegel. I will also refer to sources from Annie Dillard's “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”. |
| The Marx/Hegel debate is over the reasons things exist, and have useful properties. Hegel believes things exist to express their useful properties. As Allah states in the Koran “The heaven and the earth, thinkest thou I made them in jest?” In this framework, everything has a purpose. Any imperfections in human and nature are merely from our perception, not from a fault of an imperfect God (Annie Dillard, “The Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”; Perennial Classics, 1999, New York; p.9). |
| Marx sees matter as something that happens to exist, and the value for most matter (with the obvious exception of things such as air, water, etc.) comes from the value we put into it through labor. This can be reconciled with creationism through Pascal's Deus Absconditus theory, that God created the world and then turned his back on it to let it run, with little thought of further purpose. Any imperfections in humans and nature have resulted from corruption since God left (Ibid, p.9). |
| A moderate approach between the two comes from Einstein: “...nature conceals her mystery by means of her essential grandeur, not by her cunning.” In this view, natures' seemed imperfections are part of her overall mystery, and faults are from our perception. As far as the purpose of existence for matter, Dillard writes “God ‘set bars and doors’ and said 'Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further'”. In this view, God created matter that could be used for different purposes. Things do not exist for the purpose of expressing useful properties. Things are available for use, and useful properties come through labor power as Marx states, though within certain limits, similar to Marx's ‘general laws of physics’. (Ibid, p.9). |
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