Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848

182 } Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany

democratic state. Not Christianity, but the human basis of Christianity is the

basis of this state. Religion remains the ideal, non-secular consciousness of

its members, because religion is the ideal form of the stage of human develop-

ment achieved in this state.^129

Notwithstanding his emphatic claims to base his analysis in empirical history,

Marx espouses a model of history in which successive stages of human con-

sciousness unfold teleologically. Behind both “religious spirit” and the realm

of secular politics in which Marx would resolve questions of religion lies the

“human basis of Christianity.” What is this foundation of foundations common

to religion and secular politics alike? It is a “stage of development of the human

mind” (Entwicklungsstufe des menschlichen Geistes). This stage of human spirit

can express itself in a secular guise (in democratic politics) or in the guise of

religion proper. Marx argues that this spirit cannot really be secularized because

it is not really secular. It can only be secularized in the sense that, or to the lim-

ited extent (insofern) that, it can be expressed in secular form in the democratic

state. Whatever is erected on this spiritual human foundation—whether the

secular state or religion proper—will reflect its dualistic structure. The realiza-

tion of the “human basis” of religion cannot be more secular than the basis itself.

The realization of the human basis of religion in the secular state remains reli-

gious because—beyond the nominal distinction between secular and religious

—all manifestations of the current stage of development of the human spirit

remain dualistic (structurally Christian). Breckman distills the circularity of

Marx’s argument when he notes that “at the same time as [Marx] resolved to

turn ‘theological questions into secular ones,’ he metaphorically converted secu-

lar phenomena into theology. His intention to explain religion as a manifestation

of secular narrowness in fact exposed the ‘theological’ structure of that secular

base.”^130

Marx’s claim to be able to resolve the Jewish Question and questions of reli-

gion in general into questions of secular politics rests on the concomitant claim

that the dualism of modern secular politics—the society-state dichotomy—is

more basic than the mere epiphenomena of religion. Yet the structuring dualism

of secular politics is more basic insofar as it is a more universal expression of

the current structurally Christian stage of human development. Secular politi-

cal modernity is the foundation of religion, in other words, by virtue of being

a more perfect or universal expression of religious mentality than religion itself

could ever be. The secular world in which Marx wishes to ground his argu-

ment turns out to be an expression of the religious essence beyond religion.

“The human basis of Christianity” understood as a “stage of development of the