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The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle", writes Marx.

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle", writes Marx.


The entirety of human history is no more than a battle of competitive human wills if the universe and we ourselves are mere irrational creatures fighting each other for domination. 

Reason is no longer a possible common ground for dialogue. For the peak of human history to come, a revolution must take place—and not without the shedding of blood. 

Lenin, who seeked to bring about Marx's vision, wrote, “The proletariat needs state power, the centralized organization of force, the organization of violence, for the purpose of crushing the resistance of the exploiters." 

And when that peak comes, private property would be abolished, and man would then flourish communally under the direction of reason.

But that is a big if. 

If we are not mere irrational creatures and if the universe is designed by Reason Itself, then a world governed by rationality and not by domination is at least hypothetically possible. 

Human history as mere class struggle is therefore utterly reductionistic, let alone, dangerous. This priority of reason is what the first pages of the sacred texts offer when analyzed in its historical context. In the words of Ratzinger:

"For often enough it looks as if the world is a dragon's lair and human blood is dragon's blood. But despite all oppressive experiences the scriptural account says that it was not so. 

The whole tale of these sinister powers melts away in a few words: 'The earth was without form and void.' Behind these Hebrew words lie the dragon and the demonic powers that are spoken of elsewhere. 

Now it is the void that alone remains and that stands as the sole power over against God. And in the face of any fear of these demonic forces we are told that God alone, who is the eternal Reason that is eternal love, created the world, and that it rests in his hands. 

Only with this in mind can we appreciate the dramatic confrontation implicit in this biblical text, in which all these confused myths were rejected and the world was given its origin in God's Reason and in his Word. ... [The creation] of the world was not a demonic contest but ... it arose from God's Reason and reposes on God's Word. 

Hence this creation account may be seen as the decisive 'enlightenment' of history and as a break-through out of the fears that had oppressed humankind. It placed the world in the context of reason and recognized the world's reasonableness and freedom."

And contra the Marxists, the peak of human history is when the Logos, Reason Itself, became flesh and dwelt amongst us. Finally, He who created order from chaos could bring us into the fullness of human flourishing without any violence done, and instead only violence suffered.

And what about Marx's thought that a society that has ignored or worse despised God could, through a final and ultimate revolution, gain a recognition of the priority of reason and thereby use it organize a finally flourishing classless society? He was dreaming. 

How could mere irrational brutes suddenly evolve into peaceful, virtuous rational gods just by killing each other? An "enlightenment" without God is myth. 

Ratzinger observed that Scripture's grounding of "human reason firmly on the primordial basis of God's creating Reason, in order to establish it in truth and in love," is a sine qua non for authentic human flourshing. Without such grounding, "an 'enlightenment' would be exorbitant and ultimately foolish."

With brutal honesty, Nietzsche wrote, "When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one’s feet. This morality is by no means self-evident. Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole. It stands or falls with faith in God."

For the sake of reason, let us heed the words of Sheen on the Incarnate Logos:

"He is the supreme reality of history, the cornerstone in the edifice of humanity, the keystone in the arch of time, and the measure of the world: the lamb slain from the beginning of the world."

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