Criticism of Marx’s views on religion by Sergei Bulgakov and John Milbank

Abstract

This article is dedicated to the attitude of two Christian theologists, John Milbank and Sergius Bulgakov, towards critical views of Karl Marx on religion. It is known that, on the one hand, the criticism of religion in Marx’s philosophy seemed to him to be the base of any other criticism and, on the other hand, that already amongst his contemporaries there were thinkers who named themselves “Christian socialists”. Sergius Bulgakov also identified himself with that tradition and John Milbank, who develops those ideas today, refers not only to the first socialists of 19th century, but also to works of Russian thinkers including Bulgakov. This article not only points out to the affinity of thought of two authors, who declares themselves to be Christian socialists, but also to the difference in critical methods and in accents on philosophical context in which Marx’ attitude towards religion was shaped. For example, while Bulgakov concerns Marx not to be self-contained thinker in the philosophy history, completely dependent on Feuerbach’s ideas, Milbank goes further, drawing attention to precondition of Marx’ foundations to be already existed in the classic German idealism.