Transcend without transcendence: elements for a materialistic rehabilitation of religion

Abstract

The aim of this article is to understand how Ernst Bloch articulates the conceptions of materialism and religion. Relying especially on F. Schelling, Bloch elaborated a conception of materialism that conceives the ability to transcend without the need to resort to a transcendent being. It is the radical refusal of any form of idolatry. Loaded with utopian content, as Feuerbach had indicated, religions would be a privileged locus of pre-announcement and emergence of the unprecedented. It would be necessary, however, to bring these contents into the realm of social praxis through a hermeneutic of hope, so that they no longer remain separated from the human being, as if they were predicated of a transcendent being. If the materialist position contributes to bringing religious content back to immanence, religion in turn contributes to freeing materialism from its rigidities by adding human and messianic content and senses to them. Thus, by placing religion on a materialistic horizon, Bloch contributes simultaneously to preventing it from degrading into ideology and materialism petrifying into dogmas.