Emma Goldman: “The Philosophy of Atheism”

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

Goldman’s philosophy of atheism draws on Bakunin, and her essay is partly intended to make his ideas accessible to a mass audience. But it is more than popularization. Goldman’s contribution lies not only in her ability to popularize but also in her ability to synthesize two apparently antithetical strands of anarchist thought—individualist and collectivist—and in the resulting movement toward an ethic that can underwrite politically consistent action beyond the constraints of electoral politics. While the essay is by no means a comprehensive theory of ethics, it is a significant contribution to understanding the consistency of Goldman’s actions across a remarkable range of issues. It is a contribution to theology because of the clarity with which it delineates the relationship between concepts of god and human consciousness—a relationship that Goldman did not discover or invent but that she articulates in a singularly accessible way.

Paragraphs 1 and 2

Goldman begins with an assertion familiar to readers of Marx and Bakunin, an assertion that shows the indirect influence of Hegel on her thinking: An exposition of the philosophy of atheism is necessarily a “genetic” one, that is, it has to attend to the historical transformation of the belief in a deity. Goldman says that the concept of “god” “has become more indefinite and obscure in the course of time and progress.” As science advances (particularly in terms of correlating “human and social events”), the “God idea” grows more impersonal and less distinct. It is worth bearing in mind that discussions of theology—as the thirteenth-century philosopher Thomas Aquinas noted in his famous five “proofs” of the existence of God, in his Summa theologiae—are about language or concepts of god, not about God. As Goldman maintains, “God” does not represent what it represented in the beginning. The concept expresses “a sort of spiritualistic stimulus to satisfy the fads and fancies of every shade of human weakness.” Because the God idea adapts to human development, it is an indicator of where human beings are in that development. Although Goldman does not pursue this idea, it is a rationale for the study of religion, and it has been taken as such by a number of twentieth-century theologians, including liberation theologians, who consider salvation as providing freedom from social injustice and who employ Marxist social theory in considering reflection on action.

Paragraphs 3–5

Goldman asserts that the conception of gods originated in fear and curiosity. The concept is used to explain something that appears inexplicable. This, of course, is not the only theory of god or gods, but it is a consistent one that has guided a good deal of work in the history of religions and the sociology of religion. Goldman quotes Bakunin: “The history of religions … is nothing … but the development of the collective intelligence and conscience of mankind.” The long quotation Goldman cites concludes with the assertion that “the idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty, and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind, both in theory and practice.” The reason for looking at the history of religions is to get a reading of human social development.

With this reason comes a warning. Both the reason and the warning are important keys to Goldman’s use of Bakunin. The state of religion, like the state of the state or the state of the economy or the state of sexual relations, can tell us something about the state of human development. But it can also be an abdication of autonomy and a tool in the service of oppression. Following Bakunin, Goldman maintains that theism becomes superfluous as human beings become autonomous. She also maintains, however, that human freedom depends on “outgrowing” dependence on God. This is consistent with Bakunin’s connection of God and the state in his revolutionary theory, and it puts Goldman’s apparently militant atheism in context. The God idea is equivalent to the idea of the state. While it is possible to argue that both will wither away as human beings mature, it is also possible to argue that, because both the state and the god concept foster dependence, both must be actively opposed and neither can be trusted as a tool in the service of liberation.

Paragraphs 6–8

When Goldman refers to theism as “the theory of speculation” and atheism as “the science of demonstration,” she places atheism at the heart of her social theory. This does not so much rule out religion as redefine it by redirecting its attention. “It is the earth,” she writes, “not heaven, which man must rescue if he is truly to be saved.” This bears a striking resemblance to some variations on the “Social Gospel” being articulated at about the same time Goldman was writing, and it also resonates with later articulations of liberation theology. It is telling that all of these approaches were written “on the fly” by practitioners rather than theorists and that all had intimate connections with workers involved in practical struggles that could not be easily contained within politics narrowly defined. Goldman locates herself in a twentieth-century tradition deeply committed to action and deeply suspicious of theory. Her thought resonates with pragmatism, particularly as it developed (again, at about the same time she was writing and speaking) in the work of the American philosopher John Dewey. When Goldman writes that the “theists” realize that “the masses are growing daily more atheistic,” that “more and more the masses are becoming engrossed in the problems of their immediate existence,” she turns a liability into a strength. The everyday struggle for survival turns “the masses” away from the god concept.

Presenting this turn as “natural” seems, uncharacteristically, to ignore the strategies of those with whom Goldman most often found herself at odds, represented in this essay by the immensely popular athlete-turned-evangelist Billy Sunday (1862–1935). More properly, within the context of this essay and Goldman’s work as a whole, immersion in the everyday appears to be an opportunity to turn the masses away from the God idea, and that turning is one way to describe Goldman’s work. Enlightenment is not a “natural” process that unfolds apart from conscious activity; it is a process of popular education. Goldman’s clearest indictment of the church comes when she says that the theists are concerned with bringing the masses back to the God idea because atheism threatens “the largest, the most corrupt and pernicious, the most powerful and lucrative industry in the world, not excepting the industry of manufacturing guns and munitions,” which she identifies as “the industry of befogging the human mind and stifling the human heart.” She does not quite identify that industry with the church, but she certainly identifies the theists as its apologists. This identification of an “industry” intent on “befogging the human mind” anticipates the culture industry of critical theory and is an important indicator of the consistency of Goldman’s thought. She chose her targets on the basis of their role in a system that worked to befog the human mind. Like Marx and the critical theorists who were influenced by him, she sets her sights on social processes by which “false consciousness” and alienation are manufactured—not the symptoms, but the process and the causes.

Paragraphs 9–11

Given the context, Goldman’s description of the tolerance of denominations as a sign of their weakness rather than their understanding is a frontal attack. The Congress of Religious Philosophy was one of many interfaith and interdenominational gatherings organized at the time. Goldman dismisses the very platform on which she stands when she says that “it is characteristic of theistic ‘tolerance’ that no one really cares what the people believe in, just so they believe or pretend to believe.” Religious belief is a means of control. Referring to political and business leaders, she writes, “They know that capital invested in Billy Sunday, the Y.M.C.A., Christian Science, and various other religious institutions will return enormous profits from the subdued, tamed, and dull masses.” The state of religion is an indicator of the state of human development, but it is also a tool by which to arrest that development. “Consciously or unconsciously,” she writes, “most theists see in gods and devils, heaven and hell; reward and punishment, a whip to lash the people into obedience, meekness and contentment.”

Paragraphs 12–15

Goldman’s response is a variation on the assertion that has spawned a long line of theodicies, or defenses of God’s goodness and omnipotence despite the existence of evil in the world. She points to “the agony of the human race” as a demonstration of how bankrupt the theistic idea is. No god arises to end injustice, so humankind must do so.

Turning from the bankruptcy of theism, Goldman outlines her positive vision of atheism as a philosophy of human development concerned with consciousness. “The philosophy of Atheism,” she writes, “expresses the expansion and growth of the human mind.” Theism is static, atheism dynamic. Goldman’s comment that “things do not act in a particular way because there is a law, but we state the ‘law’ because they act in that way” is an important key to her embrace of atheism. “The philosophy of Atheism,” she writes, “represents a concept of life without any metaphysical Beyond or Divine Regulator. It is the concept of an actual, real world with its liberating, expanding and beautifying possibilities, as against an unreal world, which, with its spirits, oracles, and mean contentment has kept humanity in helpless degradation.” This is a variation, common to Goldman, Bakunin, and Kropotkin, on Marxian materialism. The turn is not from the “ideal” to the “material” but from an illusory “other” world to this one. Goldman states her philosophy of atheism as a variation on the theme of engagement in this world, an argument against the kind of escapism that she believes can underwrite and reinforce enslavement.

Paragraphs 16–18

“Gods in their individual function,” Goldman says, “are not half as pernicious as the principle of theism which represents the belief in a supernatural, or even omnipotent, power to rule the earth and man upon it. It is the absolutism of theism, its pernicious influence upon humanity, its paralyzing effect upon thought and action, which Atheism is fighting with all its power.” Goldman’s atheism is one facet of her opposition to absolutism in all forms, the same opposition that underwrites her suspicion of the state and centralized power. Once again taking up language that echoes Hebrew prophecy, Goldman writes that humankind “has been punished long and heavily for having created its gods; nothing but pain and persecution have been man’s lot since gods began. There is but one way out of this blunder: Man must break his fetters which have chained him to the gates of heaven and hell, so that he can begin to fashion out of his reawakened and illumined consciousness a new world upon earth.” The argument concerns the turn human beings take in our relation to the world in which we live—and the way the things we make and the way we make them turn us. Goldman objects to every system that turns human beings from the world. “Beauty as a gift from heaven,” she says, “has proved useless. It will, however, become the essence and impetus of life when man learns to see in the earth the only heaven fit for man.”

Paragraphs 19–22

Turning to an often-repeated argument in defense of religion, Goldman asks, “Do not all theists insist that there can be no morality, no justice, honesty or fidelity without the belief in a Divine Power?” Her answer echoes Kropotkin and offers another direction for ethical theory. “Based upon fear and hope,” she says, “such morality has always been a vile product, imbued partly with self-righteousness, partly with hypocrisy.” These closing paragraphs hint at an ethical theory that values autonomy: “Thoughtful people are beginning to realize that moral precepts, imposed upon humanity through religious terror, have become stereotyped and have therefore lost all vitality.” What she is looking for in her espousal of atheism are vital moral precepts. She repeats the phrase familiar from prophetic literature: “Man must get back to himself before he can learn his relation to his fellows.” The phrase is a reflection of Goldman’s original appropriation of Max Stirner, of her insistence on holding together the individual and the communal, that is, in her understanding, always an affirmation and embrace of the human: “Atheism in its negation of gods is at the same time the strongest affirmation of man, and through man, the eternal yea to life, purpose, and beauty.”