Why are these linear conceptions of history so seductive? The first and foremost reason these linear conceptions of history seem plausible is because time moves in a linear fashion.

The Coming Christian Renaissance

by David Byrne

The linear conception of history is so seductive, even antagonistic groups like Enlightenment philosophers and Marxists adopt it. It pervades their attitude toward religion. Both believe society matures as it sheds its religious heritage. Infantile societies practice religion, but progressive societies are secular, they maintain.

Voltaire viciously expressed Enlightenment hostility toward organized religion when he declared, “Every sensible man, every honorable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror.” Yet it was the laterphilosophe Condorcet who linked progress and secularization. Condorcet argued that societies move in a linear fashion, progressing from tribal times to his own age before climaxing in an era which had yet to come, an era guided by reason. Nothing has impeded human progress, nothing has prevented the arrival of this glorious stage more than religion, specifically Christian antipathy to all things related to science and philosophy. Fortunately, the future is bright since humanity is slowly abandoning religion. Advances in science and philosophy have strengthened the human condition. The trend will continue: “The time will therefore come when the sun will shine only on free men who know no other master but their reason; when tyrants and slaves, priests and their stupid or hypocritical instruments will exist only in works of history….” Reason will replace superstition, paving the way for the elimination of sickness, poverty, and even war.

Marx continues this linear conception of history by arguing that societies advance from the Ancient, to the Feudal to his Modern (bourgeoisie capitalist) Age, the socialist stage and finally, the glorious communist stage, with class struggle driving history. Marx maintained that the bourgeoisie use religion merely to enslave the working class. “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” But the future is bright because the demise of capitalism is inevitable and with it will crumble the religion it bequeaths to the modern world. The decline of religion is every bit as inevitable and magical as the victory of the proletariat. Like Condorcet, Marx didn’t just condemn religion, he proclaimed its demise as society progressed from capitalism to communism, from primitive to progressive.

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