Response to Denys Turner

First, let me thank Denys Turner for a characteristically stimulating and thought-provoking article, which has taught me much, especially about the crucial differences in two distinct theories of atheism in Marx’s thought. In responding to Turner I would like to take up just three major points from his article; and as well as commenting on what he writes here, I shall attempt to push the themes he raises a bit further in order to link them to the core concerns of this symposium and to potential contact with other articles. My three points of discussion, to anticipate, are these: 1. The problem of ‘self-deception’ highlighted by Turner, and its seeming philosophical incoherence. Can this be further illuminated, even resolved, in some way?; The problem of the relationship of Marx’s two renditions of atheism, and whether either or both are susceptible to a successful Christian riposte, especially with the aid of resources in ‘negative theology’, so-called; and 3. The wider issue, left curiously hanging by Turner at the end of his article, of whether, how, and if at all, the ‘political’ could be coordinated with the ‘theological’ without ‘self-deception’ and ‘ideology’. All three of these topics seem somewhat unresolved in what Turner has offered us in this particular article. And yet we all know from Turner’s other work on ‘negative theology’ traditions that he could, in principle, have joined the dots between his Marxist analysis here and his account of purgative divine darkness elsewhere1 , and that is why I would like to press these issues further. They seem, indeed, crucial for the concerns of this symposium as a whole.