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Undoubtedly Erich Fromm offers a valuable insight into the nature of man. Unquestionably, man can give meaning to his existence by perfecting himself, by developing his potentialities to the utmost. However, for the Christian, the psychologist's solution is incomplete. Such an approach to the nature of man fails to take into account the Christian truths of original sin and grace. Of course man's life is to be productive. Yet, it is not man who gives the ultimate meaning to his life. Man does not achieve the realization of his potentialities unaided. Man is not reduced to the help- less position of aloneness in Christian thought. God, through Christ, is pointing out the true meaning of human existence to eve1y man who seeks it from Him. Again, through Christ the Father offers the strength necessary to overcome the problems and dangers encountered in the human situation. There is a transcending power who cares about man and leads him to his ultimate destiny. Man is for this personal God. He is not for himself. Yes, man is to be productive; he is to strive for perfection, the full development of all his potentialities; not for himself, but for God. >Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or do anything else, do all for the glory of God.< ( I Cor. 10:31)
[First page] The aim of this paper is to clarify the difference between Fromm's concept of alienation from Marx's, and thus to evaluate the significance Fromm's idea of alienation. 1. The standard of the un-alienated Marx sees man as a process of self-creation through labor (= activity in general). To Marx, the un-alienated man is, first, the individual two each day realizes the potentialities of his being through work which gives his inner capacities the form of concrete embodiments, and second, at the same time the subject of history whose potentialities and inner capacities are got the form of historical embodiments through the mode of production in each period. Fromm as a moralist changes Marx's objective concept of man into a subjective one. Fromm conceives man as the bearer of the unchangeable basic needs which are inherent in human nature and the human condition. For Fromm, the un-alienated man is the man who has satisfied and fulfilled these basic needs in a productive way, who has realized a normative basis of his nature which remains the same always and everywhere. From Marx's point of view, love, happiness and other universal values which constitute Fromm's substantialized criterion of the un-alienated are nothing but passing phenomena which are at every moment to be enriched, to be changed and to be conquered in the self-creating process of man through labor. Fromm does not bring Marx's thought up to date but pulls it back to the stage of Feuerbach's thought. 2. Alienation and its social background. Fromm conceives alienation as a psychological phenomenon. Alienation is thought to be a pattern of social character which has been former without the fulfillment of the basic needs. Fromm's concept of alienation is, after all, an unhistorical concept. Alienation in Marx's sense is not a mere psychological state, but an objective and total situation of man which involves three spheres: the realm …