The existentialist, on the contrary, finds it extremely embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with Him all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. There can no longer be any good a priori, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. It is nowhere written that the good exists, that one must be honest or must not lie, since we are now upon the plane where there are only men. Dostoevsky once wrote: If God did not exist, everything would be permitted; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point. Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself. He discovers forthwith, that he is without excuse.
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About Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre was a 20th-century French existentialist philosopher. Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism. Sartre was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism. Read more on Wikipedia →
Themes
- God — Spiritual reflections on the divine, faith, and creation