The last two columns were about existentialist philosophers. One was about Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), the first existentialist and a deeply religious Christian, the other was about the most famous atheistic existentialist, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980).
Writing these columns has helped me truly see just how much I have been influenced by existentialism, which I began teaching almost as soon as I started teaching philosophy many years ago.
Sartre was an atheist because of his view of human freedom. He believed that once we accept that human persons are free, there is no way that the existence of God can be affirmed. Sartre thought that there was no role for God in our lives once we accept that we are free.
Sartre offered three arguments to support his atheism. I think perhaps the strongest argument for the nonexistence of God that any thinker has ever offered, is from a comparison that Sartre makes between a human artist and a Divine Artist.
The French philosopher basically argues that once we agree that human persons are free, it is impossible to accept the existence of God. To put it very simply, an all-powerful God would make human freedom impossible.
God’s power would erase our freedom. Philosophers have pointed out that it is more accurate to speak of God as creating us than to say that God created us. When we speak of God creating us, we are indicating that God is constantly creating each and every part of us, that at every moment of our existence God’s creative activity is holding us in existence.
If for one second God would stop creating us then we would quickly return to nothingness. If God should stop creating us, we would cease to exist. The French existentialist points out that there is always some flaw in every work created by a human artist. No work of art completely and perfectly expresses what the human artist was trying to create.
Sartre claims that if there was a Divine Artist, creatures would be exactly what the Divine Artist wished them to be and we would not be free. God’s presence would be controlling.
I want to make Sartre’s argument for atheism as clear as I can. Imagine that I think I am writing this column freely. I think I am freely hitting the letters on my computer. But such free actions are impossible if there is an all-powerful Creator, argues Sartre. If God existed then God would be creating every inch of me. God would be creating my fingers, my arms, my biceps, my brain, my will.
There would be no part of me that escaped God’s creative causality. If no part of me escapes God’s creative causality then what am I contributing? While I imagine that I am freely tapping the letters on my computer and so am freely writing this column, it would be God writing the column and so I would not be contributing anything. Sartre believed because we are free there cannot be a
God creating us every second.
I cannot explain the great mystery of how God’s creative causality and my freedom interact, but I think Ican explain the mistake that Sartre makes. Sartre is thinking of God as a physical cause. If God were a physical cause forcing us to act in a certain way, I believe that I would have to agree with Sartre that there is no way that such a God and a free human person could coexist.
But what if God is not a physical cause but a love cause? What does love do? Love frees and liberates the beloved. If human beings who love me free me, how free would I be by accepting God’s infinite and all-powerful love?
God’s loving involvement in my life does not make me less free but allows me to be more free. I think that it is paradoxical that in trying to disprove God’s existence, Sartre has helped me to think of God not as a force that removes our freedom but as a lover who intensifies and deepens our freedom. This view of God can help us in reflecting on the Holy Spirit‘s presence in our lives as not a controlling presence or a presence that makes our freedom impossible.
Rather the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives is a liberating presence, a presence who helps us to be more free. The greatest minds in the world will never completely understand the mystery of God. However we can go deeper and deeper in our awareness of the Holy Spirit liberating us. I feel grateful to Sartre who in his claim that God and free human persons cannot coexist, helped me to appreciate the liberating presence of God in our lives.
Father Lauder is a philosophy professor at St. John’s University, Jamaica. He presents two 15-minute talks from his lecture series on the Catholic Novel, 10:30 a.m. Monday through Friday on NET-TV.