I think that before studying the philosophy of Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1981), I would never have guessed that the philosophy of the most famous existentialist, indeed the most famous atheistic existentialist, would have helped me in reflecting on the mystery of God.
This is a clear example in my life of discovering truth where you least expect to find it. Perhaps of all the atheistic philosophers I have studied in the many years that I have been reading and teaching philosophy, I have benefited most from Sartre. How strange that an avowed atheist helped me grow in knowledge of God.
In their small but excellent book “Religion and Atheism” (Duquesne University Press, 1971), authors William A. Luijpen and Henry J. Koren write the following:
“Sartre doesn’t keep us guessing about the reasons for his atheism. He tells us without any ambiguity that God cannot exist because the freedom which is traditionally ascribed to God, really belongs to man (p. 140). … Sartre’s argument against the Creator God would be valid if the creative action of God could be adequately described by way of analogy with the creativity of a craftsman. The maker of a thing ‘fixes’ it in such a way that the thing ‘itself’ is fully determined. But there is also a different type of causality, one which does not take away the subject’s freedom, viz., the creative causality of love. Love wills the other subject as a free self-realizing being, it makes the beloved be something which otherwise would have been completely beyond his reach. As most young people have experienced, they and their world are completely transformed, they begin to be in a different way when their beloved tells them ‘I love you, too, Johnny.’ Yet … love does not in any way destroy the beloved’s freedom; on the contrary, love is essentially respect for the other’s freedom” (p. 155).
If the love expressed in the statement “I love you too, Johnny” can have such a profound creative influence on Johnny, what can God’s love for us accomplish in us, and how can God’s love influence us and create us?
I am going to use an imaginary reflection on God’s love for me with the hope that it might encourage the readers of this column to engage in a similar reflection:
“I am infinitely loved by God. God’s love for Bob Lauder is so great, so awesome, that I cannot even conceive of it. If I think of the most loving human being I know and try to multiply that love by a million, I do not even come close to the unlimited love that God has for me. What is my self-identity? Is it summed up by my height? No! Is it best expressed by my physical appearance? No! Is it best expressed by my weight? My cholesterol? Definitely not! My age? Again, No! What then? It is best expressed by the most profound truth about me. That most profound truth is that God, who is infinite love, who at this moment is creating the universe, is creating the sun, the moon, the stars, and is infinitely in love with me. That God loves me more than I can ever completely comprehend is the most profound truth about me. And what is equally amazing and awesome is that I do not have to win that love, earn that love, or merit that love. God’s love for me is a pure gift. No matter what I do, no matter what sins I may commit, God will never withdraw that love. God is loving me as I am writing this column. God is loving me when I am eating, sleeping, teaching, praying, laughing, crying. God is loving me when I am with friends. God is loving me when I am alone. God will never stop loving me. That God loves me is the most important truth about Bob Lauder. God’s love gives me my self-identity. I have been a Catholic all my life, a priest for more than 65 years, but somehow for much of my life I think I was relatively unaware of what an awesome, mind-boggling truth God’s unlimited love for me is.”
For all his genius, Sartre had it backwards. God’s love for us does not make us things. God’s love for us creates us as free human persons whose possible growth in freedom is unlimited, whose development as persons has no upper limit.
God’s love for us has a special power to help us grow in holiness. If the love my friends have for me enables me to grow as a person, what can God’s love for me enable me to become?
In terms of personal growth, what we usually refer to as holiness, it seems that the sky’s the limit. It seems there is no limit.
Father Lauder is a philosophy professor at St. John’s University, Jamaica. His new book, “The Cosmic Love Story: God and Us,” is available on Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.