Toward A Christian Worldview - Faith Presbyterian Church Reformed

Chapter 4: False Philosophical Systems
does he get it? Out of thin air. {3}
Another form of atheism is (atheistic) {4} existentialism. Existentialism
teaches, as per the dictum of Jean-Paul Sartre, that “existence
precedes essence.” Here particulars are important, not universals.
There are men, but there is no “man.” And whatever men may become
(their essence), they make of themselves, because there is no divine
essence who creates or produces the essence of man.
Existentialism is closely related to pragmatism (where the end
justifies the means), relativism (where truth is relative), and secularism
(with its accent on the temporal, the here and now). In elevating
existence above essence, men become their own masters; freedom
reigns supreme. When Sartre describes man as a “useless passion,” we
are to understand that in existentialism, men are not to be viewed so
much in terms of their minds or thoughts, but of their feelings, their
passions. And ultimately their passions are “useless.” Life is little
more than the “theater of the absurd.” The only genuinely free act,
then, is suicide.
Existentialism places a strong emphasis on the experience of the
present at the cost of the past and future. There are no ethical absolutes;
truth is individualistic and subjective (there are “truths,” but no
“truth”). As Fedor Dostoevsky said it: “If there is no God, all things
are permissible.” Existentialism logically leads to either nihilism and
3. Sproul, Lifeviews, 71.
4. The word atheistic is added in parentheses before existentialism because there is
a form of existentialism referred to as “Christian existentialism,” which is a contradiction
of terms.
Toward A Christian Worldview 71