In our previous exploration, we walked through the smoke-filled cafes of 1940s Paris to define the “mood” of atheistic existentialism. We looked at Jean-Paul Sartre’s “existence precedes essence” and Albert Camus’s “Sisyphus,” both of whom painted a portrait of a human being standing alone in a silent, indifferent universe. To the atheist, we are “condemned to be free,” tasked with the heavy burden of inventing our own values from scratch because there is no divine blueprint to guide us.
However, if we stop the story there, we miss the foundation upon which the entire movement was built. Long before Sartre donned his black turtleneck, and even before Gabriel Marcel coined the term existentialisme, the seeds of this “rebellion against the system” were sown by a lonely, eccentric Danish pastor named Søren Kierkegaard.
While atheistic existentialism asks, “How do I live now that God is dead?”, Christian Existentialism asks a much more daunting and paradoxical question: “How do I live a meaningful life when God is a mystery I can never fully grasp through logic or tradition?”
The Father of the Leap: Søren Kierkegaard
To understand Christian existentialism, one must understand Kierkegaard’s visceral loathing for “The System.” In the 19th century, the intellectual world was dominated by G.W.F. Hegel, who believed that all of history and human experience could be explained through a grand, rational, dialectical architecture. To Hegel, the individual was a small component of “Universal Reason.”
Kierkegaard’s response was, essentially, a scream of protest. He argued that a system can explain the mechanics of a heart, but it cannot explain the experience of a heartbreak. For Kierkegaard, “Truth is subjectivity.” This doesn’t mean that there are no objective facts (like gravity), but rather that the most important truths—the ones worth living and dying for—cannot be proven by a lab report or a logical syllogism. They must be appropriated by the individual through passion and commitment.
The Three Stages of Life
Kierkegaard suggested that an individual moves through three spheres of existence:
- The Aesthetic: Living for pleasure, art, and the avoidance of boredom.
- The Ethical: Living for duty, social norms, and moral laws.
- The Religious: The final stage, where the individual realizes that neither pleasure nor “following the rules” can bridge the gap between a finite human and an infinite God.
This leads to the most famous concept in the movement: The Leap of Faith. Faith is not a “conclusion” reached at the end of a math problem. If you could prove God existed, you wouldn’t need faith; you would only need observation. To Kierkegaard, faith is a “passionate inwardness” that chooses to believe in the face of the Absurd—the paradox that the infinite, eternal Creator became a finite, mortal human in the person of Christ.
The Paradox of the “Absurd”
We often associate “The Absurd” with Camus and the meaninglessness of life. But for the Christian existentialist, the Absurd is the central pivot of the universe. It is the realization that the finite cannot contain the infinite, yet the individual is called to relate to that infinite anyway.
Atheistic existentialism finds the Absurd in the silence of the universe. Christian existentialism finds the Absurd in the nature of God. It is the “scandal” of belief—the idea that a person must step out over “seventy thousand fathoms of water” with no guarantee of being caught, relying solely on their individual commitment to the Divine.
Gabriel Marcel: Problem vs. Mystery
Returning to Gabriel Marcel—the man who actually named the movement—we find a bridge between the 19th-century theology of Kierkegaard and the 20th-century reality of a “broken world.” Marcel, a Catholic convert, was deeply concerned with the way modern technology and bureaucracy “objectify” human beings. He argued that we have turned life into a series of problems to be solved, rather than mysteries to be lived.
- A Problem is something in front of me that I can analyze, take apart, and fix (like a mechanical movement or a software bug). Once solved, the problem disappears.
- A Mystery is something I am involved in. I cannot stand outside of “Love” or “Existence” to analyze it objectively because I am part of the very thing I am trying to understand.
For Marcel, Christian existentialism is the refusal to let oneself be reduced to a “cog” in a social or economic system. It is the insistence on the “ontological weight” of the individual. He believed that we find God not through abstract theological debate, but through Creative Fidelity—the act of being present and faithful to other people.
I and Thou: The Relational God
This leads us to Martin Buber, a Jewish philosopher often grouped with Christian existentialists because of his profound influence on the movement. Buber’s masterpiece, I and Thou, suggests that there are two ways to engage with the world:
- I-It: Treating the world (and people) as objects to be used, categorized, or navigated. This is the realm of the “System.”
- I-Thou: A direct, mutual, and transformative encounter between two beings.
To a Christian existentialist, God is the “Eternal Thou.” We do not find God by talking about Him (I-It), but by talking to Him and meeting Him in the “Thou” of our neighbor. In this view, religion isn’t a set of rules; it is a series of encounters.
The Rebellion Against “Christendom”
One of the most radical aspects of this movement—and the one that mirrors the “anti-system” sentiment we discussed last week—is its critique of organized religion, or what Kierkegaard called “Christendom.”
Kierkegaard lived in a society where everyone was technically a “Christian” because they were born in Denmark and baptized in the state church. He saw this as a spiritual death. If everyone is a Christian, then no one is a Christian. True faith requires a choice. It requires the “Sovereign Individual” to stand alone before God, often in opposition to the crowd.
The crowd, for the existentialist, is the “untruth.” The crowd provides “Bad Faith” (to use Sartre’s term) by allowing the individual to hide. “I’m just doing what the Church says,” or “I’m just following the Bible,” can become ways to avoid the terrifying responsibility of a personal relationship with the Divine. The Christian existentialist argues that you cannot outsource your soul to an institution.
Facticity, Transcendence, and Grace
Last week, we discussed the balance between Facticity (the brute facts of your life) and Transcendence (your ability to choose your meaning). Christian existentialism adds a third element to this equation: Grace.
In the atheistic view, we are the sole creators of our values. We have the “brush in our hand,” but the canvas is lonely. In the Christian view, we still have the brush—we are still responsible for our actions and our “essence”—but we are painting in response to a “Call.”
- The Struggle: We acknowledge our facticity (we are broken, finite, and destined to die).
- The Transcendence: We assert our freedom to move beyond our circumstances.
- The Grace: We realize that our freedom is a gift, and that even when we fail to live authentically, there is a Divine “Thou” who sustains us.
The Critique: Can You Be Free and Obedient?
Just as Marxism and Structuralism critiqued Sartre, Christian existentialism faces its own challenges.
- The Secular Critique: Atheists argue that if you believe in God, you aren’t truly free. If there is a “Higher Authority,” then your choices are just a form of “following orders,” which is the definition of Bad Faith.
- The Theological Critique: Traditionalists argue that existentialism is too “me-centered.” If truth is subjectivity, what stops a person from inventing a “God” that just happens to agree with all their own prejudices?
The Christian existentialist rebuttal is that faith is a risk. It is not a comfort blanket; it is a “fear and trembling.” To obey God is not to follow a manual, but to enter into a terrifyingly personal commitment where the “rules” (like the ethical laws) are often suspended in favor of the “Divine command.”
Conclusion: The Sovereignty of the Soul
As we look back at last week’s “Rebellion Against the System,” we see that existentialism is not just one thing. It is a spectrum of responses to the modern condition.
Atheistic existentialism gives us the dignity of the Self-Creator. It tells us that in a hollow universe, we are the ones who provide the light.
Christian existentialism gives us the dignity of the Sovereign Individual before the Infinite. It tells us that we are more than our jobs, our biological functions, or our place in a “System.” It suggests that meaning is not something we make up out of thin air, but something we forge through a gutsy, irrational, and deeply personal “Yes” to a God who remains hidden behind the veil of the Absurd.
Ultimately, whether you find yourself in a Parisian cafe or a Danish pew, the existentialist message remains the same: the “System” cannot save you. Whether you are rolling a boulder like Sisyphus or taking a leap like Kierkegaard, the responsibility for your life—and the “brush” in your hand—belongs to you alone. The universe may be silent, and the “System” may try to turn you into a cog, but as long as you exist, you have the freedom to choose how you will relate to the Mystery.
Suggested Reading
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Modern Primers
- “At the Existentialist Café” by Sarah Bakewell: A brilliant biographical history that brings these thinkers to life.
- “The Heart of Kierkegaard” edited by Terry Moore: A great collection of his journals and most accessible essays.
Theistic Foundations
- “Fear and Trembling” by Søren Kierkegaard: The definitive text on the Leap of Faith and the radical isolation of the individual.
- “The Mystery of Being” by Gabriel Marcel: A beautiful look at why life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved.
- “I and Thou” by Martin Buber: The foundational text for relational existentialism and the encounter with the Divine.
The Bridge to Modernity
- “The Courage to Be” by Paul Tillich: A 20th-century classic that looks at how faith provides the courage to overcome the anxiety of “non-being.”
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