Austin Clide. About Existentialism

Autor:Austin Clide
http://atheism.about.com/od/typesofexistentialism/a/christian.htm

Some of the most significant examples of literary existentialism can be found in the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, a 19th-century Russian novelist who wasn’t even technically an existentialist because he wrote so long before anything like a self-aware existentialism existed. Dostoyevsky was, however, very much a part of the 19th century protests against the common philosophical argument that the universe should be treated as a total, rational, comprehensible system of matter and ideas — exactly the attitude that existentialist philosophers have generally criticized.

According to Dostoyevsky and those like him, the universe is much more random and irrational than we want to believe.

There is no rational pattern, there is no overarching theme, and there is no way to fit everything in neat little categories. We might think that we experience order, but in reality the universe is quite unpredictable. As a consequence, attempts to construct a rational humanism that orders our values and commitments is simply a waste of time because the rationalized generalizations we create will only let us down if we rely on them too much.
The idea that there are no rational patterns in life that we can rely upon is a prominent theme in Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground (1864), where an alienated antihero struggles against optimistic assumptions of the rationalist humanism around him. Ultimately, Dostoyevsky seems to argue, we can only find our way by turning to Christian love — something that must be lived, not understood philosophically.

The existentialism we see today is rooted most prominently in the writings of Søren Kierkegaard, and as a consequence, it might be argued that modern existentialism started out as being fundamentally Christian in nature, only later diverging into other forms. It is thus important to understand Christian existentialism in order to understand existentialism at all.
A central question in Kierkegaard’s writings is how the individual human being can come to terms with their own existence, for it is that existence which is the most important thing in every person’s life. Unfortunately, we are as if adrift in a infinite sea of possible modes of living with no secure anchor that reason informs us will provide certainty and confidence.

This produces despair and anguish, but in the midst of our “metaphysical sickness” we will face a “crisis,” a crisis which reason and rationality cannot decide
We are forced to reach a decision anyway and to make a commitment, but only after making what Kierkegaard called a “leap of faith” — a leap that is preceded by an awareness of our own freedom and the fact that we might choose wrongly, but nevertheless we must make a choice if we are to truly live.
Those who have developed the Christian themes of Kierkegaard’s existentialism explicitly focus upon the idea that the leap of faith we make must be one which causes us to surrender ourselves totally to God rather than to insist on a continued reliance upon our own reason. It is, then, a focus upon the triumph of faith over philosophy or intellect.
Two of the most important literary existentialists were French: Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. Unlike so many other philosophers, Sartre didn’t simply write technical works for the consumption of trained philosophers. He was unusual in that he wrote philosophy both for philosophers and for lay people: works aimed at the former were typically heavy and complex philosophical books while works aimed at the latter were plays or novels.
A principle theme in the novels of Albert Camus, a French-Algerian journalist, is the idea that human life is, objectively speaking, meaningless. This results in absurdity which can only be overcome by a commitment to moral integrity and social solidarity. According to Camus the absurd is produced via conflict — a conflict between our expectation of a rational, just universe and the actual universe that it is quite indifferent to all of our expectations.