Abstract:
This article examines the way in which certain fundamental
elements constituting the Christian religion manifest themselves
in the writings of French writers and philosophers Jean-Paul
Sartre and Albert Camus, authors marked by their inscription
within the same existentialist post-war literary tradition. In the
case of both Sartre and Camus, this tradition is particularly
characterised by a literature seeking to affirm itself as resolutely
atheist on the one hand, yet infused with an unshakeable moral
imperative on the other, obliging a continuous effort by the two
authors to justify it in the face of their maintained conviction that
the universe has neither creator nor existential meaning. The
contradiction between these two characteristics, and particularly
the fact that the first cannot be logically derived from the second,
allows for the proposition that the atheism affected by both
writers might not be as absolute as it seems, and that, despite all
efforts to reject the notion of divine existence, the moral
imperative both support with such fervour is actually derived
from a lingering Christian faith.
