Existentialism’s hidden God : submission and revolt in the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus

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.