Is atheism now a problem?

Author(s): P. Masterson
Source: Hermathena , Winter 1977, No. 123, Arthur Aston Luce: Fellow of Trinity
College, Dublin 1912 — 1977 (Winter 1977), pp. 26-33
Published by: Trinity College Dublin

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23040427

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 Is atheism now a problem?
by P. Masterson

If religion was a solution is atheism now a problem? Or is atheism, as

Marx and Nietzsche seem to think, an essential precondition of a
new solution? These are the questions to which I have been invited
to address a few remarks this afternoon.* The issue they raise is so
vast and the time at our disposal so brief I must confine my observa
tions to three rather general points. Hopefully, these will be some
what refined and expanded in the course of discussion. These three
points are:

1. an indication of what seems to be the most distinctive feature of

the atheism deriving from the thought of writers such as Marx
and Nietzsche
2. a discussion of in what sense this atheism can be said to be
problematic
3. a brief consideration of the prospects for theism in the light of
the observations made on these first two points.

Firstly then, what is most distinctive about the sort of atheism

which the thought of Marx and Nietzsche has inspired? Initially it
may seem rather misguided to look for any distinctive common bond
in the atheism of these two writers since the atheism of each sustains
such very different conceptions of man. Marx the great egalitarian
argues that man's true reality is achieved only through a communist
society in which the oppression inflicted by dominant individuals
and classes is replaced by the effective realization of man as a
species being. Nietzsche, on the other hand, is utterly aristocratic in
his thought. He looks for the achievement, through exercise of the
will to power, of the few exceptional individuals—the supermen—
who will transcend and dominate the herdlike reality which is the
unavoidable lot of the ordinary man. In each case the affirmation of
*This paper was read at a seminar on atheism held in the Department of Philosophy,
Trinity College, in Hilary term 1975.

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 Is atheism now a problem?
God is rejected primarily because it impedes and is considered
incompatible with their respective conceptions of man. Thus Marx
rejects the affirmation of God as something which because it justifies
and reinforces class distinction and exploitation of the ordinary man
is therefore an obstacle to the attainment of the communist society.
Nietzsche rejects the affirmation of God as a resentful invention of
inherently inferior men and used by them to inculcate pseudo-virtues
such as charity, self-sacrifice and equality which undermine the
effective exercise of the will to power through which the self-reliant
and hard reality of the exceptional and dominant individual or
superman can come about.
Nevertheless, there is a sense in which the atheism of Marx and
that of Nietzsche have a closer affinity with one another than with
the scepticism of Hume or with the barrage of criticism which Kant
directed against all arguments for the existence of God. Moreover, in
many ways it is the spirit of Marx's and Nietzsche's atheism which
is more characteristic of the widespread phenomenon of present day
atheism than the critical onslaught of Hume and Kant.
The most distinctive common feature of the atheism of both
Marx and Nietzsche is the essentially postulatory, moralistic and
practical character of this atheism in each case. It is not the outcome
of a dispassionate, speculative description of how things are but
rather of a passionate, willed prescription concerning how things are
to be—in virtue of man's own practical endeavour. It is an atheism
which must be understood in the light of Marx's claim that whereas
heretofore philosophers have sought to interpret the world hence
forth the task is to change it; and of Nietzsche's injunction, 'Let your
will say: Superman is to be the meaning of the earth'.
In each case there is an abhorrence of the actual order of things
—more metaphysically, a profound mistrust and even hatred of
being. Associated with this hatred of being as it is there is the claim
that man, through the exercise of the will to power or an effective
programme of political praxis, can achieve a profound transforma
tion of the world and bring about a reign of authentic value. As
things stand there is no trans-human system of objective value in
which man might seek to anchor an account of his true significance.
All alleged existing values and metaphysical theories of the good are
morbid illusions. Nothing can be relied upon except the hard facts
of empirical science and, more importantly, the creative virtuosity of
man who tends to be ever more closely identified with his power of
free decision. It is taken as axiomatic that it is intolerable that any

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 P. Masterson

absolute other than man should be acknowledged. Moreove

effective reality of man as the only and self-sufficient absolute i
achieved exclusively through his uncompromising will to pow
revolutionary praxis. Any affirmation of God as an absolute so
of meaning and value more ultimate than man himself is se
profound source of human alienation—a morally reprehen
abdication of the autonomy and responsibility of man which
be asserted as the absolutely fundamental precondition of authe
existence.
Thus in both Marx's and Nietzsche's atheism one finds a feature
which is characteristic of much of contemporary atheism, namely,
that it is concerned less with disproving the existence of God or
discrediting arguments for his existence than with calling in question
from a practical moral point of view the possibility of the coexistence
of man and God. It is argued that quite apart from any purely
speculative considerations the affirmation must be simply rejected
as unworthy of a mature, responsible, adult life-style in the twentieth
century. This is a noteworthy feature of contemporary atheism.
For in previous ages the affirmation of God was seen as the theore
tical and practical sine qua non of authentic human existence. Today
it is claimed that only the alienated and morally estranged man
believes in God. It can be argued convincingly that, more than any
other thinkers, Marx and Nietzsche were responsible for the view
that on moral grounds religion must be rejected as a false solution
to the human predicament.
If the atheism inspired by Marx and Nietzsche thus rejects
religion as a false solution, in what sense can it itself be said to be
problematic? This is the second point upon which I wish to touch
this afternoon.
The first problematic feature which strikes one is that although
this rejection of God is made in each case as part of a practical
programme to achieve man's authentic existence there is certainly
no unanimity concerning what constitutes this authentic existence.
If, as in the case of Marx, the death of God must be acknowledged
in order to overcome class distinction and inaugurate a classless
society, and if, as in the case of Nietzsche, the death of God must be
acknowledged in order to overcome egalitarianism and inaugurate
the reign of exceptional individuals, one wonders whether in each
case what is being denied is merely a particular and possibly
defective conception of God as seen from the viewpoint of an equally
dubious conception of authentic human existence. This is by no
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 Is atheism now a problem?
means to deny that both Marx and Nietzsche could adduce extensive
historical evidence to illustrate how a particular conception of God
can be used to further an inhuman state of affairs. We do not need
to look beyond our own unfortunate country to appreciate how
easily the claim that God is with us can be converted into the battle
cry 'God is on our side'. However, notwithstanding the various
historical abuses of the concept of God, there remains the question
whether there may not be an authentic conception of God which
carries with it no inevitably alienating consequences—a question
ignored in effect by both Marx and Nietzsche.
A more basic misgiving is that the atheism inspired by Marx
and Nietzsche is radically problematic in the sense that it provides
no fundamental grounds for optimism concerning the human con
dition. In saying this I do not wish to suggest that they do not intend
to propose an optimistic view of man. Indeed quite the contrary is
the case. Thus Marx speaking of the future state of man to be achie
ved by praxis remarks: 'communism as a fully developed naturalism
is humanism and as a fully developed humanism is naturalism. It is
the definitive resolution of the antagonism between man and nature,
between man and man. It is true solution of the conflict between
existence and essence, between objectification and self affirmation,
between freedom and necessity, between individual and species. It is
the solution of the riddle of history and knows itself to be this solu
tion' (Karl Marx, Early writings, ed. Bottomore, London 1963,
p. 155). Similarly Nietzsche believes that for the Superman at least
nihilism can be overcome through the will to power which achieves
the transvaluation of all values.
However, it is becoming increasingly evident that the optimism
which characterises such atheism is questionable. For it is not clear
that the state of human fulfilment envisaged by Marx or Nietzsche
can be achieved, that even if achieved it can be maintained, and that
even if achievable and maintainable it will be really adequate to
man's requirements and aspirations.
The exclusively man-made practical solutions to the problem of
the ultimate meaning and value of human existence, whether in
terms of the unrestricted will to power of exceptional individuals or
in terms of the self-sufficient all-encompassing communist society,
make such exaggerated claims about the scope and efficacy of human
freedom that the prevalent contemporary reaction is to dismiss
them as ideological illusions and to rely solely on a positivistic scien
tific outlook which eschews any debate about human freedom,
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 P. Masterson

dignity or destiny and confines its reflections on man within

matic limits of ongoing empirical research. This is the o
espoused by thinkers such as Monod, Eysenck, and Skinner
whose recent works is significantly entitled Beyond freedom and d
In more general philosophical terms, it is the view advoc
structuralist thinkers such as Levi-Strauss and Foucault wh
that the idea of man as a free subject who fashions his own d
must be abandoned in favour of one which sees man as m
function of anonymous prepersonal structures which enc
him. Thus the 'death of God', which it was anticipated would
the reality of man to become more effectively visible, has be
shadowed by a more radical consideration. It is the consid
that consequent upon the death of God a true idea of man far
emerging into assured and concrete realisation is rather break
and disappearing into an impersonal anonymous grou
evidence suggests that the achievement of our age is the
man at his own hand—at least at the level of thought if not
effect. Thus Michel Foucault remarks on the final page of his
The order of things: 'Man is an invention of recent date.
perhaps nearing its end.'
The problematic character of the atheism inspired by
and Nietzsche as described above can be elucidated in terms of
Kant's account of the three sorts of question which man can pose to
himself. These are 'what can I know?', 'what ought I to do?', and,
finally, 'what may I hope?' Marx and Nietzsche largely ignored
the first level of questioning in so far as it aspired to metaphysical
demonstration of a divinely grounded order of truth and value.
Such metaphysical speculation is rejected, without serious examina
tion, as illusion and alienation. Instead they concentrate upon the
second sort of question 'what must be done?' if a genuinely human
existence is to be created through human resources. Thus, as I
indicated above, they provide an essentially prescriptive and prac
tical account of the human enterprise. However, there remains the
third level of question which a man can put to himself, namely,
'what can I ultimately hope for and depend upon?' What guarantee
can I have that my practical endeavours to establish a genuinely
moral order are assured of a successful and reliable outcome? In a
word, how must reality ultimately be in itself if all our moral
striving for authentic human existence is not to be in a profound
sense ultimately unavailing? It would seem that it is at this basic
level of questioning concerning our ultimate ground for hope that
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 Is atheism now a problem?
the atheistic humanism of Marx and Nietzsche is radically problem
atic.
Must we just live with this problem working on from day to day,
without any ultimately dependable hope for a more authentic
existence as Camus and many other thinkers suggest? Or must we
abandon the pursuit of value altogether and confine our considera
tions and our efforts within a non-ideological positivistic outlook as
many other thinkers believe? Or, perhaps, should we consider, in
view of our contemporary sense of the ultimate hopelessness of our
situation, whether a reformulated theism might not throw some
light upon this situation?
This brings us to the third point which I proposed to mention,
namely, what are the prospects for theism today in the light of our
discussion of the nature and problematic character of the atheism
inspired by Marx and Nietzsche?

It is superficially tempting from a theistic point of view to argue

that atheism is problematic for a theist in the same way that theism
is problematic for an atheist. Thus, according to the argument,
theism and atheism constitute two incomparable forms of life each
with its own logic and discourse into which one can enter only
through radical commitment or conversion. As basic forms of life
they cannot be criticized or evaluated in accordance with any
extrinsic criteria. Hence the commitment to theism though unjus
tifiable rationally is no less authentically human than the postulatory
humanism of Marx and Nietzsche. This is a line of reflection which
one finds developed in theistic existentialists drawing inspiration
from Kierkegaard and in various contemporary linguistic philoso
phers drawing inspiration from what has been called the fideism of
Wittgenstein's doctrine concerning basic forms of life which are
taken to be quite in order just as they are.
However, in my view, the more extreme versions of this view are
unacceptable to a theist. For, if the affirmation of God is basically
and primarily a matter of commitment rather than of rational
assent then it seems to me that it is open to the justifiable charge
that it is a source of alienation and illusion—the reified projection
of a human ideal which reacts back upon and undermines the
inherent worth of its source as Feuerbach argues. If the affirmation
of God is merely one possible option amongst a range of equally
viable and equally groundless ultimate options then it is trivialised
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 P. Masterson

and indeed trivial. For, it seems to me, the whole point of an aff
tion of God is that it claims to go beyond what we may wa
suppose or choose to be the case to affirm the reality of a
human principle of meaning and value. It signifies inherentl
just one option amongst many but a reality which relativiz
options and commitments in the sense that it claims to at
vantage point from which they can be measured. Such an af
tion, it seems to me, requires some rational justification.
On the other hand I think the pattern of traditional na
theology which appeared to offer rigorous demonstrations
existence of God from reflection upon various aspects of the ph
world is fundamentally and irrevocably called in question b
development of contemporary atheism. The relationship bet
the idea of God and the question of human subjectivity and
has become so intimate since the rise of modern philosophy
Descartes that any discussion of God not centred on this co
seems strangely beside the point. The essentially self-invo
character of the affirmation of God has been brought into foc
It seems to me that a viable theism today must work wit
enlarged notion of rationality, one which is wider than that env
in the strict demonstrations of traditional theism which th
allegedly rigorous convince almost nobody who is not alre
believer and indeed even few enough of those who are. Ye
enlarged notion of rationality must avoid the other extrem
fideism and sheer voluntarism.
More positively, it will be an exercise of rationality which
endeavours to show how the affirmation of God vindicates, in a way
that atheism cannot, a particular conception of the meaning and
value of human existence, and which argues that this conception of
human existence provides a more authentic and faithful account of
our human reality than the various alternatives which are currently
proposed. It will be a conception of man which argues that the
human project of ascertaining truth and promoting values such as
justice and love is not illusory or futile but utterly in harmony with
the most fundamental and reliable resources of being. It will seek to
re-present and validate in contemporary idiom Plato's inspiring
claim that things can and must be seen in the light of the form of the
Good. And pushing beyond this point it will argue that the affirma
tion of God commends itself as the ultimate metaphysical or theo
retical truth condition of this claim. Such an approach involves a
form of normative realism which seeks a middle way between the
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 Is atheism now a problem?
extremes of positivism and voluntarism which are characteristic of
our time.
Whether and how such an enterprise might be accomplished is
not a matter on which I have any ready answers. It is a task to be
undertaken which if successful could provide a solution to the
question of ultimate hope to which the various forms of atheism
provide no satisfactory answer. Perhaps this is sufficient justification
for devoting ourselves to such an undertaking even though it can
expect scant sympathy in the prevailing intellectual climate.

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