224
PARTISAN REVIEW
talism, and Stalinism can flow from a negation of a theological
principle, M. Maritain leaves unexplained. But here as elsewhere
by a carefully cultivated ambiguit} M. Maritain uses one term
to cover at least two different doctrines which logically do not
involve each other-the one, a theological proposition which denies
the existence of god or gods, as well as divine creation or gover·
nance of the world; the second, a theory of personality or human
value. In the strict sense, many people can be atheistic without
ceasing to be religious. In fact, there are religions which are
atheistic. Unfortunately, M. Maritain employs the term "atheism"
in such a variety of contexts that it is difficult to find what common
nucleus of meaning he gives it. It often serves as an epithet of
denunciation rather than of description. Sometimes it means dis–
belief in the God of Catholicism, sometimes disbelief
in
any gods,
sometimes devil worship, or irreligion, or anti-personalism, or
just
plain immorality.
Where M. Maritain discusses lltheism as a doctrine which
denies the existence of God, his procedure is very illuminating. He
does not attempt to prove the existence of God although we may
suspect he accepts the Thomistic proofs, all of which are logically
invalid. Instead, he tries to demonstrate the 'horrible practical
consequences of atheism. Atheism is false because consistently
lived, it must lead to suicide. "It is not by accident; it is by a
strictly necessary effect, written in the nature of things, that every
absolute experience of atheism, if
it
is conscientiously and rigor–
ously followed, ends by provoking its psychical dissolution,
in
suicide.
(True Humanism,
p. 53)
Even
if
it were a practical consequence of atheism, it would
not prove that atheism is false. But why does M. Maritain insist
that consistent atheism leads "by a strictly necessary effect" to
suicide? M. Maritain's reasoning is so shockingly bad that it is
hard to account for it even in the interests of apologetics. He takes
over, literally and completely, the argument of the mad Kirillov in
Dostoyevsky's
The Possessed.
"If
God exists all things depend on
him and I can do nothing outside his will.
If
he does not exist, all
depends on me and I am bound to display my independence....
For three years I have been seeking for the attribute of my divinity
and I've found it; the attribute of my divinity is independence....
I shall kill myself to prove my independence and my new terrible
