12-4
PARTISAN REVIEW
being, not only individual members of class, but also persons, each a
member of a class of one, i.e. no religion is credible today which
lacks an existentialist aspect.
On the other hand we also live in a historical period of
rival fanatical faiths, a religious period in the existentialist sense in
which martyrdom has once more become a familiar event, and we
cannot, any of us, really accept a religion which provides no criteria
for distinguishing one of these faiths from another. Kierkegaard's
statement that a passionate commitment to an untruth is religiously
superior to a lukewarm interest in the truth is excellent polemics in
a situation where both parties are agreed as to what the truth is.
When they are not, it is highly dangerous. To kick a beggar or to
give him a dime may both be existentially "authentic" choices of
oneself, but we need to know in what respects they differ.
A purely existentialist attitude, since it has no conception of the
universal or the eternal, cannot be Christian, to whom the existential
is only one, admittedly very important, aspect of his situation.
Atheist existentialism, while more logical, suffers under the disad–
vantage that, like Stoicism, it can only be held either by madmen, to
whom the choice of "engagement" is arbitrary, or by the fortunate,
i.e. those whose "engagement" ·has been chosen for them hy their
natural gifts and the chance of history. Existentialism has, as Bau–
delaire said of Stoicism, one sacrament for the sinner-suicide.
Apologetics by their nature can arrive at little more than nega–
tive conclusions, i.e. the most an apologist can hope to demonstrate
is that his opponent's conclusions do not answer certain questions
which they both agree must be answered. For instance, if we take
one problem, not necessarily the most important, that of ethics: can
naturalism provide both an acceptable theory of Right, i.e. of what is
universally and eternally good, and an acceptable theory of Duty,
i.e. of what in a given historical situation a given individual ought
to do, and further establish an intelligible relation between the two?
I am willing to concede that naturalism might some day bring
Right and Duty together in the sense that it might be possible to
demonstrate that all offences against the Right were also offences
against oneself (e.g. that envy injures the brain). There would still
remain however the problem of temptation, i.e. if I know
what
I
ought to do, how is it possible for me to do anything else? or if it is
