TYPES OF EXISTENTIALISM
61
own projections. He naturalizes and demythologizes the Absolute
Spirit of Hegel. He reinterprets the different stages in the progressive
development of the Idea or Absolute or God as a succession of dif–
ferent
historical
expressions of the human species or essence. "Man–
this is the mystery of religion- projects his being into objectivity, and
then again makes himself an object to this projected image of himself
thus converted into a subject . . ." Feuerbach's attitude towards
religion is reverential and sensitive. He believes that it is an irreducible
aspect of human experience no matter how profoundly its images,
symbols and dogmas change. "What yesterday was still religion, is
no longer such today: and what today is atheism, tomorrow will be
religion."
The profoundest difference between the approach of existential
theism and that of existential humanism to religion is in their con–
ceptions of ethics and morality. Existential humanism, especially
in
its post-Feuerbachian developments, sees man's moral vocation in
redoing, remaking, reforming the world and self in the light of con–
sciqusly held ethical ideals to which religious myths and rituals can
give only emotional and aesthetic support. Existential theism, aware
of human finitude and weakness and self-idolatry, places the greatest
emphasis upon the acceptance of the world and its underlying plan,
so unclear to human eyes, upon the explanation and justification of
evil rather than on the duty of eliminating specific evils. This is some–
times obscured by the fact that the transcendant and Absolute God
of existential theism is considered to be
beyond
good and evil.
Psy–
chologically it is apparent that the belief that the difference between
human good and human evil disappears in the light of the Absolute,
or that what appears good or evil in the sight of Man may be quite
different in the sight of the Lord, cannot serve as a premise for the
active transformation of the world. In effect, it accepts the existing
order of things, whatever it is, as a basis of preparation for salvation
either by a leap of faith or a transformation of self.
This is brilliantly illustrated in Kierkegaard's remarkable analy–
sis
of the Abraham-Isaac story in his
Fear and Trembling.
According
to Kierkegaard, God's command to Abraham to sacrifice his only
and dearly beloved son, Isaac, to Him as a burnt-offering ran counter
to one of the highest ethical principles. The test of Abraham's re–
li&ious faith was his willingness to violate
his
duty as a father,
hu»-
