Can Existentialism and Absurdism be reconciled with Christianity?

[thephilosopher6]

Do you think they can be reconciled to Christianity in anyway?

 

[Confiteor_Deo]

No, I don’t think that they can be reconciled because they contradict each other. God didn’t create things without a purpose. Also, man doesn’t create his own purpose, since God had made him to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.

 

[BartholomewB]

Christian Existentialism was the name given to a school of philosophy that flourished briefly in France in the mid-twentieth century, with Gabriel Marcel, a Catholic, as its leading exponent. Kierkegaard is sometimes described retrospectively as a Christian Existentialist, though as far as I know it’s a term that hadn’t yet been coined in his lifetime. Whether “existentialist” is a term that can be legitimately applied to either Marcel or Kierkegaard is a question that’s not easily answered, though there doesn’t seem to be much doubt that they were both Christians.

 

[meltzerboy]

Do you think they can be reconciled to Christianity in anyway?

I don’t think Sartre’s existentialism can be reconciled to Christianity since his existentialism places mankind’s purpose or essence in the hands of mankind, not G-d. Further, each individual can and must create their own reason for existence since the universe is uncaring and absurd. Camus agreed about the absurdity of the universe but posited later in his life a moral humanism by which all people must abide and which protects against being dragged down by the absurd.