Sartre says that existentialism is an attempt to draw the consequences from the non-existence of God. But he also says that if God existed, it wouldn

God . Sartre does not try to combat metaphysics as a deleterious undertaking . He simply notes in a Kantian manner that it raises questions we cannot answer (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , 2004 . So , Sartre is not denying God , he is simply saying that he does not believe in the existence of God . Perhaps just a matter of personal inclination . But the existence of xistence of God is not the real issue , as he says in the quote at the beginning of this essay Even if God existed , His or Its existence is as good

as xistence man must come to terms with existence all by himself

We can resolve the apparent contradiction in Sartre 's statements about God in another way too . It is true that Sartre says existentialism arises only because God does not exist . Here he means the God according to the traditional religious conception , the creator God , When we think of God as the creator , we are thinking of him , most of the time as a supernal artisan ' - God the potter , God the watchmaker and so on , he who made everything (including man ) in existence according to some plan and purpose . To Sartre and most other philosophers , such a God is nothing more than an outcome of childish fantasies . Only when give up such juvenile concepts can we contemplate human existence in a serious and mature way . Therefore existentialism requires that all such delusory , comforting beliefs in a God who is sitting in the heaven and watching everything below be left behind . Christianity believes in such a God , and in his essay one of the main things Sartre is trying to do is to contrast existentialism with Christianity . Since there were some popular Catholic existentialists such as Gabriel Marcel , Sartre is trying to distinguish his position from...