What is Atheism for Lent?
The Content
Atheism for Lent by Peter Rollins tries to take a more unconventional approach to a lenten devotional. The term "Atheism" is usually seen as a questioning or deconstruction of traditional religious beliefs, but for Peter, its a dance between belief and disbelief. Rollins is known for his work in theology and philosophy, and this approach involves engaging with doubt, skepticism, and a reevaluation of one's beliefs. It could be seen as an invitation to explore a more existential perspective during the season traditionally associated with spiritual reflection and preparation.
The Class
We will meet online once a week on Thursdays from 11 am - 12 pm starting Mar 6, 2025. The class uses the Harvard pedagogical method of “Connect, Extend, Challenge.” Please read, hear, or watch the content as much as you can before our class, and write down connections, extensions, and challenges. We will then go into a group discussion to share our findings.
Participants are expected to purchase a single ticket for AfL on Peter Rollins’ Website. If this is too big a financial burden, please contact Peter Mathies at admin@tokyounion.org.
Meet the Instructor
Week 1: The Classical Arguments
Welcome to Atheism for Lent, a decentering practice exploring the philosophical and theological dimensions of atheism. Discovering how it can offer a type of exorcism powerful enough to cast out any festering fundamentalism and sullen scientism lurking within our souls.
Peter Rollins gives a short talk on the material that will be in the first week of Atheism for Lent in this introduction video. He'll be talking about the Teleological, Cosmological and Ontological argument. The readings for the week will be added below for each day.
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Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) was a writer, professor, activist, and Holocaust survivor. His most famous work, Night, is a harrowing memoir drawn from his personal experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps.
To start this jounrey we have a short reading from Night that recounts the hanging of three prisoners in the camp. To accompany this reading, I have paired it with the second movement from The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs by Henryk Górecki (1933–2010).
Górecki, a Polish composer of contemporary classical music, is best known for this symphony, which became his most celebrated work. The piece is structured in three movements, each deeply poignant and meditative. The first movement incorporates a 15th-century Polish lament, sung by Mary, the mother of Jesus, and speaks of grief and loss. The second movement is based on a message scrawled on the wall of a Gestapo cell during World War II, offering a haunting voice of a child separated from a parent. The final movement echoes a Silesian folk song, telling the story of a mother searching for her son, killed by the Germans during the Silesian uprisings. Themes of motherhood and the pain of separation pervade the symphony, with the first and third movements expressing the sorrow of parents who have lost children, and the second movement capturing the voice of a child torn from their mother.
The pairing of Wiesel’s harrowing words with Górecki’s deeply emotional music seeks to embody the raw, unflinching humanity that underpins the painful questions often raised in the context of religious and existential doubt. This reflection closes the first week of Atheism for Lent, providing a space to connect with the profound, heartfelt, and deeply spiritual origin of many questions about faith. It is from such places of sorrow, loss, and separation that the questioning of the divine often arises—not from abstraction, but from the deepest human experiences of grief, alienation, and longing for meaning in the face of unimaginable suffering.
Supplemental Reflection
There are several reasons why I chose to include this reflection at the beginning of our journey. Foremost among them is the way in which the music and writing blur the line between the sacred and the secular, between belief and non-belief. Both are imbued with a cry that feels at once pious and profane, invoking a powerful tension between the two.
The reflection evokes various possible meanings. For example, does this express a profound atheism, a different understanding of God, or an experience of the mystical notion of the Dark Night of the Soul?
The piece itself seems to resist a simple interpretation. There is something profoundly evocative about it, reminicent of The Passion of the Christ.
In many ways, this reflection foreshadows the conclusion of this Decentering Practice.
A more contemporary version of this type of existential expression can be found in the album Curse Your Branches by David Bazan. In this album, Bazan offers a heartfelt rejection of faith, but in doing so, he traces the very shape and contours of faith itself. It is a poignant example of how rejection, in its own way, can reflect the deepest contours of the religious experience.
Supplemental Material
I’ve enclosed links to ‘Night’ and the whole Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. Different music speaks to us. I’ve also included a more contemporary example of the same kind of experience. A profoundly personal critique of religious that has the feeling and form of faith. It is a link to the album Curse Your Branches, by David Bazan.
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William Paley (1743–1805) was an Anglican priest, Utilitarian philosopher, and theologian best known for his teleological argument for the existence of God. In his 1802 work Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, he famously likened the complexity and order of the world to that of a watch—arguing that just as a watch implies a watchmaker, so too does the natural world imply an intelligent designer.
Paley’s argument left a lasting impression on Charles Darwin, who once confided to a friend that Natural Theology was among the books he most admired, admitting that he could "almost formerly have said it by heart."
While countless arguments have been advanced to establish the probability, possibility, or certainty of a supreme being, the classical philosophical defences of God's existence are traditionally grouped into three categories: the Cosmological, the Teleological, and the Ontological.
As we begin Atheism for Lent, we turn to one of the most well-known articulations of the teleological argument. In this reflection, I read from Paley’s Natural Theology.
Supplemental Reflection
The Teleological Argument is often regarded as the weakest proof for the existence of God in terms of philosophical rigour, yet the strongest in terms of its intuitive appeal. The idea that the complexity and order of the world point to an intelligent designer has a powerful resonance, even if it struggles under sustained scrutiny.
While Paley’s argument still holds some interest among religious thinkers, one of his greatest admirers, Charles Darwin, is widely seen as having delivered a decisive refutation—at least in its classical form. Though earlier philosophers and scientists had challenged the argument, Darwin’s theory of evolution provided a systematic and empirical account of the apparent design in nature—one that required no external designer.
Reflecting on this shift in his Autobiography, Darwin wrote:
The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows. Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.
Despite this, variations of Paley’s argument persist, particularly in the theory of Irreducible Complexity, which holds that certain biological systems are too complex to have evolved incrementally through natural selection, as their intermediate stages would lack functionality. Proponents of this view argue that systems such as the blood-clotting cascade, the eye, and the bacterial flagellum are best explained by an intelligent designer. However, the vast majority of biologists reject this claim, pointing out that supposed cases of irreducible complexity can, in fact, be accounted for by evolutionary processes. Over time, detailed research has demonstrated plausible evolutionary pathways for these structures, undermining the notion that they must have been designed wholesale.
Supplemental Material
I’ve included a longer excerpt from the book Natural Theology, along with a reading from Darwin’s autobiography.
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Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) is widely regarded as the greatest philosopher and theologian of the medieval period. His influence on the Western intellectual tradition is profound, shaping not only Catholic thought—where Thomism remains a living and dynamic tradition—but also broader philosophical discourse. His synthesis of Aristotelian philosophy with Christian theology established a framework that continues to be studied and debated to this day.
Among Aquinas’ most well-known contributions to philosophy are his Five Ways (Quinque viæ)—a set of arguments often presented as proofs for the existence of God. However, it is important to note that Aquinas may not have conceived them as self-contained proofs in the modern sense. Some scholars argue that his primary aim was not to demonstrate God’s existence to skeptics but rather to articulate a rigorous philosophical account of what is meant by the term ‘God.’ Nevertheless, the Five Ways suggest that Aquinas saw the structure of reality as pointing inexorably to some fundamental, grounding principle—what we call God.
The Five Ways are succinctly outlined in his Summa Theologiae and explored in greater depth in the Summa Contra Gentiles. They are as follows:
The Argument from Motion (First Mover) – Everything in motion is set in motion by something else. Since an infinite regress of movers is impossible, there must be an unmoved mover—God.
The Argument from Causation (Universal Causation) – Every effect has a cause, but an infinite regress of causes is untenable. There must be a first, uncaused cause—God.
The Argument from Contingency – Contingent beings (things that might not have existed) require a necessary being that grounds their existence. This necessary being is God.
The Argument from Degree – The varying degrees of goodness, truth, and perfection in the world imply an ultimate source of these qualities—God.
The Argument from Final Cause (Teleology) – The apparent order and purpose in nature suggest a guiding intelligence—God.
These arguments are typically classified under the Cosmological Argument, though the third shares affinities with the Ontological Argument, and the fifth bears resemblance to the Teleological Argument. Crucially, Aquinas insisted that all five are a posteriori arguments, meaning they are grounded in empirical observation rather than in purely abstract reasoning (a priori arguments).
In today’s reflection, I have provided the first three arguments, which are often considered the most philosophically robust.
Supplemental Reflection
Arguments for and against the existence of God are typically classified as either a priori or a posteriori. A priori arguments rely on reason and abstract concepts alone, proceeding independently of sensory experience. They aim to establish the existence of God through pure logic, as seen in the Ontological Argument.A posteriori arguments, by contrast, begin with empirical observations about the world—such as motion, causation, order, or contingency—and infer conclusions about the existence of a divine being based on these features of reality.
Aquinas rejected a priori arguments, believing they presuppose knowledge of God's nature—specifically, that God exists by necessity (a concept we will explore in more depth in a few days). He maintained that human reason, unaided by divine revelation, cannot begin with the assumption that God's existence is self-evident. Instead, he argued that we can only come to understand the fundamental nature of God through an examination of the natural world.
As I mentioned yesterday, Cosmological arguments sit alongside Teleological and Ontological arguments as the most well-known philosophical approaches to proving the existence of God. While they each take a different path, they all seek to answer a fundamental question: why does anything exist at all? The Cosmological Argument appeals to the existence of causality and contingency to argue that there must be a first, necessary being that grounds all existence. The Teleological Argument, on the other hand, emphasizes the apparent order and purpose in the universe, suggesting that an intelligent designer must be behind it. Finally, the Ontological Argument takes a purely logical route, claiming that God's existence is entailed by the very concept of a maximally perfect being.
While Aquinas' approach aligns most closely with the Cosmological Argument, his thinking engages deeply with both Teleological and Ontological reasoning, reflecting his broader project of synthesizing faith and reason. His work continues to shape debates about the relationship between philosophy, science, and theology, with Thomism remaining a vital intellectual tradition to this day.
Supplemental Material
I’ve included a more detailed description of all five ways from Summa contra gentiles, as well as a famous debate between Frederick Copleston and Bertrand Russell, where Copleston makes use of the Cosmological Argument. Finally, I’ve included a series of short video essays by Daniel Bonevac on each of the arguments.
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René Descartes (1596–1650) stands as one of the most influential figures in the history of philosophy, mathematics, and scientific thought. While he made groundbreaking contributions across multiple disciplines, he is best known for his attempt to establish philosophy on indubitable foundations—a project encapsulated in his famous dictum: cogito, ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am”). Descartes argued that while we might be deceived about everything we believe regarding the external world, there is one certainty that cannot be doubted: the very act of doubting presupposes thought. Even if an all-powerful deceiver were manipulating our perceptions, the fact that we are capable of doubt itself confirms that we exist as thinking beings. From this seemingly simple insight, Descartes sought to construct a system of knowledge that could withstand radical scepticism.
Having established the certainty of his own existence, Descartes then turned to the question of whether anything else could be known with the same degree of certainty. He argued that, even without direct access to the external world, we could demonstrate the existence of God through pure reason alone. This led him to formulate one of the most famous versions of the Ontological Argument, an argument first developed by St. Anselm in the 11th century. The Ontological Argument is unique among arguments for God's existence because it does not rely on empirical evidence but instead attempts to prove God’s existence through logic and conceptual analysis. It holds that, because God is defined as a perfect being, and existence is a necessary attribute of perfection, God must exist by necessity.
The Ontological Argument remains one of the most perplexing and fascinating puzzles in the history of philosophy, dividing thinkers for centuries. Immanuel Kant later argued that it is the most fundamental of all the arguments for God’s existence, suggesting that the Cosmological and Teleological arguments ultimately presuppose it in some form. Whether persuasive or not, it has had a profound influence on the philosophy of religion, provoking both rigorous defences and powerful critiques.
With today's reflection, we complete our introduction to the three major categories of arguments for God's existence: the Cosmological, Teleological, and Ontological. While each follows a different path, they all seek to answer the profound question of whether reason alone can establish the existence of a divine being.
Supplemental Reflection
While St. Anselm is the most famous proponent of what has come to be known as the Ontological Argument, I am using Descartes’ version from his Fifth Meditation because it lays out the position with striking clarity. At its core, this argument seeks to demonstrate God's existence purely from the definition of God, without relying on empirical evidence.
Ontological arguments attempt to show that the very concept of ‘God’ contains the idea of necessary existence—just as the concept of a ‘triangle’ necessarily includes having three sides. To say, “A triangle has four sides” is not simply false but self-contradictory, as it negates the very definition of a triangle. Similarly, proponents of the Ontological Argument claim that to say, “God does not exist” is equivalent to saying, “A being that must exist does not exist,” which is a logical contradiction.
Descartes' version of the argument can be structured as follows:
God is defined as a being possessing all perfections.
Necessary existence is a perfection.
Therefore, God must exist.
Although many people instinctively find something suspicious about this argument, it has proven remarkably difficult to refute. Over the centuries, various philosophers and mathematicians have defended versions of it, arguing that it is a valid and powerful demonstration of God's necessary existence.
However, the argument has also faced serious criticism. The most famous challenge comes from Immanuel Kant, who argued that existence is not a predicate. In other words, existence is not a quality that something possesses in the way that an object might possess a colour or shape. To say that something exists does not add anything to its definition—it merely states that the concept has a real-world instance. At most, Kant suggests, the Ontological Argument only establishes that ifGod exists, then He exists necessarily, which does not prove that He actually exists.
Despite its controversial nature, the Ontological Argument remains one of the most intriguing and debated proofs for God’s existence, continuing to challenge and inspire philosophical thought to this day.
Supplemental Material
You’ll find here a short article that outlines the logical problem with Descartes argument (although there are other versions of the argument that attempt to avoid the issues with this one).
Week 2: God is Not
Peter Rollins introduces this week’s reflections by exploring various arguments against the existence of God. Throughout history, many thinkers have sought to demonstrate that the idea of God is improbable, incoherent, or even impossible. (This video is from AfL 2024 as the 2025 version was never delivered, but it should cover the same concepts in what we will be reading this week. If an updated video is made available, it will be uploaded here.)
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Jean Meslier (1664–1729) was a French Catholic priest who secretly authored the first systematic text wholly devoted to atheism. Though his work remained largely unknown for many years, it is now increasingly regarded as foundational to modern atheism. His scathing critique was only discovered after his death.
Meslier lived a quiet, hardworking life as a parish priest. He embraced simplicity, giving away any money he earned to the poor and oppressed. His life was not without conflict, however. He was reprimanded after delivering a sermon in which he criticised a local nobleman, Antoine de Toull, and refused him holy water. The nobleman reported him to the Bishop, and Meslier faced disciplinary action. Nevertheless, the priest did not relent, instead encouraging his congregation to pray for the nobleman, hoping he would repent for mistreating the poor and exploiting orphans.
While the style of Meslier’s work can be repetitive and occasionally bombastic, it also contains thoughtful philosophical objections to the existence of God, exegetical critiques of the Bible’s reliability, and moral arguments against the teachings of scripture. Although he admired how the early Christians shared their goods, he believed that Christianity had degenerated into a religion that promoted submission to tyranny and acceptance of suffering.
The following excerpt from Volume 9 of The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant provides a glimpse into Meslier’s life and introduces his ideas through direct quotes.
Listen to today’s reflection here.
Supplemental Reflection
I am drawn to the life and work of Jean Meslier because of the way he demonstrates how the most potent atheistic critiques often emerge from the very ground they seek to reject. It is from this ground that various inconsistencies, antagonisms, deadlocks, and contradictions can be most clearly seen. The strength of Meslier’s critique lies not just in his rejection of the religious dogma he witnessed, but in the depth of his understanding of that very system. Having spent his life within the Church, he was uniquely positioned to observe its practices and ideologies, which granted him a rare, insider’s perspective on its flaws. This duality of both adherence and eventual rejection provides a powerful foundation for his philosophical work, which critiques not just the institutions of faith, but also the psychological and moral underpinnings of religious belief.
Meslier's profound knowledge of the religious life gives his critique an authoritative weight, and it foreshadows much of what we will encounter in week four, where we will explore the materialist critiques of thinkers like Feuerbach, Marx, and Goldman.
Yet, his fierce critique also paves the way for a deeper understanding of faith, one that will be further explored in week five. Indeed, at one point in his Testament, he writes that if people take his critique seriously—casting off the inequalities of religion and striving for a this-worldly kingdom of equality—then Christianity could finally become real. This thought anticipates the work of thinkers like Bonhoeffer, who saw the rejection of religion in favour of human justice as signalling the next Reformation of religion.
I hope this reflection provides a powerful example of how the most passionate critiques of religion are intricately connected to that which they reject, hinting at the dialectical relationship between theism and atheism. In this way, Meslier’s work not only challenges the religious orthodoxy he knew, but also provides a model for the kind of critique that is capable of moving beyond negation to offer a vision of what might follow—one that addresses the deepest human concerns about justice, equality, and the nature of belief itself.
Supplemental Material
I’ve also enclosed a document with some excerpts from Testament, as well as a link to his book.
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Antony Flew (1923–2010) was an analytic philosopher best known for his work in the philosophy of religion. The following excerpt is taken from his essay Theology and Falsification, widely regarded as one of the most influential philosophical publications of the twentieth century. This essay has gone through at least forty reprints and has been translated into multiple languages.
The paper originally stemmed from a lecture Flew gave to the Socratic Club, founded by C.S. Lewis. In it, we encounter the famous parable of the invisible gardener. I’ve included this paper because it offers one of the clearest and most concise articulations of the analytic argument against the existence of God as a personal being.
While part of this excerpt may become a bit challenging for those not accustomed to philosophy, the parable itself—along with the concluding paragraphs—clearly conveys his point. I’ve recorded myself reading the excerpt and have also provided a written version for those who prefer to engage with the text directly.
Listen to today’s reflection here.
Supplemental Reflection
Antony Flew’s parable of the invisible gardener remains one of the most elegant and incisive critiques of religious belief within analytic philosophy. By presenting a scenario in which two people dispute the existence of a gardener tending a clearing in the jungle, Flew exposes a central issue in theological discourse: the unfalsifiability of certain religious claims. As the believer in the parable continually modifies their position—insisting that the gardener is invisible, intangible, and undetectable—Flew highlights a tendency in religious thought to redefine God’s nature in ways that make the claim impervious to critique.
The brilliance of this parable lies in how it forces us to consider whether our beliefs are genuinely open to revision or whether they are shielded from scrutiny by continual reinterpretation. Flew challenges us to ask: What would count as evidence against our beliefs? If nothing could, then are we still engaged in meaningful discourse, or have we retreated into dogmatic assertion? This question is not only relevant to religious faith but extends to any ideological or philosophical position that resists falsification.
While Flew presents his argument as a warning against unfalsifiable belief, it also prompts us to consider the role of interpretation in human meaning-making. If religion is not primarily about empirical verification but about shaping how we live and engage with the world, then perhaps the significance of belief lies elsewhere. Flew’s parable may strip away certain kinds of theological claims, but in doing so, it invites us to explore what remains. If we discard the ‘invisible gardener,’ what new ways of understanding faith and meaning might emerge?
In this way, Flew’s parable does more than merely dismantle belief—it pushes us into a space where the nature of belief itself must be re-examined. Whether one accepts or rejects his critique, the challenge he poses is one that continues to resonate far beyond the confines of analytic philosophy, reaching into the very heart of how we navigate certainty, doubt, and the search for truth.
Supplemental Material
I’ve included the Theology and Falsification essay in its entirety below, as well as a link to a book of essays that it comes from. In addition to this, I’ve included a short recording that covers the argument, it’s context and some of the original responses to Flew’s argument. In addition to this, I’ve included an article by John Wisdom. This article contains the original parable of the Invisible Gardener.
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David Hume (1711–1776) is widely regarded as one of the most influential modern philosophers, shaping the trajectory of thought in fields ranging from epistemology to ethics. His work profoundly influenced figures such as Adam Smith, Kant, and Darwin, and his critiques of religion remain some of the most penetrating in Western philosophy.
The following excerpt is taken from Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, a work so controversial that Hume was persuaded to withhold its publication until after his death. Written as a philosophical dialogue, the text explores the nature of religious belief through a conversation between three characters: Cleanthes, Demea, and Philo.
Cleanthes represents the rationalist theist, arguing that we can infer God’s existence and attributes by examining the natural world. Demea, by contrast, aligns with a more mystical tradition, maintaining that while God’s existence is certain, His nature is beyond human comprehension. Philo, the most sceptical of the three, claims to share their belief in God but systematically dismantles their positions, exposing contradictions and unsettling assumptions. His argument ultimately leads to a troubling conclusion: if we accept the evidence-based reasoning of Cleanthes, then the God we infer from the world appears neither wholly competent nor wholly good.
Through this subtle and layered debate, Hume does not merely reject religious belief outright but compels us to confront the limitations of human reason in grappling with the divine. His Dialogues remain a masterclass in philosophical argumentation, raising questions that continue to challenge and provoke thought to this day.
Supplemental Reflection
In Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, it is not always clear what position Hume himself holds. This ambiguity is partly because he is more interested in drawing the reader into a dialectical exploration than in presenting a single, definitive argument. However, Philo is widely regarded as the character who best represents Hume’s own skepticism.
So why was this book too dangerous to publish during Hume’s lifetime? Writing a text that explicitly advocated atheism would certainly have been a risky endeavor, yet each of the three characters in the Dialogues professes belief in God. Some have suggested that Hume made Philo a theist out of necessity—that a more openly atheistic figure would have been unacceptable. But if this were merely a strategic decision, why did he still choose to withhold publication? I would argue that the Dialogues were all the more dangerous precisely because Philo does believe in God. What Hume presents is not the straightforward atheistic rejection of God’s existence but something potentially even more unsettling: a theist who systematically undermines the morality and competence of the God he affirms.
Rather than simply refuting the arguments for God’s existence, as many atheists had done, Philo takes a different approach. He accepts at least one of them—the teleological argument—but then turns it against itself. If the world does, in fact, reflect the nature of its creator, then the God it reveals is neither all-powerful nor wholly good. In doing so, Hume does not simply challenge belief in God—he destabilizes the very foundations upon which that belief is built, making the Dialogues a work of profound and enduring subversion.
Supplemental Material
I've enclosed a link to the book from which today's excerpt was taken from.
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John Leslie Mackie (1917–1981) was an analytic philosopher whose work in religion, metaphysics, and language reflects a rigorous rejection of the traditional concept of God. While he may not be as widely known today, his arguments remain some of the most precise and influential critiques of theism in modern philosophy.
In today’s reflection, we will encounter one of the most enduring and powerful arguments against the existence of God: the problem of evil. This argument, which dates back to ancient philosophy, questions how an all-powerful, all-knowing, and wholly good God can coexist with the presence of evil in the world.
Mackie’s version of the argument is often referred to as the logical problem of evil. He argues that the traditional attributes of God—omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence—are logically incompatible with the existence of evil.
While some theists respond by suggesting that evil is necessary for free will or moral development, Mackie finds these defences unconvincing. He argues that an omnipotent God could create beings who always freely choose the good, eliminating the need for actual evil.
This reflection presents an abridged version of Evil and Omnipotence, giving us the opportunity to engage with Mackie’s argument and consider its implications for the broader philosophical and theological debate.
Click here to read today’s reflection.
Supplemental Reflection
The argument from evil can be traced back to the work of Epicurus (341–270 BC), the founder of Epicureanism. Although only a few fragments of his approximately 300 works survive, his philosophy continues to shape discussions on ethics, metaphysics, and the problem of evil. For Epicurus, philosophy was not merely an intellectual pursuit but a practical means of achieving a life of happiness, characterised by ataraxia—a state of tranquillity and freedom from fear—and aponia—the absence of pain. He advocated for a self-sufficient life among friends, holding that pleasure and pain serve as the fundamental measures of good and evil. His teachings rejected the idea of divine intervention, asserting that the gods neither reward nor punish, that the universe is infinite and eternal, and that all events arise from the motions and interactions of atoms in empty space.
One of the most famous fragments attributed to Epicurus encapsulates the argument from evil with striking clarity: "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent. Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is He neither able nor willing? Then why call Him God?" This formulation highlights the apparent contradiction between the existence of an all-powerful, benevolent deity and the undeniable presence of suffering in the world.
To this day, many believers in the classical notion of God regard this argument as one of the most troubling challenges to their faith, while others credit it as a decisive factor in their rejection of theism. The problem of evil remains one of the most enduring and widely discussed objections to the existence of an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God, continuing to provoke debate in philosophy, theology, and personal reflection.
Supplemental Material
I’ve included the full article by Mackie, a document with some of the earliest critiques of religion, from Protagoras, Epicurus and Seneca and a book by Mackie called The Miracle of Theism.
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Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) is widely regarded as one of the most significant philosophers of all time. His relationship to religion and the question of God is complex and evolved throughout his career. Early on, before developing his critical philosophy, Kant supported what is known as the Transcendental Argument for God's existence. However, he later dismissed this period as his "dogmatic slumber," moving towards a more rigorous critique of metaphysical claims. While he remained deeply engaged with religious questions throughout his life, he ultimately concluded that reason alone cannot establish the existence of God.
Kant is particularly famous for his systematic critique of the three main rational arguments for God's existence: the Ontological, Cosmological, and Teleological arguments. He argued that the Teleological argument implicitly relies on the Cosmological argument, which in turn depends on the Ontological argument. If the Ontological argument fails, the entire structure collapses.
In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant contends that pure reason is incapable of resolving metaphysical questions such as the existence of God, because it can be used to support mutually contradictory conclusions. This leads to what he calls antinomies—paradoxes where reason generates opposing claims that are both logically defensible yet irreconcilable. In today’s reflection, I outline Kant’s antinomies and their significance for his critique.
Click here for today’s reflection.
Supplemental Reflection
Kant’s relationship to religion and God is nuanced, resisting easy categorization. While he denied that God’s existence could be proven through reason, he nonetheless argued that belief in God could be justified through faith, which itself rests on hope. In essence, Kant observed that human beings experience both a moral imperative—the desire to act ethically—and the pursuit of happiness. Ideally, we wish for these two dimensions to be unified, yet in lived experience, they often remain in tension. Because this unity is not realized in this life, we hope that it will be fulfilled in the future. God, in this framework, is not an object of speculative knowledge but the necessary postulate of practical reason—the being who could ensure that morality and happiness ultimately coincide. To believe in God, then, is to live in fidelity to this hope.
This position has led to divided reactions. Some celebrate Kant for preserving a meaningful space for religious belief within the rationalist framework of the Enlightenment, while others see him as subtly dismantling the foundations of traditional theism. Consequently, he has both defenders and critics among religious thinkers and secular philosophers alike.
Kant’s discussion of the antinomies reinforces his claim that reason cannot provide access to ultimate reality. For Kant, the contradictions that emerge when pure reason is applied to metaphysical questions—leading to equally compelling yet mutually exclusive conclusions—demonstrate the limits of speculative thought. Instead of attempting to prove or disprove God’s existence through reason, Kant shifts the focus to moral experience, grounding faith not in logic, but in the existential demands of ethical life.
Supplemental Material
Below I’ve included a link to a long article that goes into detail regarding Kant's relationship to religion. It is from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which is a great resource that is much more authoritative and reliable than Wikipedia.
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Douglas Gasking (1911–1994) was an Australian philosopher who taught at the University of Melbourne and made contributions to the philosophy of language and metaphysics. While he is far less well-known than the other thinkers you are encountering this week, his work includes a particularly intriguing critique of one of the most famous arguments for the existence of God—the Ontological Argument.
What makes Gasking’s argument especially interesting is that he never formally wrote it down. Instead, it was passed around orally, originally shared informally with a colleague and then circulated among philosophers as a kind of intellectual curiosity. Despite its informal origins, the argument has endured because it offers a strikingly clever and humorous atheistic inversion of Anselm’s Ontological Argument. Rather than using reason to demonstrate the necessity of God’s existence, as Anselm attempted, Gasking’s argument playfully subverts the same logical structure to suggest the necessity of God’s non-existence.
Click here for today’s reflection.
Supplemental Reflection
Gasking’s Ontological Proof for the Non-Existence of God is a parody that was never meant to be taken seriously as a logical proof. At best, Gasking was pointing out how these purely logical constructions can lead to bizarre or even absurd conclusions. In this way, his critique aligns with Kant’s objections to the Ontological Argument. Kant argued that existence is not a predicate—that is, merely defining something as perfect does not mean it must exist. Gasking, in a more playful manner, exposes a similar flaw by showing how one could just as easily construct an argument "proving" that God does not exist using the same formal logic.
Yet there is something in Gasking’s argument that gestures towards a deeper philosophical insight, one that we will explore more in the final weeks of this course. While Richard Dawkins wryly remarked, "Gasking didn’t really prove that God does not exist. By the same token, Anselm didn’t prove that he does. The only difference is, Gasking was being funny on purpose," this humour might conceal a profound point.
To add another twist, perhaps Gasking’s parody—intended as a joke—unintentionally gestures toward a more radical theological insight: that the concept of 'God' is not best understood as a being among beings, but as a kind of lack or absence. Rather than functioning as a supreme entity with necessary existence, perhaps ‘God’ points to a fundamental void, an aporia at the heart of reality itself. This is an idea that we will explore further through the work of thinkers like Simone Weil and Richard Boothby, who push us to reconsider whether divinity is something present, or something missing—a structuring absence that calls us into relation.
Supplemental Material
There isn’t much literature on Gasking’s Ontological Argument, so I have linked to a book that offers a description of all the major ontological arguments presented in the history of Western philosophy. I am tempted to write something more substantial about this argument in my next book.
Week 3: The Apophatic Tradition
In this talk, Peter Rollins introduces the reflections that all revolve around the theme of negative theology in Christianity. Here we touch on the traditional approach to negative theology as developed by the early Christianity mystics. By delving into the central claim of mysticism and its relationship to atheism, we explore mysticisms dialectical nature, its embrace of epistemic humility, its notion of paradox, its understanding of theo-poetics and its understanding of Otherness.
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Maimonides (1138–1204) is widely regarded as the greatest Jewish philosopher of the medieval period and remains a pivotal figure in the tradition of apophatic theology (also known as negative theology). His most important work, The Guide of the Perplexed, was written as a letter to a student grappling with whether to follow the path of religious faith or philosophical inquiry. Rather than seeing these as opposing forces, Maimonides sought to reconcile religious knowledge with secular thought, demonstrating that reason and revelation need not be in conflict.
The Guide explores a range of profound philosophical and theological issues, including the demythologisation of scripture, the limits of human knowledge, and the necessity of negative theology. At the heart of his argument is the claim that any attempt to make positive statements about God—whether about His nature, attributes, or actions—inevitably leads to distortion. For Maimonides, God is utterly beyond human comprehension, and the only way to approach an understanding of the divine is through negation: by stripping away all anthropomorphic and conceptual limitations we impose upon God.
Upon its initial publication, the Guide was met with controversy and was even banned in certain circles due to its radical implications. In today’s reflection, we focus on Chapter 60, where Maimonides offers his most famous critique of positive theology—the attempt to describe God in affirmative terms. This chapter is a subtle yet profound example of a recurring theological paradox: that negating God brings one closer to God. It suggests that atheism, understood as the rejection of inadequate conceptions of the divine, can serve as a form of religious purification. In this sense, Maimonides anticipates a theological tradition in which the more we negate God, the closer we come to an encounter with the divine as an ineffable reality beyond all human categories.
Click here for today’s reflection.
Supplemental Reflection
Maimonides can be seen as an important early expression of theological atheism. In essence, his argument is that when we describe God as ‘one’, we are asserting that God is radically different from anything else in the world of our experience.
For Maimonides, if something were truly ‘one’ in the divine sense, it could not be comprehended as a collection of parts—such as all-knowing, all-seeing, and all-powerful. To think of God in this way, he argues, is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the divine. God cannot be broken down or understood in terms of attributes or qualities, as human beings are.
Moreover, the person or object we encounter in the world can be classified into larger categories—such as animal or object—which again makes no sense when applied to God. To categorize God would imply that there exists something greater than God, an absurdity in Maimonides’ view.
As a result of these reflections, Maimonides advocates for a path of radical negation, in which we strip away all the attributes, qualities, and categories that we might apply to God. However, even this radical negation ultimately falls short. Maimonides argues that we must go further, recognizing that all our expressions about God are inadequate. Ultimately, what is needed is a learned silence, an acceptance of the fact that any attempt to describe God is inherently flawed.
To help us grasp this idea, Maimonides compares God’s interaction with the world to the way fire affects different materials. Fire can soften wax, harden clay, or blacken sugar, depending on the nature of the object it touches. Similarly, the divine oneness of God draws out different effects in the people and objects it encounters. In this way, Maimonides suggests that the inscrutable oneness of God is not something we can comprehend, but rather something that reveals itself differently depending on the context and the nature of the beings it interacts with.
Supplemental Material
I’ve included a link to some reflections by Dionysius and the early mystics. Dionysius can be credited as the first individuals to develop a theory and practice that explicitly incorporates atheism as a central motif within theology. The extracts are from The Mystical Theology, and offer two classical examples of Negative Theology. Negative theology - also called Apophatic theology - exists in a type of dialectical relationship with Positive - or Kataphatic - theology. It offers a type of atheistic de-naming of God (Denomination) that always undermines and delimits the theistic naming of God (Nomination). I've also included some sayings by the early mystics have an interesting and undervalued place in the history of atheism, with a theological approach that constantly deferred, delayed, destabilized and disarmed our understanding of God via a rigorous set of negations. Today’s reflection begins with some classical quotes from some notable mystics. I've also included a link to Dionysius’ The Mystical Theology, two other books that offer a substantial deep dive into the mystical tradition and a link to Maimonides Guide.
Big Book Of Christian Mysticism
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The Cloud of Unknowing (14th century) is a classic mystical text by an unknown author, intended to direct a religious student in the correct posture to take toward God. As a mystical text, drawing on the work of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and the tradition of Christian Neoplatonism, the path it sets out is one in which the reader is encouraged to comport themselves to a reality that cannot be contained by any kind of rational reflection.
The book is made up of a series of short chapters and has a loose, informal structure. Chapters five to twelve deal specifically with the limits of reason. Today’s reflection is chapter six.Click here for today’s reflection.
Supplemental Reflection
Like all classical mystical expositions, The Cloud of Unknowing warns against approaching God in a conceptual way. Instead it offers advice on how to cultivate a sustained and passionate intention toward that which transcends all understanding. Instead of seeking intellectual enlightenment, one most bathe in a ‘cloud of unknowing’, embracing a darkness that emanates, not from disinterest, but from deep contemplation.
In this way, the early mystics were among the first to systematically reflect upon, not what we merely do not know, but what we cannot know. This is a theme that has been taken up in various other disciplines since, including mathematics, physics and psychoanalysis. Indeed one might say that one of the defining characteristics of Continental Philosophy is precisely an orientation toward, and reflection on, a dimension of reality that cannot be signified.
For this reason, the work of the mystics continues to be a living source of insight, not just for those within confessional religion, but for anyone who is interested in questioning a crude form of materialism.Supplemental Material
I have enclosed a PDF of the whole book and link to buy it.
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Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) was a brilliant mathematician and scientist, making significant contributions from an early age. As a teenager, he produced groundbreaking work in geometry, and invented a mechanical calculator to assist his father. Yet, despite his achievements in mathematics and physics, Pascal is best remembered for his philosophical reflections.
His masterpiece, Pensées, was an unfinished collection of notes intended to form a defence of Christianity. But in articulating his case, Pascal produced some of the most profound meditations on the human condition ever written.
I've chosen Pascal for this week's reflections because he argues that reason alone cannot lead us to certainty about the existence or essence of God. Instead, he offers a careful and provocative series of arguments suggesting that the very misery of the human condition makes it reasonable to hope for God. From there, he argues that reason can lead us to the conclusion that we ought to seek God—a search embodied in practices such as prayer.
Pascal himself believed he had such an encounter with God on the night of 23 November 1654. At around 10:30 pm, he underwent a profound religious experience. In its immediate aftermath, he hastily recorded his response on a piece of parchment, which he then sewed into the lining of his jacket, carrying it close to him for the rest of his life. This mysterious and intense reflection, known as the Memorial, was discovered only after his death. Today's reflection is this remarkable text.
Click here for today’s reflection.
Supplemental Reflection
While Pascal is not typically regarded as a mystic—he is more often seen as a proto-existentialist—his Memorial testifies to an experience that he considered fundamentally distinct from any apologetic enterprise. Though he believed there were rational grounds for considering the existence of God plausible and Christianity reasonable, he rejected the idea that reason could take us any further.
Though unfinished—remaining only as a collection of fragmented notes—Pensées contains Pascal’s striking description of the three orders of human existence: the order of the body, the order of the mind, and the order of the heart.
At the level of the body, we seek pleasure, yet this pursuit is constantly frustrated, leading us to a deeper longing—one that, for Pascal, expresses a hope for God. At the level of the mind, we seek knowledge, yet we find ourselves unable to penetrate the ultimate nature of reality. Here, Pascal argues that reason can bring us only so far—it can lead us to acknowledge the possibility of God and the need to seek Him. But it is at the level of the heart, Pascal insists, that God can appear, offering a satisfaction that bodily pleasure cannot sustain and an assurance that the intellect can never grasp.
What draws me most to Pascal’s work is his extraordinary psychological depth—his ability to capture, with both clarity and urgency, the tensions and contradictions at the heart of human existence. Few thinkers so powerfully illuminate the restless search for meaning that defines the human condition.
Supplemental Material
I’ve included the lectures to a course I gave recently on Pascal's Pensées, as well as some sections I picked out on his writings concerning the human condition. Because Pascal died before compiling his notes into a coherent work, we are left with numerous fragments composed at different times, and not organized in the way that reflected Pascal’s intention. As a result, different editors compile the material in different ways,
1. Ordering them by topic
2. Constructing the imagined flow of the book (under broader themes)
3. Reflecting the order that Pascal wrote them
I recommend Krailsheimer’s translation of Pensées, which groups the fragments by topic. I've included a link to that work. -
Rudolf Otto (1869–1937) was a profound theologian, philosopher, and scholar of eligion whose work shaped the course of 20th-century religious thought. His most famous book, The Idea of the Holy, presents a compelling defense of the idea that humans can have a direct encounter with the numinous—that which grounds and sustains all being.
While Otto agreed with Kant that we cannot understand the numinous through rational reflection on the external world, he argued that religious experience offers a unique kind of knowledge. This experience, he suggested, is not grasped conceptually but is instead felt—an overwhelming encounter with a truth beyond comprehension.
For today’s reflection, I recommend reading Chapter 2 of the enclosed book (and Chapter 3, if you have time).
Click here for today’s reflection.
Supplemental Reflection
Rudolf Otto shares much in common with post-Kantian thinkers who took seriously the limits Kant placed on human reason while nevertheless arguing for the possibility of direct encounters with truth through a heightened awareness of subjective experience. To grasp this, we might recall the ancient Hindu parable of the six blind men and the elephant. Each man, touching a different part of the animal, mistakes what he perceives for something else—a snake, a fan, a pillar, a wall, a rope, a spear—failing to grasp the totality before him.
The parable illustrates how our engagement with reality is similarly filtered and fragmented; we do not apprehend the world as it is but instead project our own concepts and fantasies onto it. However, if we begin with the premise that we emerge from the universe rather than stand apart from it, then our condition is not simply that of blind men feeling an elephant—but of the elephant experiencing itself through the blind men. In other words, while our conceptual grasp of truth is always partial, Otto suggests that a more direct encounter with reality is possible—not through intellectual reflection, but through an overwhelming felt experience.
What makes Otto’s work so compelling is his ability to isolate this unique mode of religious experience—one characterized not by intellectual certainty but by sheer encounter. Borrowing a term from Jean-Luc Marion, we might call this not an experience in the usual sense but a counter-experience—a kind of saturation that exceeds our capacity to reduce it to thought or feeling.
This idea lies at the heart of classical mystical traditions, as articulated by figures like Anselm and Meister Eckhart, who also insisted that divine encounter is not something grasped or possessed, but something that seizes and overwhelms us.
Supplemental Material
I have included the entire book in the above link, which I highly recommend. I have also included a link for those who would like to buy the book.
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Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) was a visionary writer, composer, and mystic whose legacy spans theology, music, drama, and even botanical and medicinal studies. Today, she is best known for her music, with sixty-nine surviving compositions alongside her morality play, Ordo Virtutum—one of the most extensive repertoires of any medieval composer.
In 1998, David Lynch collaborated with Jocelyn Montgomery to create Lux Vivens (Living Light), an album that reimagines Hildegard’s music in a strikingly modern form. The result is a haunting, immersive work that blends sparse soundscapes, melancholic vocals, and natural sounds to evoke the mystical depth of her compositions. With echoes of Sinéad O’Connor and the Cocteau Twins, Lux Vivens offers a surreal, hypnotic glimpse into Hildegard’s visionary world.
For today’s reflection, I’ve included a single song, but you can find the full album in the Supplemental Material. To fully experience it, I recommend listening alone, in a darkened room.
Click here for today’s reflection.
Supplemental Reflection
Hildegard of Bingen offers us a striking example of the saturated phenomenon—a concept that describes the overwhelming counter-experience of the mystic. This experience resists containment within conceptual or empirical categories, destabilising the recipient and evoking a response best described as theopoetics—a mode of theological expression that aligns more with poetry and praise than with rigid propositions.
Late in her life, Hildegard reflected on this counter-experience in the following way:
From my early childhood, before my bones, nerves, and veins were fully strengthened, I have always seen this vision in my soul, even to the present time when I am more than seventy years old. In this vision my soul, as God would have it, rises up high into the vault of heaven and into the changing sky and spreads itself out among different peoples, although they are far away from me in distant lands and places. And because I see them this way in my soul, I observe them in accord with the shifting of clouds and other created things. I do not hear them with my outward ears, nor do I perceive them by the thoughts of my own heart or by any combination of my five senses, but in my soul alone, while my outward eyes are open. So I have never fallen prey to ecstasy in the visions, but I see them wide awake, day and night. And I am constantly fettered by sickness, and often in the grip of pain so intense that it threatens to kill me, but God has sustained me until now. The light which I see thus is not spatial, but it is far, far brighter than a cloud which carries the sun. I can measure neither height, nor length, nor breadth in it; and I call it "the reflection of the living Light." And as the sun, the moon, and the stars appear in water, so writings, sermons, virtues, and certain human actions take form for me and gleam.
Hildegard’s visions, experienced neither through the senses nor through reason, were encounters with a luminous reality she called the reflection of the living Light. Given this, it is fitting that her preferred medium for communicating this divine radiance was music—a form of expression that transcends mere words, allowing her to convey the inexpressible through melody and harmony.
Supplemental Material
Here are links to the whole album
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Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–1328) was a German theologian, philosopher, and mystic whose thought has left a profound and lasting impact on Christian spirituality, philosophy, and mysticism. A Dominican friar, he was deeply engaged with both scholastic theology and the apophatic tradition, which emphasises the ineffability of God. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest mystics in the Christian tradition, and his work continues to generate considerable interest in both popular and academic circles.
Eckhart’s theology revolves around the notion that God is not merely a being among beings but beyond being—an absolute, transcendent ground from which all existence flows. He speaks of the Gottesgeburt (the birth of God within the soul), a process in which the soul, through detachment (Abgeschiedenheit), becomes one with the divine ground. His thought often blurs the boundaries between creator and creation, leading to tensions with Church authorities. Though he was posthumously condemned for some of his teachings, his influence endures in Christian mysticism, existential philosophy, and even Buddhist-Christian dialogues.
The following excerpt comes from one of his sermons, offering a glimpse into his understanding of God as a reality beyond being.
Click here for today’s reflection.
Supplemental Reflection
Meister Eckhart’s work offers a striking example of the kind of religious experience described by Rudolf Otto—an encounter with the numinous that overwhelms conceptual thought and defies rational articulation. While his writings on God are often dense and enigmatic, they centre on the idea of a fundamental reality that can only be grasped through a radical form of poverty—not merely material poverty, but an inner dispossession, a stripping away of all attachment, including the very desire to seek, grasp, or understand. For Eckhart, even the pursuit of God must ultimately be relinquished. This is what he means by living without why—a state of pure openness where, in letting go of all striving, one paradoxically finds oneself in God and God in oneself.
Richard Rohr has described Eckhart as a "mystic’s mystic," and his influence has extended far beyond Christian theology. His thought has fascinated and shaped numerous major philosophers, including Heidegger, Sartre, and Derrida, who saw in his writings a radical interrogation of being, presence, and nothingness. Eckhart represents one of the most profound attempts to articulate an inner, immediate experience of reality itself—an insight that resonates with thinkers as diverse as Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Kierkegaard. His vision of detachment (Abgeschiedenheit) as a path to ultimate truth continues to challenge and inspire those who seek a spirituality beyond mere belief—one rooted in direct experience.
Supplemental Material
I’ve included a link to his sermons and to a book of selected writings.
Week 4: The Material Turn
As we enter the halfway point of our journey, Peter Rollins takes some time to review what we’ve covered in the past few weeks as well as discuss the turn in our materials in this part of our Atheism for Lent study.
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Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872) is best known for The Essence of Christianity, a seminal work that offers a powerful critique of religion and profoundly influenced later thinkers, including Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
His philosophical writings demonstrate both a deep engagement with and an appreciation for theology. He saw himself not as an enemy of faith but as a friend of theology, seeking to uncover the materialist truth at its core. His thought played a crucial role in the development of historical materialism, and he is often regarded as a bridge between Hegel and Marx.
The following excerpts are taken from Section 2 of the Introduction to The Essence of Christianity. They provide a clear overview of Feuerbach’s most enduring contribution to the critique of religion: the idea that God is a projection of the human essence.
Click here for today’s reflection.
Supplemental Reflection
Feuerbach is essential to understanding the emergence of the materialist critique of religion. As I explored in this week's seminar, he reinterprets Hegel’s account of self-consciousness to explain humanity’s relationship with God. According to Feuerbach, in order for humanity to fully grasp and embody its own essence, it must first externalise that essence onto an imagined divine figure. This projection is then refined through religious thought and practice until, ultimately, humanity comes to recognise itself within the very image it had once attributed to God.
What makes Feuerbach particularly significant is that he was the first to provide a systematic and detailed account of religion’s function without appealing to the supernatural. Unlike the crude dismissals of religion that merely reduce it to ignorance or deception, Feuerbach took seriously the lived experiences, scriptures, and rituals of religious people, analysing them as necessary moments in the unfolding of human self-understanding. His work represents a crucial step in the historical transition from idealism to materialism, offering a critique of religion that still acknowledged its psychological and social significance.
While later thinkers such as Max Stirner and Karl Marx rightly critiqued certain limitations in Feuerbach’s humanism—particularly its ahistorical tendency to treat God as a projection of an unchanging human essence rather than as a reflection of the prevailing mode of production—his insights were nonetheless foundational for Marxist thought. Feuerbach’s analysis of alienation in religious belief paved the way for Marx’s broader theory of alienation under capitalism, demonstrating how ideological structures serve to obscure humanity’s true nature. Though surpassed in certain respects, Feuerbach’s contribution remains indispensable for understanding the materialist turn in philosophy and the critique of religion.
Supplemental Material
Feuerbach's work is engaging, insightful and relatively easy to read. He is also a key thinker for those who want to understand the development of modern continental philosophy and centen trends within theology. I’ve included here Feuerbach's Lectures on the Essence of Religion (I recommend lecture three as a supplement to the above excerpts), as well as a good introductory article by Van Harvey.
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Karl Marx (1818–1883) was a philosopher, economist, and political theorist whose ideas have shaped modern social thought and remain both influential and contentious. His analysis of society, economics, and politics is rooted in the concept of dialectical class struggle, which he saw as the driving force of historical development. Through his critical method, known as historical materialism, Marx articulated the theory of base and superstructure, arguing that a society’s cultural, political, and ideological conditions are largely determined by its economic foundations. These critiques of capitalism were most fully developed in Das Kapital, a three-volume work published between 1867 and 1894.
The following excerpt presents Marx’s renowned reflection on religion, in which he characterizes it as a form of consolation that numbs suffering rather than inciting action.
Click here for today’s reflection.
Supplemental Reflection
While Marx is best known as one of history’s most significant political economists, it is crucial to recognize that he was also a profound philosopher whose ideas emerged from a rigorous engagement with Hegel. His critique of religion, therefore, is far more nuanced than it is often given credit for, shaped as it was by dialectical reasoning and a keen awareness of ideology’s role in shaping human consciousness.
In today’s reflection, we encounter three key insights explored in this week’s seminar. First, that religion serves as a reflection of the prevailing ideological structures of its time, mirroring the dominant social and economic conditions. Second, that it provides consolation for those alienated and oppressed under the existing economic system, offering a form of psychological relief rather than material change. Third, that it often functions to legitimize the status quo rather than to challenge it, reinforcing rather than subverting the conditions that produce suffering.
For Marx, the political sphere is deeply infused with theological notions, making the critique of religion an essential but preliminary step in a broader ideological analysis. It is not an end in itself but a means of uncovering the hidden structures of power that shape secular life.
Just as Feuerbach revealed that God is ultimately a projection of human qualities, Marx extended this insight to the realm of politics. Those in power, he argued, do not embody some eternal or ahistorical truth but are instead products of a particular ideological system—one that generates contradictions and will, in time, give way to something new. The task, then, is not merely to demystify religious illusions but to apply the same critical lens to the economic and political forces that sustain them, exposing the material foundations of belief and paving the way for genuine transformation.
Supplemental Material
I’ve included the full article as well as a short video from Marxist economist Richard Wolff on the line about religion being the opium of the people. I have also included the link to a book that covers all of Marx’s writing on religion.
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Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) was a French existentialist and feminist thinker, best known for The Second Sex, a groundbreaking work that intertwines Marxist and existentialist perspectives to examine how women are defined and subjugated within society. Although she did not formally consider herself a philosopher, she authored four books that are now widely regarded as significant contributions to philosophical thought.
In her youth, de Beauvoir was deeply religious but renounced her faith at the age of 14, later critiquing religious institutions as mechanisms that reinforce the subjugation of women. Profoundly influenced by Marx’s analysis of political, economic, educational, and religious structures in the oppression of the proletariat, she applied a similar lens to the specific ways these structures sustain the subordination of women.
The following excerpt from The Second Sex examines her argument that contemporary religious institutions perpetuate the material subjugation of women precisely by offering an ostensibly emancipatory message.
Click here for today’s reflection.
Supplemental Reflection
This passage from The Second Sex reveals the profound influence of both Marx and Sartre on de Beauvoir’s thinking, particularly in her critique of religion’s role in the subjugation of women. She identifies two subtle yet structurally dialectical ways in which religion functions as a mechanism of oppression.
First, she acknowledges that religion carries an emancipatory message for women—offering them hope, purpose, and dignity—yet she argues that this very promise of liberation ultimately serves as a means of subjugation. This insight follows a distinctly Marxist logic, echoing the critique found in Marx’s Introduction to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, where religion is described as an "opium of the people"—a form of illusory comfort that pacifies rather than liberates. By framing religious devotion as a path to spiritual elevation, de Beauvoir contends that it deflects attention away from the material conditions of oppression, thereby neutralising the possibility of genuine revolutionary change.
Second, she argues that religion offers women a socially acceptable way to articulate and experience their desires, but only in a distorted and disavowed form. Rather than providing a space for true self-expression, it sublimates and constrains female desire within the confines of religious devotion, preventing it from realising its full emancipatory potential. In this context, women find a sanctioned outlet for their longing, yet in a way that ultimately reinforces their subordination rather than challenging it.
In both of these critiques, de Beauvoir presents a more nuanced analysis of religion than the typical rejection of it as merely repressive. Rather than dismissing its emancipatory message outright, she argues that this very promise of liberation is what makes it so effective as a tool of control. By exposing the dialectical tension at the heart of religious experience, she offers a critical reflection that deepens our understanding of how ideology functions—not simply as coercion, but as a system that entices, consoles, and ultimately ensnares.
Supplemental Material
I have included a link to the book on Amazon and a podcast about the life of Simone de Beauvoir.
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Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis. A towering figure in 20th-century intellectual life, his influence continues to shape both therapeutic practice and academic discourse.
In The Future of an Illusion, Freud examines religious belief not as a mere error, but as an illusion—one sustained through tradition, reinforced by inherited arguments, and shielded from scrutiny by social prohibitions. He is particularly interested in religion’s psychological function, arguing that religious beliefs serve as a form of wish fulfillment, expressing what he calls the "oldest, strongest, and most urgent wishes of mankind."
The following excerpt offers a glimpse into Freud’s critique of religion and its role in the human psyche.
Click here for today’s reflection.
Supplemental Reflection
Freud is undoubtedly one of the most influential intellectual figures of the 20th century, not only founding the discipline of psychoanalysis but also profoundly reshaping our understanding of the self. His influence extends far beyond the clinic, leaving an enduring mark on multiple disciplines, including Continental Philosophy.
The philosopher Paul Ricœur coined the term masters of suspicion to describe a select group of thinkers—Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche—who were unparalleled in their ability to unearth the hidden motives underlying human behaviour. Freud, perhaps the most systematic among them, meticulously explored the nature of the unconscious, revealing the ingenious ways it manifests in our lives—through dreams, slips of the tongue, neurotic symptoms, delusions, and religious practices.
Some philosophers, such as Merold Westphal, have argued that Freud’s work might actually serve to redeem the concept of God by freeing it from superstition. Yet, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that Freud delivers a decisive blow to traditional religious belief. This rupture, however, does not necessarily entail the end of theological reflection; rather, it may clear the ground for a radically different, religionless conception of God—a theme we will explore next week.
Supplemental Material
I have also included a short reflection Freud gave on the subject of Religious experience as well a link to The Future of an Illusion and a great book that has various writings from Freud and Freudians on the subject of religion.
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Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) was one of the most influential figures in the existentialist tradition. A philosopher, novelist, and playwright, he was unique in his ability to bridge the gap between academic philosophy and popular culture. His highly regarded literary works—many of which became bestsellers—helped bring existentialist ideas to a broad audience, making him one of the few philosophers to achieve widespread fame in his own lifetime.
Two years after publishing his seminal work, Being and Nothingness, Sartre delivered a lecture titled Existentialism Is a Humanism to a packed auditorium. This lecture provided a concise and accessible introduction to his existentialist philosophy, defending it against its critics while outlining its core themes: radical freedom, responsibility, and the absence of predetermined human essence. Though Sartre later distanced himself from some aspects of the lecture, it remains one of the clearest entry points into his thought and an indispensable text for understanding existentialism.
In today’s reflection, I have provided an abridged version of Existentialism Is a Humanism to highlight its key arguments. For those who wish to explore the full lecture, the complete text is available in the Supplemental Material.
Click here for today’s reflection.
Supplemental Reflection
The essay Existentialism Is a Humanism offers a striking distillation of Sartre’s existentialist philosophy, particularly his understanding of the human condition. Of particular relevance to Atheism for Lent is the way Sartre frames existentialism as atheistic in a specific and nuanced sense. For Sartre, atheism is not merely a rejection of God’s existence but a recognition that, regardless of the God question, we remain entirely responsible for our own beliefs and actions. His existentialism denies any external authority that could absolve us of this burden, insisting instead that human beings must live as if everything rests on their own shoulders.
One of Sartre’s key arguments is that even belief in God does not free us from responsibility. If we choose to affirm God’s existence, we are still responsible for how we interpret the evidence that leads us to that conclusion. We could just as easily interpret the same evidence differently, and in this sense, our belief is always a subjective commitment rather than an objective certainty. Likewise, even if one accepts the idea of a divinely ordained Natural Law, the responsibility for interpreting and applying it remains entirely our own. There is no external force that can relieve us of the weight of decision-making; we are always, inescapably, responsible for how we understand and act upon our beliefs.
For Sartre, this radical responsibility is what defines the existential condition. He famously declared that we are "condemned to be free," meaning that human existence is characterised by the absence of any predetermined essence or moral authority that could dictate our choices. Even though Sartre personally rejected belief in God, he would argue that the death of God is a meaningful concept whether or not God exists. The phrase does not merely refer to the decline of religious belief but to the unavoidable realization that we cannot escape our own freedom. In this sense, the death of God signifies not just atheism, but the existential predicament of being fully responsible for our lives—a truth from which many seek to hide, yet one that defines the human condition itself.
Supplemental Material
I've included the full lecture here, as well as a link to Sartre's most famous work, Being and Nothingness.
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Emma Goldman (1869–1940) was a radical political activist, writer, and one of the most influential anarchist thinkers of the early 20th century. A fierce advocate for individual freedom, she played a crucial role in shaping anarchist political philosophy in both North America and Europe, challenging oppressive social structures and state power with uncompromising fervor.
Goldman was a prolific writer and an electrifying public speaker, delivering passionate lectures on anarchism, women's rights, labour struggles, and free expression. She was deeply involved in direct action, once conspiring to assassinate industrialist Henry Clay Frick as part of the anarchist strategy of propaganda of the deed. Her defiance of authority led to multiple imprisonments, including for "inciting to riot" and disseminating birth control information. In 1906, she founded Mother Earth, an influential anarchist journal that became a platform for radical thought and social critique.
Goldman’s writings cover a vast array of issues, always with a sharp critique of power and a deep belief in human liberation. The following is an abridged version of her essay The Failure of Christianity, in which she examines the complicity of religious institutions in social oppression. For those who wish to explore her argument in full, the complete text is available in the Supplemental Material section.
Click here for today’s reflection.
Supplemental Reflection
The power of Goldman’s essay lies in its raw intensity, uncompromising passion, and unwavering affirmation of human dignity. Rather than a detached academic reflection, her work reads like a secular sermon—an impassioned rallying cry against the injustices she saw embedded within religious institutions. It is a text that does not merely argue but exhorts, calling its readers to awaken to the ways in which Christianity, in her view, has been complicit in oppression rather than liberation.
Her prose is sharp and unrelenting, reminiscent of Nietzsche in its clarity and forcefulness, yet infused with a deep, almost prophetic concern for the downtrodden.
In this, she stands alongside figures like Joe Hill and Simone Weil—thinkers and activists whose lives bore witness to a radical solidarity with the poor and dispossessed. Goldman's words are not merely theoretical; they are forged in the crucible of lived struggle, carrying the weight of someone who has seen and resisted systemic injustice firsthand.
While her writing may lack the philosophical subtlety of a thinker like Simone de Beauvoir, it compensates with an urgency and zeal that make it as compelling as it is disruptive. Goldman's voice does not ask for contemplation so much as it demands action, cutting through complacency with the force of a revolutionary creed. It is precisely this unflinching passion that ensures her work remains both provocative and profoundly relevant.
Supplemental Material
I’ve included a link to the full article as well as another article she wrote called 'The Philosophy of Athiesm' (in ebook format). I’ve also included a link to the book Anarchism and Other Essays, where the article is published.
Week 5: Existential Theology
This week, we delve into one of the most innovative and insightful theological movements of the 20th century. Peter Rollins introduces us to the death of God theologians, as well as some of their earlier influences.
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and anti-Nazi dissident who played a crucial role in the Confessing Church, a movement that resisted the Nazi regime’s attempts to co-opt Christianity. Beyond his theological contributions, Bonhoeffer is remembered for his moral courage and active opposition to Hitler’s dictatorship. Arrested by the Gestapo in April 1943, he was imprisoned at Tegel Prison before being transferred to a concentration camp. In the final months of the war, after being implicated in a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler, he was swiftly tried and executed by hanging on 9 April 1945, just weeks before the Nazi regime collapsed.
In the final years of his life, while imprisoned, Bonhoeffer began to articulate a radical new vision of faith—what he termed "Religionless Christianity." These writings, found in his Letters and Papers from Prison, suggest a faith unshackled from institutional religion, one that calls for a Christianity deeply engaged in the world rather than retreating into dogma or piety. His reflections, though unfinished, would later inspire post-theistic theology and movements rooted in social justice and liberation.
The following excerpts provide a glimpse into Bonhoeffer’s provocative and still-resonant ideas, challenging us to rethink the role of faith in a secular age.
Click here for today’s reflection.
Supplemental Reflection
I have chosen to begin this week’s reflections with some of Bonhoeffer’s final thoughts because his work on ‘Religionless Christianity’ takes seriously—and even builds upon—the materialist critique of religion. These prison writings, though fragmentary, offer tantalising glimpses of a profoundly innovative theological vision, one that was tragically cut short by his execution. While we can only speculate on how his thought might have developed, what remains is striking: a radical and deeply engaged theological project that does not shy away from dismantling traditional conceptions of God and institutional religion.
Despite their unfinished nature, Bonhoeffer’s reflections contain incisive and devastating critiques of conventional religiosity. He does not merely reject traditional faith; rather, he seeks to redefine it in a way that fully confronts the secular age. His writing in these final years is marked by the same clarity, precision, and passion that characterised his earlier work, but with an added urgency—a theologian wrestling with the very core of Christianity from within the confines of a prison cell.
Scholars continue to debate whether Bonhoeffer’s prison writings represent a break with or a continuation of his earlier thought. But regardless of where one lands in that debate, there is no doubt that these writings laid the groundwork for a new wave of subversive theological inquiry, profoundly shaping the emergence of Radical Theology. As you engage with Bonhoeffer’s words, you will see him grappling with the contours of a new Reformation—one that does not merely resist the critiques of religion posed by the ‘Masters of Suspicion’ but integrates and transforms them, shedding the religious scaffolding of faith while preserving something vital at its core.
Supplemental Material
I've included a document that holds all the relevant material for those who would like to do further research, as well as a link to buying the book. In addition to this, I’ve enclosed a link to a five-week course I taught on Bonhoeffer’s Religionless Christianity. The course is available to everyone signed up to the Blaze level of my Patreon.
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Barnett Newman (1905–1970) stands as one of the most significant figures of Abstract Expressionism, a movement that sought to push the boundaries of artistic expression beyond representation and into the realm of raw, existential experience. Newman believed that art should confront the viewer with the immediacy of being, stripping away ornamentation to reveal something fundamental about existence itself.
Between 1958 and 1966, Newman undertook what is widely regarded as his magnum opus—a series of fourteen paintings titled The Stations of the Cross. Unlike traditional depictions of Christ’s Passion, these works do not contain literal imagery; instead, they are composed of stark black and white forms, marked by his signature "zips"—vertical bands of colour that fracture the canvas. The result is a haunting meditation on suffering, transcendence, and the void.
Crucially, the series bears the subtitle Lema Sabachthani—Aramaic for "Why have you forsaken me?"—the anguished words attributed to Christ on the cross. This invocation of divine abandonment transforms the paintings into more than just an aesthetic exercise; they become a confrontation with the silence of the universe, with the absence (or presence) of the sacred in moments of despair. Newman himself saw these works not as illustrations of suffering, but as an invitation for the viewer to experience that moment of forsakenness, to stand before the abyss and bear witness to its gravity.
Today, I want to share with you the first of Newman's Stations of the Cross, alongside a personal reflection—an exploration of what this piece might evoke, and how it speaks to the fractures, doubts, and contradictions that mark our own experience of faith, absence, and meaning.
Click here for today’s reflection.
Supplemental Reflection
Newman’s Stations of the Cross stand as a rare and profound engagement with the religious in modern art—a reflection on the universal dimension of suffering, a memorial to the Holocaust, and an evocation of Spirit in a world marked by rupture and silence. Unlike traditional religious art, which often seeks to narrate or illustrate, Newman’s approach is one of radical abstraction. In these works, the theological is not presented through mythological imagery or doctrinal symbolism but through the stark, formal language of the canvas itself.
What captivates me most in this series—particularly in the first of the Stations—are four distinct elements:
The divided nature of the canvas, which evokes the divided nature of Christ—the tension between his human and divine essence, between presence and absence, suffering and transcendence.
The vertical ‘zip’, Newman’s signature motif, which suggests a rupture in the fabric of being—an opening, perhaps, toward transcendence.
The zip as negative space, a striking absence rather than a positive form, confronting us with what is not there, with the void at the heart of presence.
The stark composition, black paint on raw canvas, which resists aesthetic comfort and instead invites us into the austerity of suffering itself.
Here, there is no narrative theology, no illustrative depiction of Christ’s Passion, but something far more radical: an encounter with the structure of suffering, abandonment, and transcendence itself. Newman’s abstraction does not dilute or evade meaning; rather, it distils the Passion to its formal essence, stripping away representation to reveal something fundamental, something that can only be felt.
Supplemental Material
I have linked to a brochure that was part of the early exhibition of the Stations
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