Abstract

The thinker today who wishes to understand the phenomenon of contemporary atheism must take some account of the general development of speculation about God that took place in the modern centuries and particularly since the time of Immanuel Kant. The reason for this is obvious enough, for it is only against the background of its development and in the light of the various influences which caused it that the peculiar character of present-day atheism and its precise significance can be adequately explained. Why is it that proofs for God’s existence, if they are considered at all, are normally given such short shrift by the contemporary atheist. How did he come to find such difficulty about accepting the properties traditionally attributed to God, particularly that of infinity? What has belief in God got to do with human alienation? Answers to these and similar questions lie in the history of philosophical ideas that maturated in the minds of a long line of philosophers from Descartes, through Kant, to contemporary atheistic existentialists.