Existential Christianity

Existentialism is the doctrine that existence precedes essence. But is existentialism defining it's own essence before examining its existence? This apparent contradiction is only problematic if we locate the problem in the definition. But perhaps the problem is in the label, existentialism. The axiom; the a priori, of the ideal in question is that existence precedes essence.

When we think in terms of existence and not essence we find that existence presents problems of which essence thinking could never conceive, and therefore never solve, and our existence problems are real. However, what if they are not real? How would we know that our existential experiences are real? Surely we cannot discover their falseness by examining them according to essence, that realm which cannot conceive of existence problems in the first place? How shall it have the answer to a problem of which it cannot conceive? The philosophy of essence is an hilarious Holiday Inn commercial.

Some of you are begging for examples of an existence problem that cannot essentially be addressed. That's another post. Ha. What I find interesting is the claim that the existence precedes essence paradigm is the one under which the ancient Jews and the Jewish cult called Christianity operated; the claim that God's law was not the handing down of universal principles, but instructions concerning how His redeemed culture is to live, that is exist in a surrounding and yet unredeemed world.

That existentialism is now associated with atheism is unfortunate. I for one feel as if it has been hijacked. And when we find conservative Christians dismissing the published thoughts of more moderate Christian thinkers as the "brooding existentialism put forth as Christianity" I don't know whether to laugh or bang my head against the table. Sure, existentialism bears an atheistic form, but its main prognosticator, Soren Kierkegaard, argued for an existence paradigm in order to save Christianity from being swallowed up by a humanistic worldview. I will not fall into the trap of saying that existentialism is essentially Christian, but I think pointing out that existentialism as we know it, that is, the consistent use of an existence thought paradigm, was originally thought in relation to Christianity in order to avoid Christianity's death at the hands of the essence paradigm is noteworthy because as I have discovered at this point in my life, existence driven Christianity is what makes the most sense to me.

That folks should confuse existentialism with atheism, relativism, or the denial of any abstract truth, or the affirmation that all truth is contextual is an unfortunate misunderstanding. But that's another post too.