What is man, what binds him, and what can set him free? Philosophers have struggled over these questions for centuries. The Drama of Atheist Humanism suggests the answer hinges on one’s readiness to place faith in God over faith in man. Cardinal Henri de Lubac S.J. (1896-1991) pits the best of Catholic theology and tradition (with some help from Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky!) against four deeply influential atheist thinkers of the 19th century – Ludwig Feuerbach, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, and Auguste Comte.
This is a book which displays de Lubac’s astounding breadth of learning, with philosophical, historical, literary, and anthropological insights woven elegantly into the main theological thrust of his argument. De Lubac’s treatment of his subjects and sources is masterful. He renders a robust, forceful account of each strain of anti-theistic humanism, and one can sense that he holds a deep reverence and sympathy for the very personalities whose philosophical programmes he condemns – if not for their ideas per se, then at least for the ambition and sincerity with which they were espoused. There is a genuine attempt here to avoid lines of argumentation that condescend into mere polemic. The intellectual generosity and depth of each proposition is revealed (indeed, often lauded) before they are ever critiqued; and de Lubac’s rounded evaluations are offered with ample reference to the original language in which each author couched his ideas. This is a great example of sophisticated, thoughtful apologetics performed “in good faith” – his intellectual opponents (who made a career of debasing his God, no less) are treated more as earnest interlocutors than ideological adversaries.
That is not to say that de Lubac displays any hesitation or diffidence in his response. Quite the opposite. De Lubac exposes each ideology’s shortcomings precisely through this extended engagement, by leading the reader through their tragic consequences and inner contradictions. In the final analysis, despite claims to augur the arrival of a more progressive, enlightened humanism, they fail to affirm the distinct value of man. He is either found sacrificed on an altar to a distant and abstract “humanity”, or doomed to collapse under the weight of denying his own nature. Man is neither a faceless entity in the turning wheels of history, nor an Overman that wills himself to exist beyond the illusory boundaries of good and evil. Above all, Man will not be succoured by the gift of purely material ends. His “sense of the sacred” captures this immediate intuition of an inexhaustible, greater reality. That tendency in man to see in his loftiest and most noble aspirations the trace divinity of his Maker, decried by Feuerbach and declared infrarational by his heirs, will not so easily be explained away. And with the benefit of 80 years of hindsight, us moderns can see that the human race’s recent historical record speaks plainly in de Lubac’s favour. It is striking to note that de Lubac completed the first edition of this work in 1943 at the height of the Second World War, before the calamities of both Nazism and Stalinism had fully swept across European continent, bearing out their monstrous consequences as Nietzsche, Comte, and Marx’s ideological progeny. The material instantiation of their ideas, reified through the bloody annals of history, vindicates de Lubac as prophetic writer who correctly observed the portents of his time.
Yet de Lubac isn’t content to simply refute these ideas. In characteristically lucid prose he seeks to present a positive case for the credibility of Christian belief and praxis, which can be sampled through a short section of his closing arguments in the penultimate chapter “The Search for the New Man”…
Why, then, do we see in so many of our contemporaries, along with the persuasion that they themselves are cured, this will to cure our race? Why these cries of triumph at the idea that all metaphysical or religious anguish has drained from their heart? We understand and approve of the struggle against a degrading or paralyzing superstition. But how can we not deplore the blindness of the one who does not know how to discern any prophetic significance in human anguish? There are two ways of being cured of it: by seeking to stifle it, to kill it, to have it removed “surgically”—but then one mutilates oneself, without stopping it from being reborn elsewhere; or else, in opening oneself to the One who assuages it, by changing it into hope. By decreeing that it corresponds to nothing, that there is no mystery at all; or else, taking note of the mystery, by seeking the key which is to open it to us. It is precisely this key that Christianity offers us. It is not one of its dogmas that, in one form or another, reveals and explains us to ourselves. The complete meaning of the great adventure in which we are engaged is revealed to us through it. It shows us, and it alone can show us, the magnificent end of the whole human task. In this temporal existence, it must be at the maximum service of a more pure, more immanent activity: an activity of contemplation. He will likewise understand that, if he enters every day a little more fully into possession of the universe, it is in order to have more to offer; that in the act by which it is achieved, he must not stop but must transcend himself; that only in this way does he accomplish the profound wish of his nature, which is neither to offer himself in a never-ending heroic effort; nor to withdraw, satisfied at last, into an egotistical enjoyment, even if noble and collective; but, in contemplating, in offering, to adore.
De Lubac doesn’t overwhelm with syllogistic proofs and discursive reasoning; his writing invites the reader to simply ponder if this life could all mean much more. In the end, we are left to consider the proposition that the most boldly humanistic worldview (that is to say, one which concerns itself with the ascendance and flourishing of the human person) is nothing other than the Christian faith borne by the Apostles, preached through the Gospel, and handed down to us in the Church’s living tradition. Only through it are the deepest yearnings and impulses of humankind granted coherence, made intelligible, and given a decisive direction. Ultimately, these point to our heavenly origins and destination, a veritable exitus and reditus quite apart from Nietzsche’s confused rendition of an eternal return, that nevertheless do not contradict our mission as custodians of the earth responsible for the cultivation of society. After all, man is neither animam solam nor solum corpus, but animam simul et corpus esse. That should be sufficient indication that temporal, bodily existence is not a set of rusting shackles to be abhorred and withdrawn from, but a participation in the goodness of his maker that renders man whole. He is made in the Creator’s image, and bears eternally the mark of industriousness, creativity, and a desire for invention. It is then the responsibility of the Church, as the voice of conscience in society and bearer of Christ’s Word on earth, to direct towards the highest goods this universal impulse of man. This is the Church birthed in blood and water from the wound that opened Christ’s side, which is never a mere economic programme, political system, or teacher of ethics, but a sign of God’s fidelity and enduring presence in the unfolding of history, whose “competence comes from the Gospel; the message that sets man free.” And as God’s appointed instrument of liberation, she is called to gather the wandering, the sick, and the alienated into a new communion, a new Body for all humanity – one that will know not tear and rupture, and to which Death will be no more.
The Drama of Atheist Humanism, Henri De Lubac
Last read: September 2025
Mostly read while: Convalescing after nose surgery; on lunch breaks at work
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