Myth and Metaphysics

This book is an attempt to interpret man's religious existence, an inter- pretation for which some of the groundwork was laid by the author's book PHENOMENOLOGY AND ATHEISM (Duquesne University Press, 2nd impression, 1965). That work explored the "e;denial"e; of God by the leading atheists and came to terms with the most typical forms assumed by their "e;denials"e;. Nevertheless, I am not an adherent of atheism. The reason why it is possible to agree with many "e;atheists"e; without becoming one of them is that man can misunderstand his own religiousness or lapse into an inauthentic form of being a believer. What many "e;atheists"e; unmask is one or the other form of pseudo-religiousness which should be unmasked. On the other hand, I have also constantly refused to identify religiousness with such inauthentic forms and to define it in terms of those forms - just as I refuse to identify the appendix with appendicitis, the heart with an infarct, the psyche as a disturbance, and marriage as a fight. The book offered here has been written since the rise of the radical "e;God is dead"e; theology. This "e;theology"e; without God has often been presented as the only form of theological thought still suitable for "e;modern man"e;. As the reader will notice, I reject the brash facility with which some "e;modern men"e; measure the relevance of "e;anything"e; by its "e;modernity"e;.