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 &quote;denial&quote; of God by the leading atheists and came to terms with the most typical forms assumed by their &quote;denials&quote;. Nevertheless, I am not an adherent of atheism. The reason why it is possible to agree with many &quote;atheists&quote; 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 &quote;atheists&quote; 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 &quote;God is dead&quote; theology. This &quote;theology&quote; without God has often been presented as the only form of theological thought still suitable for &quote;modern man&quote;. As the reader will notice, I reject the brash facility with which some &quote;modern men&quote; measure the relevance of &quote;anything&quote; by its &quote;modernity&quote;.