Existential Angst

Existentialism is a doctrine that stresses the importance of men having free will, realizing themselves, and in doing so taking full responsibility for their actions. It’s comprised of both theistic and atheistic views. With theistic existentialism comes the concept of God and the idea that essence precedes existence. We are creations made with the same basic quality and that quality is given to us before our birth by God. After we are given our essence then we begin to exist but we live by a set of God-given principles. God knows what he is creating beforehand and thus there is no real choice given to man. All of our lives have already been preordained for us.
In atheistic existentialism Jean-Paul Sartre says that there is no God so man makes himself what he will become. “Man is nothing but what he makes himself and existentialism’s first move is to make every man aware of what he him and to let him know that the responsibility for what he is rests upon him.”   Jean-Paul Sartre says that when we choose for ourselves, we also choose for everyone else. Man must realize that he is not the only one affected by his actions. When we choose to do something we must also see that our actions set a precedent that others may follow. We are setting an example for all those around us. The theistic existentialist is very distressed by the idea that God does not exist because without God the concept of good and evil go with him. If there is no God then there is no set of principles for people to live by, everything would become possible for every man. But also with the loss of God we lose a higher being to blame for our mistakes meaning that all responsibility will be placed solidly on our shoulders.
            Existentialism has been charged with many things by many people and all of those charges have been listed by Jean-Paul Sartre. Communists accused Existentialism of being a bourgeois philosophy. Their reason for this accusation was that since Existentialists say that...