(IV) Conclusion

This is how the contingent world strikes Sartre as a disillusioned romantic. It remains his contribution that he so heroically faced the fact of contingency. Whether it is really as depressing and terrifying as he believes, is a question that demands in the end a religious answer. But I venture to disagree with Kierkegaard when he declared that this answer cannot but offend reason. I grant him, however, it will be 'irrational' on the assumption of a qualitative difference between time and eternity, for on this basis the contingent will never be firmly established in the dignity that pertains to it as the only real existent that there is apart from God. Such a claim has, of course, its tremendous repercussions. For one thing, it means the end of the rule of Platonism in the Christian religion. And it also implies a reorientation in our views concerning God's relation to Time.