Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) was a French writer, a well-respected philosopher and novelist, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature (1964), which he declined. In philosophy, Sartre is known as an existentialist, one who theorizes about the meaning of being. In 1944, Sartre authored a play, No Exit, about three people or characters, a man (Garcin) and two women (Inez and Estelle), who are situated together in a room in Hell (after they’ve died) and carry on a conversation. The entire drama is comprised of their three-way talk, together with a valet now and then providing information about their circumstance. There are no flames in this literary hell, no maggots or worms, no boiling lava; only a comfortably furnished salon and three human beings forever ensconced with each other. Here’s a sampling of their colloquy.

INEZ: Yes, I see. Look here! What’ s the point of play-acting, trying to throw dust in
each other’s eyes? We’re all tarred with the same brush.

ESTELLE: How dare you!

INEZ: Yes, we are criminals– murderers– all three of us. We’re in hell, my pets; they
never make mistakes, and people aren’t damned for nothing. 

ESTELLE: Stop! For heaven’s sake–

INEZ: In hell! Damned souls– that’s us, all three!

ESTELLE: Keep quiet! I forbid you to use such disgusting words.

INEZ: A damned soul– that’s you, my little plaster saint. And ditto our friend there, the
noble pacifist. We’ve had our hour of pleasure, haven’t we? There have been people who
burned their lives out for our sakes– and we chuckled over it. So now we have to pay the
reckoning.

GARCIN: Will you keep your mouth shut, damn it!

INEZ: Well, well! Ah, I understand now. I know why they’ve put us three together.

GARCIN: I advise you to– to think twice before you say any more.

INEZ: Wait! You’ll see how simple it is. Childishly simple. Obviously there aren’t any
physical torments– you agree, don’t you? And yet we’re in hell. And no one else will
come here. We’ll stay in this room together, the three of us, for ever and ever…In short,
there’s someone absent here, the official torturer.

GARCIN: I’d noticed that.

INEZ: It’s obvious what they’re after– an economy of man-power– or devil-power, if you
prefer. The same idea as in the cafeteria, where customers serve themselves.

ESTELLE: Whatever do you mean?

INEZ: I mean that each of us will act as torturer of the two others.¹ 

The three are condemned to permanent dialogue with each other and have no way out of their prison. Toward the end of the one-act play, Garcin declaims that Hell has no need for “brimstone” or “red-hot pokers,” “Hell is — other people!”² 

Sartre also penned a novel, Nausea (1938), wherein the main character, a research writer named Antoine Roquentin, experiences a change in outlook³ and gradually becomes sickened with himself and everything around him because he perceives the meaningless contingency of existence.⁴ 

In Sartre’s magnum opus of philosophy, Being and Nothingness (1943), he expounds his idea of bad faith. Sartre says, “in bad faith human reality is constituted as a being which is what it is not and which is not what it is.”⁵ In other words, bad faith is self-deception or a basic falsity in human being. Opposite to bad faith would be sincerity, but Sartre’s analysis of sincerity is that “the goal of sincerity and the goal of bad faith are not so different.”⁶ “Thus in order for bad faith to be possible, sincerity itself must be in bad faith. The condition of the possibility for bad faith is that human reality, in its most immediate being … must be what it is not and not be what it is.”⁷

For philosopher Sartre, there is a problem at the heart of human existence, a conflict (he calls it “disintegration”⁸), which impels us to flee from ourselves. This flight results in projects in which we try to reconstruct a unified self. Whether in bad faith or sincere, all human projects depart “immediate, non-cognitive relation of the self to itself.”⁹ An interpreter of Sartre has said, “both good and bad faith reveal consciousness as lacking identity with itself ” and “everything in consciousness must be in question.”¹⁰ Human living is like a ballerina on a tightrope stretched across a chasm, difficult to stay upright; a picturesque way of describing Sartre’s viewpoint.

The above is vector one of an argument, heading toward a point.

Vector Two

Jesus of Nazareth died about two-thousand years ago, around year 30 of the historical division called A.D. or C.E. Jesus preached and taught a message about God and man.

After the arrest of John, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God; and saying the time is perfect and the kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe the gospel. (Mk 1:14f)

To repent and to believe are actions that Jesus required of his fellows. To repent is to stand above self and examine yourself. To repent is to look inside human self and realize fault. Following this recognition is correction or attempt to rectify self. To believe is beginning faith in God and building faith in God. The semantic relation between repentance and faith in the message of Jesus is that people are not able to heal self. God alone can save us.

Reading the gospels, it is fair to say that just about everywhere Jesus looked, with whomever he had contact, faith was absent or weak. “O ye of little faith” (Mt 8:26; Lk 12:28) is a well-known response of Jesus to his own disciples, from King James Version. There are a few exceptions to usual lack of faith Jesus observed in his contemporaries. Here are three, women and a man, who exhibited faith in God and elicited Jesus’ approval.¹¹

…. a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. … Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, “Daughter your faith has healed you. Go in peace.” (Lk 8:43-48 NIV)

 He sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents. Calling his disciples to himself, he said to them, “Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.” (Mk 12:41-44 NAB)

As he entered Caper′na-um, a centurion came forward to him, beseeching him and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, in terrible distress.”  And he said to him, “I will come and heal him.” But the centurion answered him, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.  For I am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”  When Jesus heard him, he marveled, and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.”  And to the centurion Jesus said, “Go; be it done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed at that very moment. (Mt 8:5-13 RSV)

Here are some passages showing Jesus’ dissatisfaction with others’ lack of faith or understanding.

Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. . . . After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it.  After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers . . . His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Lk 2:41-52)

Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” . . . “You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked. “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? (Jn 3:1-12)

Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. They stood outside the house and sent in a message, asking for him. A crowd was sitting around Jesus, and they said to him, “Look, your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, and they want you.” Jesus answered, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” He looked at the people sitting around him and said, “Look! Here are my mother and my brothers!  Whoever does what God wants is my brother, my sister, my mother.” (Mk 3:31-34)

He departed from there and came to his native place, accompanied by his disciples. When the sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him? What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands! Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.” So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith. (Mk 6:1-6)

Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?” And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is he who takes no offense at me.” (Mt 11:2-6)

Then he began to upbraid the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Chora′zin! woe to you, Beth-sa′ida! for if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.” (Mt 11:20f)

As the crowds increased, Jesus said, “This is a wicked generation. It asks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah. . . . The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and now something greater than Jonah is here. (Lk 11:29-32)

“Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil . . . If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?” (Jn 8:39-47)

Then Jesus answered and said, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?” (Mt 17:17-21)

There are many, many more gospel passages that show Jesus at odds with his countrymen over issues of understanding, faith, repentance. The most secure historical-critical fact of Jesus’ life is that he was crucified. What is the crux of the matter in Jesus’ disagreement with other people? It is his understanding of human nature, his distaste for human nature.

Right away Jesus knew what they were thinking. So he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? (Mk 2:8)

For his part, Jesus did not trust himself to them, since he knew all about men. Also, he had no need for anyone to tell him about man. He himself knew what was in man. (Jn 2:24f)

In humankind, Jesus saw lack of faith in God or weak faith in God. [Yet when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? (Lk 18:8b)] This is vector two, heading to a point.

The point, to which Sartre and Jesus bear witness, each in their own way, is that there is nothing in the center of man. Human being contains a lack, a void, an absence which needs to be filled.

Notes

1. Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit and Three Other Plays (NY: Vintage, 1976), p. 17f
2. Ibid., p. 47
3. Roquentin says, in his diary, “..a change has taken place during these last few weeks. . . But where? It is an abstract change . . . Am I the one who has changed?” “I think I’m the one who has changed.” .. “I am subject to these sudden tranformations. The thing is that I rarely think; a crowd of small metamorphoses accumulate in me without my noticing it, and then, one fine day, a veritable revolution takes place.” J.-P. Sartre, Nausea tr. Lloyd Alexander (NY: New Directions, 1969), pp. 4-5
4. See Ibid., pp. 126-135; Roquentin has a strange experience while sitting on a park bench which causes him to write, “The Nausea has not left me and I don’t believe it will leave me so soon; but I no longer have to bear it, it is no longer an illness or a passing fit: it is I.” On the park bench, Roquentin’s mind is emptied. … “words had vanished and with them the signifiance of things . . . which frightened me.” . . . “existence hides itself ” and “this root (of a chestnut tree), on the other hand, existed in such a way that I could not explain it. Knotty, inert, nameless, it fascinated me, filled my eyes, brought me back unceasingly to its own existence.” “I was the root of the chestnut tree. Or rather I was entirely conscious of its existence.” “I knew it was the World, the naked World suddenly revealing itself, and I choked with rage at this gross, absurd being.”
5. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness tr. Hazel Barnes (NY: Washington Square Press, 1966), p. 107
6. Ibid., p. 110
7. Ibid., p. 112
8. Ibid., p. 116
9. Ibid., p. 12; This phrase refers to instant self-awareness (or auto-awareness) of existing in human reality, which is wordless and prior to awareness of anything else. Sartre also calls it “pre-reflective cogito” (pp. 9, 13, 114, 119-121), “non-thetic” self-consciousness (pp. 13f, 114, 120, 141, etc.), “consciousness of consciousness” (pp. 11-14). To be human, for Sartre, is to be conscious and consciousness, firstly, is conscious of itself existing. Once consciousness looks outward, “bad faith is possible . . . it is an immediate, permanent threat to every project of the human being . . . consciousness conceals in its being a permanent risk of bad faith.” (p. 116)
10. Joseph Catalano, A Commentary on Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 88
11. Another example of a person getting Jesus’ blessing was the publican Zaccheus, who repented from greed and fraud; see, Lk 19:1-10