No revelation descends from on high, whatever rises, rises from the depth of human frustration.

--Marx (1818–1883), among the atheist philosophers of the ninteenth century, should be treated separately in his own right. To him the denial of God is not merely incidental, it is an integral component of his philosophy, with which religion is absolutely incompatible. With him, humans are like elements interacting with each other under the socio-economic laws which govern them. They must be set free from the religious interference which distracts their natural course. To Marx, revelation and inspiration lie beyond the vocabulary of philosophical thought.

Next to him is Nietzsche, with his own special domineering personality. His sabre-like pen impales God as his prime victim, until he pronounces Him dead; or, so he thought. In fact he knew no God, other than the God of the Christian dogma and it was Him that his sword of reason had murdered. Thus, Kierkegaard is proved so right in his warning to the priests to maintain a sullen silence about the divine mystery of Trinity; rather than invite trouble by venturing to defend it with instruments of reason.

Most of the atheist European philosophers of that age were, in fact, driven to the denial of God largely by the Christian Church, which had mystified God's image to the extent of absurdity. Among other atheist philosophers, Sartre (1905–1980) is perhaps the most interesting and playful. He knows how to coin simple phrases with profound ideas. At the helplessness of man in his freedom to shift for himself in a Godless universe, he exclaims:

'... man is condemned to be free.'

By this he means that the responsibility to make choices for himself, which lies on every human shoulder, is a challenge extremely difficult to meet. There is no one else to help him or guide his steps in the dreary wilderness of existence. Commenting on the episode of Abrahamas, he explains the presence of angels as a psychic phenomenon. To him, that Divine revelation which the angels brought to Abrahamas was no more than the anguish of his soul. Wrong as we may consider Sartre's explanation, we must pay homage to his fiery outburst of desperation and vengefulness. This applies far more befittingly to Sartre himself who may have suffered pangs of anguish and exasperation in the emptiness of his Godless philosophy. Revelation is the anguish of the soul, is indeed a profoundly revealing statement from the vantage point of an atheist—if atheists ever admit to possessing souls. Bernard Shaw is close to Sartre, but not quite, when he defines revelation as 'inner voices'—at best, a smart remark of a dramatist lacking the depth and force of Sartre's reflection! All said and done, Sartre fails to distinguish between inspiration and revelation, terms that simply do not exist in his philosophy; what does exist is the agony of soul—a tongue of fire that leaps out in occasional outbursts of desperation. No revelation descends from on high, whatever rises, rises from the depth of human frustration.

-- An excerpt from "Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth" by Mirza Tahir Ahmad