Episode 14 – The Drama of Atheist Humanism – Fr. Joseph Fessio S.J., Vivian Dudro, and Joseph Pearce – FBC Podcast


Fyodor Dostoyevsky survived an execution and spent five years in a brutal Siberian prison. To his surprise, that’s where he fell in love with God.


You can find the book here

De Lubac traces the origin of 19th century attempts to construct a humanism apart from God, the sources of contemporary atheism which purports to have “moved beyond God.” The three persons he focuses on are Feuerbach, who greatly influenced Marx; Nietzsche, who represents nihilism; and Comte, who is the father of all forms of positivism.

He then shows that the only one who really responded to this ideology was Dostoevsky, a kind of prophet who criticizes in his novels this attempt to have a society without God. Despite their historical and scholarly appearance, de Lubac’s work clearly refers to the present.

As he investigates the sources of modern atheism, particularly in its claim to have definitely moved beyond the idea of God, he is thinking of an ideology prevalent today in East and West which regards the Christian faith as a completely outdated.


Fr. Joseph Fessio S.J.
Vivian Dudro
Joseph Pearce