POSSIBILIDADES DE CONHECER A DEUS: A CONSCIÊNCIA EXISTENCIAL SARTREANA E A SAPIENCIAL COELETIANA.

Abstract

This thesis hopes to articulate the Existentialism of Sartre in interface with the biblical thought of Ecclesiastes; in essence the possibility of Man s knowledge of God is discussed. The first chapter explores Sartre s thoughts based on his philosophical works written between 1943 and 1946. In concomitance with the theories of Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud and the principal phenomenological concepts of Husserl, the relationship between God, man and conscience is signalized. In that attempt, a concept of the existential conscience in Sartre is constructed that points to God s being in essence, but never in existence. The proposal is a defense of God s phenomenon in atheistic thought and how man perceives him in a different way in the world. The second chapter treats Ecclesiastes, also called Qohelet, as referred to in Sartre s thought and subsidized by Biblicists and commentators that concentrate on the study of man, God and world like Ravasi (1993) and Vílchez Líndez (1999). Questions concerning the book of Ecclesiastes from authorship, canonicity, and its ways of relating to God being in the world, a being that always manifests himself to man and through man s own initiative, are expounded. The third chapter is developed between two literatures, philosophical and biblical; efforts are concentrated in favor of a conceptual reconstruction of themes that refer to man s way of life. God is considered a phenomenon relating to Man s conscience; this discussion is only possible when dialogue is promoted between Sartre and Qohelet without limiting them to epistemological determinisms, but, rather, to phenomenological stances. It can, therefore, be concluded that it is man who chooses how to exist or how to make wise the phenomenon that is perceivable in the world; this choice is given through one s proper perception of the world. It is foreseen that arguments will be constructed for the defense of the hypothesis that only man can decide to know God because it is he who names God in order to hold him in usufruct in the midst of existential situations and in portion. Man is the only being in existence capable of knowing God, the being of essence.