Introduction
Many people today no longer rely on traditional religion, yet they still look for depth, orientation, and a sense of inner coherence in their lives. The language of “spirituality” persists even in strongly secular cultures, suggesting that the desire for meaning and inward richness does not disappear when belief fades. Existentialism offers one way to understand and cultivate this desire without appealing to a higher power or fixed doctrine. It treats meaning not as something discovered in a divine plan but as something created through conscious living.
This article presents existentialism as a model for secular spirituality. It focuses on how existentialist thinkers interpret freedom, responsibility, and authenticity, and how these ideas can guide a life that feels both honest and purposeful. Rather than promising certainty, existentialism invites sustained attention to choice, to one’s relationships with others, and to the conditions of the world as they actually are.
Origins and Context
Existentialism took shape against a backdrop of religious tension, cultural upheaval, and political crisis in Europe. In the nineteenth century, Søren Kierkegaard challenged established forms of Christianity by emphasizing the individual’s anxiety, inward struggle, and leap of commitment. Friedrich Nietzsche announced that the old foundations of value were collapsing, capturing this shift in the phrase “God is dead,” and asked what new forms of life and value could emerge once inherited certainties lost their force.
In the twentieth century, especially after the two World Wars, this line of questioning intensified. Jean‑Paul Sartre described human beings as “condemned to be free,” with no predetermined essence to rely on and no external authority to excuse their choices. Simone de Beauvoir extended this analysis to ethics, gender, and politics, arguing that freedom is always entangled with the situation of others. Albert Camus examined the “absurd,” the clash between human longing for meaning and a silent universe, and explored how to live without resignation in that tension.
These thinkers redirected attention from metaphysical claims about the universe to the concrete ways individuals experience their freedom, their limits, and their responsibilities. In doing so, they helped shift modern thought from a framework centered on divine order toward one grounded in lived experience. This shift opened space for a form of spirituality that does not depend on religious belief: a disciplined, reflective engagement with one’s own existence, choices, and relationships.
Core Principles as Secular Spirituality
Existentialism can be read as a set of practices for living meaningfully without relying on religious belief. Its core ideas function like secular spiritual disciplines: they ask for attention, honesty, and ongoing effort rather than faith in a higher power.
1. Existence precedes essence
In existentialist thought, human beings are not born with a fixed nature or a given purpose. We arrive in the world as fact—placed in specific bodies, families, cultures, and historical moments—but our identities and life meanings are not settled in advance. According to this view, we become who we are through what we do: through concrete choices, patterns of behavior, and commitments sustained over time.
This reverses the idea that there is a “true self” or divinely assigned role waiting to be discovered. Instead, each person participates in the ongoing creation of their own “essence.” Treated spiritually, this principle invites a serious, almost reverent attitude toward everyday decisions. Rather than waiting for an external calling, the individual recognizes each moment as an opportunity to shape a life that feels honest and worthy.
2. Freedom as sacred responsibility
Existentialism describes human beings as fundamentally free. This freedom is not unlimited power; it is the unavoidable capacity to choose how to respond to one’s situation. Even under heavy constraints, a person still decides what to endorse, resist, or value. There is no final authority—no divine law, no fixed human nature—that can fully remove this burden.
Because of this, freedom appears not as a casual privilege but as a kind of solemn responsibility. One cannot simply follow custom or habit and claim to be excused from the consequences. In a secular spiritual reading, taking freedom seriously resembles a daily discipline: examining motives, anticipating effects on others, and accepting that one’s choices contribute to the moral texture of the world. Where religious spirituality may speak of obedience, existentialism speaks of lucid, accountable action.
3. The absurd and clear‑sighted acceptance
Albert Camus described the “absurd” as the tension between the human desire for lasting meaning and the apparent indifference of the universe. People ask large questions—Why am I here? What is the point of suffering?—and receive no objective answer. Existentialism does not resolve this conflict by positing a hidden plan. It keeps the problem visible.
Yet this confrontation is not purely bleak. When someone accepts the absence of guaranteed meaning, they can also recognize the full weight and vividness of the present. Instead of postponing life for an ultimate explanation, they attend more carefully to what actually exists: relationships, small joys, fragile projects, and the fact of being alive at all. In this sense, awareness of the absurd leads to a kind of secular transcendence—not an escape from the world, but a heightened, clear‑sighted appreciation of it.
4. Authenticity and personal integrity
For existentialists, authenticity means acting in accordance with one’s real convictions and recognizing one’s freedom, rather than hiding behind roles, regulations, or excuses. Jean‑Paul Sartre used the term “bad faith” for the habit of pretending that one is only a function—a worker, a parent, a believer—without acknowledging the choices involved in maintaining that role.
Authenticity does not require constant rebellion. It requires honest alignment between what one does and what one can sincerely affirm. Viewed as a spiritual practice, this involves frequent self‑examination: asking whether one’s work, relationships, and habits reflect genuine endorsement or mere inertia. Over time, this practice can reduce self‑deception and cultivate a stable sense of inner coherence.
5. Relational meaning and intersubjectivity
Simone de Beauvoir emphasized that freedom is never purely individual. Each person’s projects unfold within a network of others who also strive to live and flourish. Any serious account of meaning must therefore include the ways we affect and depend on one another.
From this angle, ethics does not descend from a divine source; it arises from the fact that our lives intersect. Treating others as mere instruments undermines the very freedom we claim for ourselves, because it encourages a world in which no one’s projects are secure. A secular spirituality inspired by existentialism treats mutual recognition, respect, and solidarity as central. The “sacred” is not a distant realm but the lived field of relationships in which dignity can be upheld or denied.
6. Creating meaning as creative transcendence
Existentialists hold that meaning is made rather than found. People give shape to their lives through commitments—to work, causes, communities, or forms of expression—and through the interpretations they place on their experiences. This creative activity does not lift a person out of the world; it re‑configures how the world is lived.
This act can be understood as a form of secular transcendence. There is no appeal to the supernatural, yet there is a movement beyond passivity. A person who writes, cares for others, builds institutions, or quietly maintains integrity under pressure turns brute circumstance into something intelligible and valuable. In this way, existentialism frames meaning‑making as a disciplined, almost devotional task: a sustained effort to turn finite time into a coherent story.
Taken together, these principles outline a style of life that is both secular and spiritual: attentive to freedom, clear about limits, anchored in relationships, and committed to honest self‑creation.
Existential Thinkers as Guides
Several writers have given these ideas concrete form, offering portraits of what such a life might look like. Their differences matter, but each contributes to the picture of existentialism as a path for secular spirituality.
Jean‑Paul Sartre: freedom and self‑definition
Sartre argued that humans are “condemned to be free”: they cannot escape choosing, even when they try to avoid decision. This claim was not meant as a slogan of optimism but as a description of the structure of human existence. He showed how people often deny this freedom by telling themselves that they are fixed by their nature or their roles.
As a guide, Sartre invites the reader to notice every place where they say “I had no choice” and to examine that statement carefully. Even under constraint, some degree of authorship remains—over attitude, over which demands to accept, over which compromises to refuse. This relentless focus on responsibility can function like a spiritual exercise, pressing a person to align actions with values rather than habit or fear.
Simone de Beauvoir: freedom with others
De Beauvoir extended existentialism into an ethical and political key. She analyzed how one person’s freedom can be supported, restricted, or distorted by social structures and by the behavior of others. Her work on gender showed how entire groups can be cast into roles that limit their opportunities for self‑creation.
As a guide to secular spirituality, de Beauvoir reminds us that inner authenticity is not enough. A life that honors freedom must also confront the ways in which some lives are hindered. She suggests that meaningful existence involves willing not only one’s own liberation but the conditions under which others can also choose. This turns existentialism outward, toward solidarity, critique of oppressive arrangements, and active participation in changing the shared world.
Albert Camus: the absurd and revolt
Camus focused on the feeling that life might be meaningless and on the temptation to respond with resignation or withdrawal. In his work, the absurd is not a theory but a mood: the experience of encountering suffering, randomness, and death without a convincing explanation.
His response centers on “revolt”—a persistent refusal to treat life as worthless, even when no ultimate justification is available. Camus’s image of Sisyphus, endlessly pushing a boulder uphill, is not presented as tragic defeat but as a symbol of defiant affirmation. The figure continues, fully aware of the situation, and finds a form of dignity in the effort itself. For a secular spirituality, this suggests a posture of clear‑eyed perseverance: acknowledging limits, yet choosing engagement, care, and even joy without guarantee of lasting success.
Each of these thinkers contributes a distinct emphasis—Sartre on radical responsibility, de Beauvoir on ethical interdependence, and Camus on lucid resilience. Together, they offer a set of lenses through which individuals can interpret their own search for meaning, not as a quest for revelation, but as an ongoing practice of creating a life that can be consciously affirmed.
Applying Existentialism Today
In contemporary life, many people navigate fragmented schedules, digital distraction, and unstable institutions. Within this environment, the question of meaning often appears as background anxiety: a sense that activities are busy but not grounded. Existentialism does not supply a ready‑made answer, but it does offer a way to approach this unease through deliberate practice. Its concepts can be translated into concrete habits that shape how one works, relates, and reflects.
One application lies in personal identity. Rather than asking “Who am I really?” as if there were a single hidden essence, an existential approach asks, “What am I choosing to be through my actions today?” This shift moves attention from speculation to practice. A person might examine how they show up in their work, friendships, or creative efforts, and treat these domains as sites where meaning is actively made. Small, consistent decisions—telling the truth when it is inconvenient, staying with a difficult task, listening carefully to another—become the building blocks of a life that feels coherent.
Another application concerns modern forms of burnout and alienation. Many experience work as either a source of pressure or a mere means of survival. From an existential perspective, work can also be a field of self‑definition, even when conditions are imperfect. This does not romanticize exploitation; rather, it suggests that individuals look for points of agency within constraints. They can ask which tasks they can invest with care, which skills they want to cultivate, and where they might set boundaries to preserve integrity. Such questions translate abstract freedom into specific choices about time, energy, and commitment.
Existentialism also lends itself to secular “rituals” that support reflection. Activities such as journaling, meditation, walks without devices, or regular conversations about values can function as checkpoints. They create space to notice drift, reconsider priorities, and re‑articulate what one wants to stand for. Unlike religious rituals that point beyond the world, these practices point back into one’s own life, reinforcing awareness and responsibility. Over time, they can help prevent the sense of living on automatic pilot.
Relationships provide another crucial area of application. If meaning is partly relational, as existentialists like de Beauvoir suggest, then everyday interactions matter deeply. Choosing to recognize others as centers of experience, rather than as tools or obstacles, changes the quality of contact. Acts such as acknowledging another’s difficulty, offering help without condescension, or accepting criticism without defensiveness express a commitment to shared dignity. These actions are modest, but they accumulate into a more humane environment in which everyone’s freedom has a chance to develop.
Finally, existentialism can inform engagement with social and political life. It encourages individuals to see themselves not only as private selves but as participants in shared structures. Voting, organizing, creating institutions, or simply supporting fair practices at work are ways of shaping the conditions under which many people pursue meaning. While no single action solves large problems, each deliberate contribution resists the temptation to treat injustice as inevitable. In this sense, existentialism suggests that secular spirituality includes attention to the world’s design, not only to one’s inner state.
Addressing Critiques
Existentialism has faced several recurring criticisms. One common charge is that it leads to nihilism: if there is no predefined meaning or moral order, then nothing matters. Existentialist thinkers respond by distinguishing between the absence of external guarantees and the presence of lived significance. The fact that meaning is created rather than given does not erase its weight. If anything, it increases it, because each person bears responsibility for what they uphold, neglect, or destroy.
Another criticism is that existentialism encourages moral relativism, as if any choice were as valid as any other. This misreads its emphasis on freedom. For existentialists, freedom is inseparable from responsibility and from the recognition of others. A choice that denies or exploits the freedom of others undermines the very condition that makes one’s own projects meaningful. Ethical evaluation thus arises from examining how actions affect the shared world, not from appealing to universal rules or shrugging off evaluation altogether.
A further concern is that existentialism can seem overly focused on individual struggle, ignoring material conditions and collective histories. Some later existential and existentialist‑inspired thinkers tried to address this by linking personal freedom to social analysis. They argued that authentic existence requires attending to the ways social, economic, and political structures shape the options available to different groups. In this view, existential responsibility includes efforts to transform unjust conditions, not merely to endure them.
These responses do not eliminate all difficulties, but they show that existentialism is not simply a philosophy of despair or arbitrariness. It is a demanding framework that insists on clarity, accountability, and serious engagement with both self and world.
Conclusion
Existentialism offers a way to understand spirituality without appealing to the supernatural. It treats human life itself—finite, uncertain, and interdependent—as the primary arena of depth and seriousness. Meaning does not arrive from outside; it is formed through choices, relationships, and the interpretations we give to our experiences.
To live existentially is to accept that there is no final script and to see this not only as a loss but as an invitation. Freedom becomes a call to shape one’s life deliberately, with attention to both personal integrity and the realities of others. Practices of reflection, honest speech, creative work, and ethical involvement in the world become forms of secular devotion.
In this sense, existentialism sketches a path of secular spirituality: a way of inhabiting one’s existence with awareness, courage, and care. It does not promise comfort or certainty. Instead, it offers the possibility of a life that can be consciously affirmed, not because it fulfills a prewritten design, but because it is the result of an ongoing, responsible act of creation.