A few months ago I posted about Jean-Paul Sartre’s faith and said that the story of his death-bed conversion is just an urban myth.
There is an urban myth that Sartre had a death-bed conversion, called for the priest, and died in the bosom of the Catholic Church. It’s not true. But it is true that in the last few years of his life he re-evaluated some of his core existentialist convictions, and in particular became more open to the idea of God and the significance of religion. He was undoubtedly influenced – some would say coerced – by Benny Lévy, a young Egyptian Maoist who was rediscovering his own Jewish inheritance at the time he was working as Sartre’s secretary and interlocutor. Their conversations were published just weeks before Sartre’s death.
M. A. Dean countered in a recent comment on that post, and I wanted to bring his remarks into a proper post here because they are so emphatic and controversial:
This conversion is not urban myth. When I was at Notre Dame in 1980-81, Father John S. Dunne, a noted writer and teacher, told me personally that a priest friend of his was called to Sartre’s deathbed, where the noted atheist confessed his sins and came into the Church. Father Dunne also claimed that a fiery article by Simone Beauvoir appeared condemning Sartre’s “fall into superstition” at his end. I have to find the article by Beauvoir.
Here is my reply:
I believe what you say, but I just wish it were better documented; and I wonder why there is so much silence about this event. I haven’t found any references in the many biographies I have looked at. And unfortunately the outbursts by de Beauvoir have been interpreted in different ways – most people take them simply as evidence of de Beauvoir’s unhappiness about the influence of Levy on the elderly Sartre, and Sartre’s increasing openness to God and the place of religion, and not as evidence of a concrete act of conversion at the end. So I wish we knew more! I’ll post about this to see if anyone else can fill the gaps. Thanks very much indeed for this piece of the puzzle.
Please do comment below if you have any other information, hard facts, or references.
Wow…I would love to know if this were true or not…
Fr Mitch Pacwa a Jesuit priest who chairs a programme on television called EWTN live recently made reference to Jean Paul Sartre’s conversion at the end of his life. He said he received the sacraments from a priest of the Dominican order and had his marriage to Simone de Beauvoir regularised .
Fr. Wang,
Can I send you an article on this? It is an old article in French. (I have a translation). In it, a Beat Lehmann talks about how he met Sartre at a Cafe and had a long talk about faith with him, and in particular about Jesus Christ. Sartre did not convert at that time, but a Paris-Match article referenced in this article suggests as much. The problem in – there is no reference given for the Paris Match article.
Right now I am not in my native hometown, where I can do proper research. In a few weeks I hope to be, and then try to do the spade work to find that PM reference.
could you please send me the article
You wonder why there is so much silence?
Simple.
The sympathetic don’t want to believe it. We bury uncomfortable truths (and frequently those who enunciate them.)
@John deBoer
Your comment is confusing. WHO, exactly do you mean by ‘the sympathetic’?
Do you mean that non-religious folk sympathetic to Sartre’s humanism want to bury the truth? But why would they care? It doesn’t change anything, just like it wouldn’t change anything if some theologian suddenly lost their supernatural beliefs.
Or do you mean religious folk want to bury the truth? I’m not sure what the motivation would be on either side. And even if the story was so important/decisive that one side would have a transparent motivation for keeping silent, then surely the other side would have motivation for NOT keeping silent.
So if the story is true, and somehow of great import, we would perhaps expect some folks to stay quiet, but also for many others to to speak up.
On the other hand, if the story is false, we would expect mostly silence. And as you say, “there is so much silence”.
Hi everybody, by coincidence I see all your remarks about Sartre. After almost a year now, If you are still interested to get the true story, please let me know. I do have an original copy of the Paris Match magazine and I really met with Jean-Paul Sartre. Enough for tonight.
Dear Beat, I am interested to get the true story. Please let us know. Exactly what did the Paris Match article say about Sartre and his conversion?
I am writing a book on the reasonableness of Christian faith and would like to know what kind of witness to Sartre’s change of heart we have.
I would like to see the story and to hear about your meeting with Sartre.
Dear Béat –
If you ever come across this comment thread again – I would be delighted to have this material.
Thanks so much.
Beat ~ This is a little late but … I did eventually find that PM article. It was not easy since I speak, read or write French very little.
It happened in a funny sort of a way… and I am serious about this. I made some guesses as to what year the article could have been published and then went through a whole slew of PM’s and found nothing. So I basically gave up and was about to leave when I thought I would say a short prayer and take one last look… see what happens. And guess what? It was one of the first articles that I opened to.
In the end I don’t know that we can know. However it is quite possible. Interesting issue though.
Do you recall the exact day, month and year of the Issue?
It was in the 1986 December issue of Paris-Match magazine.
If you write to me via my e-mail, you’ll get a copy.
Best regards
Beat
I would love to verify that Sartre converted, because I think it undermines the idea that all really smart, hip philosophers are humanists, i.e. atheists. Its a useful story for an apologist. Protestant Ravi Zacharias has made use of it, not the full conversion, but the apparent admission of the various shortcomings of existentialism as a world view. Now if only there were similar stories about Hume, Nietzsche, and Russell….
Hi,
my name is Beat Lehmann and I met with JP Sartre in Rome in July 1979, the summer before his death. We had good discussions. This is a great story but it would be better if I could send it to you by separate mail. My e-mail address : beat.lehmann@voila.fr.
Best regards
Beat
This email address does not work.
Hello, Beat.
Looking for the article, I’ve had no luck. I sent an email requesting the document to the email address you linked, but it doesn’t seem to work.
Thanks in advance and still interested!
John E. Urdiales
To what extent did Little Man Syndrome, also known as Small Man Syndrome, influence Sartre?
bonjour,
je suis français, et je me souviens, alors que j’étais de service de nuit à l’hopital à Lyon, avoir lu un article en effet de Paris Match sur la question de la conversion de jp sartre. Cet article m’a interpellé parce que ayant ete athée avant de me convertir j’étais un lecteur attentionné de Sartre. Mais je n’ai pas noté le numéro de PM et je n’ai pu faire aboutir mes recherches plusieurs années après, les archives du magasine en ligne demeurant muetttes sur cet article.
Pourriez vous publier le numéro et pages de cet artcle de Paris Match?
The PM article on Sartre is dated December 1986.I can send you a copy if you wish via my e-mail address.
Best regards
Beat
Please, publishing reference of article, year, n° and pages, in Paris Match, or write in my mail adress : michelpaulLyon@yahoo.fr ? Thank you infiniment
Oh boy I am way behind, but I would like to have a copy of the article too. If you would be so kind to send it to me for my research. I take into account what we say about deathbed confessions, but if you ever are able to see someone slip through to death it is a remarkable thing and people are yet evaluating life.
Sartre died in 1980 and the magazine published something about this alleged conversion in 1986?
Didn’t he say the following before he died;
“I do not feel that I am the product of chance, a speck of dust in the universe, but someone who was expected, prepared, prefigured. In short, a being whom only a Creator could put here; and this idea of a creating hand refers to God.”
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2017/03/03/jean-paul-sartres-confession-of-belief-and-other-surprises-in-a-fine-new-book/
The discussion has ended since the report by Scientific Christian. I had not heard of such a full statement from Sartre in the several bedside stories I have read. Biographers may have neglected this or found reason not to include it in their work. One has to simply being fair to discount a RC account, especially this specific. Who would have recorded it? Was there someone else present other than those we know?
Unfortunately this is in French, but has plenty of references.
http://dieumajoie.blogspot.com/2014/10/la-conversion-de-jean-paul-sartre.html
Humans are complex with learning, study, and events they are exposed to. All humans have memory and dream unless damaged. It is not rare that when facing the end of life one reaches out for all beliefs and thoughts they have though out their existence which all are part of their being. It is part of being human and not rejection or acceptance. Moments of ending are part of all being that has taken place if the mind is in function. Often end of life is drugged or created with over doses of pain killers.Death is not controlled by the human who is dying and this does need to change. Many of those who are leading end of life process are not giving patients their rights. Death documents are not proper today and the public is not educated on any of this.
No further information to add but it would make sense for Fans of sartre’s philosophy to chose to ignore, not care, or not want to learn more about His possible turn to faith given that he had spent so much time trying to dismantle and discredit that idea. It’s possible it’s a sort of a situation where his opinions during life mean more to his followers than the opinions he died with because the opinions he died with went against what his fans had come to accept, it makes sense they wouldn’t care to document much on it.
Norman L. Geisler writes in ‘The big book of Christian Apologetics’ edition 2012, page 520 that the words “I do not feel that I am the product of chance, a speck of dust in the universe, but someone who was expected, prepared, prefigured. In short, a being whom only a Creator could put here; and this idea of a creating hand refers to God.” were spoken by Sartre in Spring 1980. Geisler further writes that Simone de Beauvoir reacted to Sartre’s apparent recantation, complaining , ‘How should one explain this senile act of a turncoat?’ ‘All my fiends, all the Sartians, and the editorial team of les Temps Modernes supported me in my consternation’ (Nouvel Observatuer, 677). Unfortunately did Geisler not give a citation for the quote from Sartre.
Fr Mitch Pacwa a Jesuit priest who chairs a programme on television called EWTN live recently made reference to Jean Paul Sartre’s conversion at the end of his life. He said he received the sacraments from a priest of the Dominican order and had his marriage to Simone de Beauvoir regularised .