abandonment (20TH CENTURY).
Concept central to atheistic existentialism.
According to such existentialists as Jean-Paul Sartre, God does not exist and life therefore has no intrinsic purpose or meaning. Man has been ‘abandoned’ in the universe and must create his own morality and code of values without the assistance of any divine being.
Also see: atheism
Source:
W Kaufmann, ed, Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre (New York, 1956; London, 1957)