Itinerary in a world without God

This article by Olivier Clément, delivered in the form of a lecture, traces a personal spiritual journey from an atheist childhood in the Languedoc to conversion to Orthodoxy. Combining autobiographical testimony and theological reflection, it explores the condition of contemporary man in a civilization marked by the absence of God, materialist ideologies, and the anguish of death. The central idea is that wonder at being and confrontation with death constitute pathways to the mystery of God, which the "great reductionists" — Marx, Nietzsche, Freud — are unable to fill. The theological contribution lies in the presentation of Orthodoxy as a coherent response to these existential questions: through its Trinitarian theology, its conception of the person, its hesychast spirituality, and its paschal vision of salvation, it offers a framework in which anguish and wonder find their meaning in the death and resurrection of Christ.