"[Simone Weil wrote,] 'The absence of God is the mode of divine presence which corresponds to evil.' The absence of God is 'felt' even by atheists, especially the young ones, when they decide freely what their own values are and, with experience, realize that what they thought was theirs is not really what they wanted according to some 'law' of their actual being that keeps their hearts unsettled. This evil is the absence that is felt by all philosophers, young and old, who seek by themselves alone to explain everything that is. Following this method, the first thing they end up with is knowing nothing about themselves."
— Rev. James V. Schall, S.J., "Atheism and the Purely 'Human' Ethic"
