Facilitating Generative Agnosticism: Challenging Christian Dogma in the Absurdist Literature of Albert Camus and Samuel Beckett

Despite the wealth of academic literature on the respective religious themes and allusions in The Outsider (1942) and The Unnamable (1953), analyses of the functional role these works play in demystifying the purchase of religious dogma are seldom explored at length or with sufficient emphasis on the reader. This study considers the ways in which these texts challenge Christian dogma by way of questions and questioning. Taking this into account, I then utilise Roland Barthes’ theoretical insights on rejecting definitive meanings in literary works to contend that the novels’ sceptical interrogations of Christian dogma do not merely condemn its principles but might instead be understood as facilitating a generative agnosticism. In doing so, this study presents a broader argument regarding the functional potential of literature as a catalyst for facilitating the development of the reader’s critical consciousness and in fostering a worldview that is cognisant of that which exists beyond the confines of religious dogmatism. I conclude that The Outsider and The Unnamable are neither irreligious nor anti-Christian but instead belong to a post-Christian canon of literature.