... Sartre contradicts himself because he says that both Christian and atheist existentialists believe that existence precedes essence, but his argument for this is based on the premise that there is no god, somehow this doesn't add up! However disregarding the many contradictions in the text, Sartre's account of freedom is useful in explaining the notion that existence precedes essence. To better understand Sartre's main existentialist argument we look to his account of human freedom. For Sartre freedom is the first condition of action, he concludes that we are free and that we prove it by "choosing and acting and planning in a way no unfree object can"3. Freedom is Sartre's main key to the understanding of man, "through freedom, meaning enters into the world"4; Sartre believes that we are born free and remain free throughout our lives. The fact that we are free, explains Sartre's account that existence precedes essence because if ...

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