But, in Cartesian rationalism, man was now the creator and God the created one. In the existentialist development of this rationalism, true knowledge and true existence required the discarding of all knowledge from the past, parents, church, and society, and a pure dependence on the moment. Existentialism has stressed the moment because nothing else is real. It cuts itself off from the past, and by denying God, it denies consequences because the rationality of man is alone determinative, not past events, nor God. It is interesting to note how many of the prominent philosophers since Descartes have not been married.
Marriage is disruptive of the monotheistic isolation of the new god, man as the subject and center.
Herbert Ernest Cushman, in A Beginner's History of Philosophy, Vol. Descartes' view of the mind or reason was of an unfallen entity whose judgments are final, and this is basic to all rationalism and exposes its non-Christian character. While at times Descartes used Christian terms, described God as the only substance, and man as created, the basic direction of his thinking was to place man at the center, and reason or consciousness as the final judge. We now live in the death throes of Cartesianism, and sadly, too much of the world, Christian and non-Christian, is Cartesian. Modernists and fundamentalists alike reflect Descartes.