[113] means that the world-as-it-is is good, and that there is no demonic^a power beside the one all-embracing and all-producing Power, which is called Yahweh, the God of Israel, in the Old Testament; and that this idea has consequences today in every philosophical discussion. This weekend I was in Washington and had to give several lectures, two of them under the title "Psychoanalysis and Religion" and "Existentialism and Psychoanalysis." These two lectures CONTINUOUSLY came to a point which later on came out very clearly in the discussion, that the fundamental decision about existentialism^b is a decision about the Christian doctrine of creation^c, whether the world is distorted in its not only existential nature (which ALSO is the Christian doctrine), but [also] that it is distorted in its VERY nature, or in its essential nature also--which then is nothing else than its existential nature. Now this was the real point of discussion: Is the world, in its essential structure, evil? Or is the world, in its essential structure, good? Is Augustine^d right when he says "Being as being is good" (Esse qua esse bonum est), or is Sartre^e the existentialist right when he says that "man's essence is his existence", there IS nothing except his existence; and what he calls his essence is only a reflection of his existence? -- This was the point of discussion. And this is the point in which the problem of creation becomes actual for every present-day philosophical discussion insofar as it transcends the realm of mere logic. I am very glad for this experience I had this weekend, that this came out so clearly in the preparation of these lectures and later in the reaction to them. Now this dogma--if you call it a dogma--or this fundamental attitude towards reality