The most mind-opening lesson I learnt by translating DN's "problem of Atheism" is his idea that the decisive philosophical option that drives secular modernity towards nihilism is *rationalism*, and not *subjectivism* as is commonly taught.
Everybody is taught that secular thought started from the "cogito." DN argues that the affirmation of the free subject is actually the *religious* aspect of Descartes which continues in Pascal and religious existentialism, whereas the *secular* aspect of Descartes which prepares
the Enlightenment and atheism is his implicit Molinism. The affirmation of the possibility of a purely "natural" happiness opens the way to rationalism and secularism. This has enormous implications for the presentation of Christianity to modern people. Rather than fighting the
windmills of "subjectivism" it is crucial to stress that revelation is the answer to the deepest questions of the "I" and that faith can be rediscovered by *taking seriously* "subjective" experience, not trying to bypass it.
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