The present study provides its readers with a case study on some works of the German philosopher Christian Francken (ca. 1552–after 1611). In some outstanding sources formulated around 1590 in Transylvania, Francken faced the challenge of atheism from a decidedly philosophical point of view while employed as philosophical lecturer at the Antitrinitarian college in Cluj. The emergence of atheism in Francken’s world view can be regarded neither as a conclusive development of philosophical problems nor as an expression of extreme radical religious protest. Despite all the affinity of Francken’s criticism for the philosophical denial of God’s existence and radical Protestant thought, we may account for his version of atheism against the background of the political use of the term at the end of the sixteenth century.