God and Atheists

An interesting, though unspelt, innovation of post-classical Mīmāṃsā is the introduction of theistic (specifically: Vaiṣṇava) attitudes within the originally atheist Mīmāṃsā.
Śabara, Kumārila, Prabhākara and their immediate commentators (such as Uṃveka Bhaṭṭa, Pārthasārathi Miśra, Śālikanātha Miśra) seem to be consistent in their denial of any god. Kumārila's Ślokavārttika displays an opening verse (maṅgala), which seems to praise Śiva but has been interpreted by his commentator, Pārthasārathi Miśra, as praising the sacrifice, yajña. Pārthasārathi himself opens his Śāstradīpikā with a maṅgala in praise of Mukuṇḍa, which has no connection with the rest of the text and could even be suspected to be a later addition. Śālikanātha and Bhavanātha only praise their "guru", Prabhākara. In their subcommentaries, on the other hand, maṅgalas in praise of one's iṣṭadevatā begin to flourish. A little bit later still, Mīmāṃsā seems to acquire a strong Vaiṣṇava connotation. Mahādeva Vedāntin conforms to this tendency with a maṅgala Rāma at the beginning of the MNS and several works of Vaiṣṇava flair (a commentary on the Viṣṇusahasranāma section of the Mahābhārata and on the Rāmasahasranāmastotra). Interestingly, this theistic background never affects the Mīmāṃsā content. This may depend on the technical nature of many Mīmāṃsā topics, but perhaps also on the distinction implicitly driven by many authors between one's emotional relation to a personal God and one's philosophical engagement against the necessity of a god as one's logical foundation. If the two attitudes are not just incidentally co-existing in a single personality, one might suggest that the denial of any logical necessity of such a basis is perhaps in itself the presupposition for a purely emotional relation to God.