Humanism, Atheism and Dostoevsky
A winning combination if ever I saw one. From the Guardian G2 today:
No.33 Wisdom's folly
If God does not exist, everything is permitted- Fyodor Dostoevsky
Julian Baggini
Thursday May 26, 2005
In The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan speaks for many when he claims that there are no moral limits on what we could do in a Godless universe. For the countless non-believers who deny ethical atheism is an oxymoron, however, Ivan's claim is a manifest falsehood, a terrible slur on the irreligious. When the same statement is seen as both obviously true and false, that's usually a sign that there is nothing obvious about the matter at all.
What is demonstrably false is the idea that, for all atheists, anything goes. GK Chesterton claimed this unambiguously when he reportedly said, "When men stop believing in God they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything." Often, quite the opposite is true. Many are led to give up belief in God, rightly or wrongly, because they feel compelled to do so by the weight of evidence. Anyone with such a commitment to believe only what there are good reasons to believe is clearly not going to believe in just anything.
The assumption that atheists are creedal anarchists when it comes to morality is just as misguided. Even if moral laws are not handed down by a higher authority, secular humanists can be as passionate about injustice and wrongdoing as anyone.
But that doesn't mean Ivan is simply wrong. There is one sense in which everything is permitted when God goes. Without God, there is no external authority to impose morality on humankind. As Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors shows, if we do wrong in a godless universe and keep our transgression a secret, we will get away with it.
If we take Ivan's words to mean that without God, no evil is so great that it will necessarily be punished, we are right. We only go wrong if we think that means it is not possible to have a humanist morality which is our responsibility to uphold.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
No.33 Wisdom's folly
If God does not exist, everything is permitted- Fyodor Dostoevsky
Julian Baggini
Thursday May 26, 2005
In The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan speaks for many when he claims that there are no moral limits on what we could do in a Godless universe. For the countless non-believers who deny ethical atheism is an oxymoron, however, Ivan's claim is a manifest falsehood, a terrible slur on the irreligious. When the same statement is seen as both obviously true and false, that's usually a sign that there is nothing obvious about the matter at all.
What is demonstrably false is the idea that, for all atheists, anything goes. GK Chesterton claimed this unambiguously when he reportedly said, "When men stop believing in God they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything." Often, quite the opposite is true. Many are led to give up belief in God, rightly or wrongly, because they feel compelled to do so by the weight of evidence. Anyone with such a commitment to believe only what there are good reasons to believe is clearly not going to believe in just anything.
The assumption that atheists are creedal anarchists when it comes to morality is just as misguided. Even if moral laws are not handed down by a higher authority, secular humanists can be as passionate about injustice and wrongdoing as anyone.
But that doesn't mean Ivan is simply wrong. There is one sense in which everything is permitted when God goes. Without God, there is no external authority to impose morality on humankind. As Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors shows, if we do wrong in a godless universe and keep our transgression a secret, we will get away with it.
If we take Ivan's words to mean that without God, no evil is so great that it will necessarily be punished, we are right. We only go wrong if we think that means it is not possible to have a humanist morality which is our responsibility to uphold.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
posted by CXW @ 10:42 am
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