Definition
I will reiterate how I opened the previous page: existentialism is not a religion, but a belief system based on the subjectivity of essence. That is, the claim that “essence” is an imposition made by the mind. No one is here “for” something, no one is required to be a particular way, life is what you make of it. Although Sartre’s “existence precedes essence” carries some implied philosophical baggage beyond this, I think it is a pithy description of this idea. This is, of course, the natural corollary to atheism or agnosticism.
Preface: Existentialism
Before we move forward, we have to understand the meaning of the word essence. Essence is “that which is expressed by its definition,” or, more concretely, “the basis by which nature is expressed.” So, for example, the “essence” of a guitar would be “to be a stringed musical instrument, with a fretted fingerboard, and six or twelve strings played by plucking or strumming.” If something expresses that essence, it is a guitar. If something does not express that essence, it is not a guitar.
So to say that existence precedes essence is to say that the idea of essence is subjectively imposed, as opposed to objectively instantiated. That is, a policeman is really just a uniformed person who is allowed to handcuff people. The president is really a person in a suit who bombs things with impunity. Even inanimate things like chairs are really only chairs because we define them as such, not because they have an essential, objective “chair-ness.”
Now Sartre pontificates further on the idea by saying that “if existence precedes essence, God is meaningless.” I would go even further. If existentialism is true, God can’t exist, because God is an objective essence, and that isn’t real under this paradigm.
Preface: Essentialism
But on the other hand, if essences are objective, then God certainly exists. Deducing this is simple:
Nothing can create itself, for that would require existing before one exists, which is a contradiction. But not every essence can rely on another for existence, for this would result in an infinite regress, and nothing could exist – imagine plugging your TV into an infinite chain of power strips; it would never turn on. Thus, one essence must be identical to its own existence. That is, it is existence – it is not self-created, but self-evident, uncreated. There can, of course, only be one such being, since any distinction from this essence would be a distinction from pure existence, which is the exact sort of thing which requires pure existence to precede it. Let us call this one being “To Be.”
To Be cannot change, since it cannot be distinct from its essence, and so To Be is immutable. And what is immutable cannot be material, since material is inherently conditional (here or there, big or small) – so this being must be immaterial. Further, because To Be is immutable, immaterial, and uncreated, To Be must be eternal. To Be cannot be composed of parts, because a composite being’s existence is dependent upon its parts, and this being depends on nothing. So, it must be absolutely simple. This being is the principle by which all things exist, and is in this sense present to all beings. But because To Be is simple, it is wholly present to all things, whether the smallest particle or the entire set, and present to its whole self. So, it is omnipresent.
Power is the ability to act upon something else. An agent’s power is greater the more it has of the form by which it acts. For example, the hotter a thing, the greater its power to give heat; if it had infinite heat, it would have infinite power to give heat. This being necessarily acts through its own essence, for it does not rely on anything prior to itself. But it is one with its essence, and thus both must be eternal. Likewise, this being’s power must be eternal, so it is omnipotent.
It is demonstrable that knowledge has an inverse relationship with materiality. For example, a rock knows nothing. An animal knows through sense-images which are immaterial – that is, physically free from matter constituting them. A human knows through immaterial sense-images and immaterial abstractions derived from them. The human’s knowledge is more complete than that of the animal precisely because it accesses an additional layer of immateriality. Consequently, this non-contingent being must be a mind, because what is immaterial is mind, and this being is entirely immaterial. Further, this complete immateriality means there is no constraint on its capacity for knowledge. Because this being is also simple, eternal, and wholly present to all things, it is thus omniscient.
So, To Be is eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. God. Aristotle uses similar deductions to reach the same conclusion that the “prime mover” is an all-powerful contemplative being in Metaphysics.
Modal Argumentation
As such, we find ourselves with two options; two paradigmatically opposed universes. In the existentialist universe, there is no objective essence – so the meaning of things, the value of things, and morality are all ultimately up to the agent. In the essentialist universe, everything has an objective essence – so the meaning of things, the value of things, and morality exist regardless of anyone’s opinion.
Now, these two ideas are modal. That is, the describe a “mode” of reality, a foundational assumption. We have to make modal assumptions all the time. For example, I can’t prove that logical deduction works, because I would have to use logical deduction to prove it! Similarly, I can’t point to a chair and say, “see it has no essence!” because someone else could point to the same chair and say that it does.
Now just because modal claims are assumptive in nature does not mean they are inherently unreliable. It just means that we need a strong reason to think the assumption is worth holding. For example, we assume that the things we experience come from reality. That’s how it appears to be and there’s no compelling evidence to the contrary, so that’s the reasonable assumption. We do not assume that our experiences are actually implanted in us by an invisible magic unicorn. Not because it’s impossible, but because there’s simply no reason to think that’s the case.
In this case, we have a relatively easy time. We are not facing infinite possible assumptions. This is black-and-white: either there is objective essence, or there isn’t. One of the two must be true. Although these two modalities cannot serve as evidence for themselves, we can use basic logic, intuition, and experience to decide whether one is more worthy of assumption.
Essence
In Existentialism is a Humanism, Sartre produces a very pithy syllogism. “If God exists, I cannot be free. But I am free. Therefore, God does not exist.” His conjecture is a provocative bit of rhetoric describing the immense freedom the “no thing-ness” (non-essence) of the mind implies. He means that, because the mind has no thing-ness, man has no thing-ness, and therefore no essence. And if man has no essence, then existence precedes essence, and God does not determine man; rather, man determines himself, as if he were God.
In De Anima iii, Aristotle has his own discussion of the no thing-ness of the mind. He points out that the mind is “in a sense all things” – like Sartre, he believes in the mind’s total translucence. However, this observation led Aristotle to the exact opposite conclusion. To Aristotle, the mind’s no thing-ness is its essence – that is, its essence is to comprehend the essences of things outside of itself through its total malleability. In stark contrast to Sartre, this would mean that (1) all things inherently have an intelligible essence, and (2) the mind does not subjectively impose coherence, but comprehends what was already coherent. Further still, Aristotle follows his discussion of the mind by pointing out that the mind does not eliminate man’s essence, but is part of it. That is, man’s essence is “to be an animal with conscious use of reason.”
So, a priori either of these could be true. But which is worth assuming?
When it comes to our sense experiences, we assume that a sense apprehends something as it is in reality. When we see something, unless there’s a serious malfunction, we see it because it’s actually there. Likewise with the other five senses. We do not assume that we, say, touch a coarse material, and our imagination imposes the feeling of coarseness upon our hand. But our relationship with essence is just as fundamental, just as effortless. Stop reading this – look around and try as hard as you can not to see essences in everything around you. I admit that for a short time you can sort of “hide” the essence of something from yourself, maybe by staring at it for so long that it starts to look strange. But I would equivocate this to, say, wearing a ring for so long you forget it’s there.
Could it be that we just impose concepts upon things very naturally? Look around the room again, and this time apply numerical values to everything you see. Imagine the number of coffee cups, trees, books, and so on. This takes a moment of thought, does it not? So we see that applying a concept foreign to the essence of an object takes effort. Seeing essence, on the other hand, is as natural and inescapable as breathing.
Perhaps evolution has developed in mankind some sort of broad, innate heuristic grouping mechanism? No; this is impossible – evolution adapts a genome to an environment, while humans innately experience essence without even requiring material correlates. For example, Chopin’s Nocturne op. 9 no. 2, Van Gogh’s Starry Night, and Percy Shelley’s Ozymandias have absolutely nothing in common, yet each of these create a moving experience of beauty. The sentencing of Adolf Eichmann, the end of U.S. racial segregation, and a son giving his father a eulogy are each examples of justice. Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon, the Tiananmen Square “tank man,” and President Reagan’s demand that the USSR tear down the Berlin Wall are all examples of courage. None of these deeply moving events share any sensible similarities. How could a genome develop innate, coherent heuristics for concepts with no referent in material reality?
To reiterate, the effortless comprehension of essence is a fundamental aspect of human experience. We know that experiencing reality through the five senses is also effortless. We know that imposing non-innate concepts onto things, like numerical values, is not an effortless task. Furthermore, the comprehension of essence can’t be some evolutionary mind-trick, as it often deals with immaterial similarities. As such, there seems to be no good reason to assume that the mind imposes essence, and every reason to assume it actually receives it, like how we receive visual or tactile reality through sense experiences.
Purpose
If the existentialist position is correct, then purpose is a subjective imposition from the mind of an agent. But if the conscious mind is the arbiter, how does it determine purpose? Purpose is often cited as a creative project, a fun job, time with family, political power, or something like those. But if there is no coherent, objective structure to reality, then even those desires are shaped arbitrarily by biology, society, or religion. This introduces man into an impossible situation. One does indeed have the power to choose a purpose, but all the sources which shape his choice are arbitrary and meaningless. Because man necessarily relies on these preconditions to shape his desires, it is logically impossible to “create” one’s own purpose. So, under the existentialist paradigm, there is no real purpose.
Aristotle has a different response. First, he points out that happiness is the one thing which man does not seek as a means to another thing. That is, happiness is an end in itself. Second, he points out that God, being the source of all existence, is the source of all that makes one happy. Logically, then, a being’s purpose either is God (he says that God’s happiness is contemplating His own infinite goodness), or is what God has ordained to be their purpose. He describes how God moves the stars by the forces of nature, but moves sentient beings through the things they love, which are always found, finally, in Himself. As such, he concludes that our purpose is to be happy by fulfilling the essence God gave us – to be rational animals. And this is the life of perfect virtue Nicomachean Ethics explores.
So again, we have a dichotomy, and either option could be true a priori. On the existentialist side, nothing can have real meaning. All of the things we derive meaning from are themselves meaningless. On the essentialist side, everything has real meaning. All of the things we derive meaning from were established and cohered by a mind who created us to love them. Which is worth assuming?
Viktor Frankl’s extremely popular Man’s Search for Meaning details his experience in the Nazi concentration camps. He describes how those who found meaning in their suffering in Auschwitz and Dachau were able to survive and flourish. This served as the basis for his “logotherapy,” a therapy focused on rehabilitating people through the soul, not the subconscious. Between this book and The Unconscious God, Frankl makes it clear that purpose is not a lie we tell ourselves to sleep at night. We don’t create it. We find it. Purpose is a real thing, just as important to the human soul as food is for the body. The great results of his logotherapy, the greater likelihood of happiness among the religious, and the peak life satisfaction of clergy and firefighters seem to support his claim.
On the other hand, Frankl describes how a lack of purpose dehumanizes man. Only those who let go of purpose in the concentration camps gave in to its degenerating influence (p 83). He jabs at the psychoanalysts’ view of humanity, saying, “I would not be willing to live merely for the sake of my ‘defense mechanisms,’ nor would I be ready to die merely for the sake of my ‘reaction formations.” (p 99). In The Unconscious God, Frankl describes psychoanalysis as “turning the human person into an object” by ignoring the soul. Again, the evidence supports his claim. Each successive generation reports greater feelings of hopelessness. Objective markers of well-being are increasing, and instead of depression decreasing, it is increasing at the same rate. Meta-analyses and studies find time and time again that purposelessness has a very strong correlation with depression.
Similar to the previous section, purpose is a fundamental part of the human experience. But even stronger than that, purpose is a logical necessity for any conscious action to be coherent. A purely instinctual animal behaves without any awareness of temporality, options, nor ideals. But conscious agents are aware of their own mortality, can choose which instinct to follow, and have higher ideals than simple appetites. Camus’ philosophy is called Absurdism for a reason – consciousness inherently seeks purpose. If there is none, man is an incoherent creature, seeking the ideals of love, justice, and life in a world where there are only chemical interactions, randomness, and certain death.
We observe that all of the creatures around us are structured for life in their given environments. That is, reality has molded them into being a certain way. But we also observe that people require purpose, both logically and practically. People with purpose can handle a concentration camp. People without purpose can’t even handle being comfortable. What would possess us to assume that the people who can’t be happy with their every need met have a better grasp of reality than those who found joy in the concentration camps? Are we to assume man is the one and only innately incoherent creature, whose proper function results in abject misery? That humans are the one species in all the world who have a fundamental need which doesn’t exist?
Morality
Morality follows much the same logic as the previous section. Recall my initial point on purposelessness – if every precondition of your worldview is meaningless and arbitrary, then your worldview is meaningless and arbitrary, and you can’t create purpose. Similarly, you can’t derive objective morals from meaningless and arbitrary sources. You can’t use, say, your biological proclivities as an objective framework if biology itself is mindless and arbitrary. As such, the moral system of an existentialist requires subjectively measuring goods against each other. For example, someone of this persuasion may say that it’s alright to have too much to drink, assuming you have fun and aren’t getting behind the wheel. This is called consequentialism – the idea that morality is derived from weighing foreseeable consequences against each other.
Contrarily, recall my point on purposefulness – if God designed all things with purpose in mind, then everything is meaningful. This means that goodness is simply acting in accord with the coherent structure already provided by God. What is evil under this paradigm? It is acting contrary to the coherent structure already provided by God. Someone of this persuasion would say that it is evil to have too much to drink, regardless of whether you’re getting behind the wheel. Why? Because man’s essence is to be a rational animal, and drunkenness is an act of violence against the ability to reason. This is called natural law – the idea that morality is a coherent set of objective laws found in reality, much like the laws of physics.
Before continuing, I do want to make natural law theory a little clearer by discussing the principle of double-effect. Natural law permits one to cause harm if the harm is the immediate side effect of a proportionally superior good. The classic example is self-defense – if someone attacks you wishing to do serious harm, you may shoot them in self defense. But assuming that stops them, you cannot then shoot them again, as they are no longer a threat. Or, you cannot kill someone because you know they have you in the will (that would be consequential reasoning). To go back to drunkenness: drunkenness is always evil when sought for itself. But a soldier drinking a large quantity of whisky to make a lifesaving battlefield surgery possible would not be committing a moral evil, as the stupor would be an undesired side-effect of medical sedation.
All that said, we find ourselves at our third dichotomy, and once again, either option could be true. On the existentialist side, morality is derived from the conscious comparison of consequences. On the essentialist side, reality was crafted by a mind and already has moral order imputed upon it, the same as the laws of physics. Which is worth assuming?
Right and wrong are words which describe an orientation towards something. For example, if I was traveling from one city to another, there would be a right road and a wrong road. Likewise, the natural law ethicist believes that God provided moral roads for humans to stay on. On the other hand, if I were traveling through wilderness without a predetermined end, there would be no truly right or wrong path. Likewise, the consequentialist believes values are shaped by the agent or group of agents, and there really is no road. Let us go straight to the most uncomfortable conclusion of consequentialism: the Nazis were not evil. They weighed the good of Aryan society against the good of human lives, and made a subjective judgment. Of course, the world generally disagreed, but rough consensus about which direction to go in the wilderness does not make that the objectively right way.
Of course, most consequentialists try to find ways to ignore this obvious fact. But simple logic quickly lays each method bare. Secular humanism promotes eudemonia through self-determination of people and culture. But self-determination for the good of the people is exactly what Germany did in the 1930’s. Cultural relativists say that we cannot judge another culture by our standards of morality. Which means that, again, we cannot say the German culture of 1935-1945 was evil. Utilitarianism holds that what is good is what has the greatest outcome for the greatest number. So if Hitler figured that genocide would result in the greatest good for everyone, he did the right thing. It is inescapable. Nazism is not even an example of some haywire form of consequentialism; it is a totally coherent, expectable result.
But let me also hearken back to the great existentialist minds I discussed on the previous page. Nietzsche’s ideas of will to power, transcendence of morality, the eugenic nature of the Ubermensch, and localized value-creation are all in lockstep with Nazi thought, whether or not they were a direct cause. Sartre’s justification of the gulags for the sake of communism is completely understandable from the utilitarian perspective. Camus’ simple moral indifference in favor of his own “sympathies and antipathies” turned him into a monster who would sacrifice his own wife for the sake of promiscuity.
“A student is not superior to his teacher; but everyone, after he has been completely trained, will be like his teacher.” Are these the sorts of moral values you wish to have? If not, why would you follow the philosophies of the men who typify them? But more to the point, if these behaviors strike you as repugnant, why is that the case? If there is no objective moral law, there is no right and wrong way to be. As Ivan says in Dostoevsky’s masterwork, Brothers Karamazov, “if God does not exist, then everything is permitted.” The Nazi vivisection of live babies, the utilitarian justification of gulags, the absurdist justification of adultery are all, at worst, faux pa’s. Opinions you happen to take some issue with.
Of course, no one really believes any of that, not even the people who say they do. To claim objective moral truths don’t exist is to deny our deepest and most cherished intuitions about reality. If we literally cannot accept the Nazi position as valid, why would we accept a modal paradigm under which the Nazi position is valid?
Conclusion
There are two modal views of reality I have discussed; one must be true, and the other must be false. In the first, the universe of the existentialists, everything is subjective. There is no such thing as real essence, real purpose, nor objective morality. In the second, the universe of the essentialists, reality is objective. God exists, and is the mind which structured and ordered all things. This metaphysical principle of order is essence. With essence comes a clear and defined purpose, and with that comes objective moral values. In each case, the existentialist opinion does violence to a fundamental intuition inseparable from the human experience.
First, we assume that all of our sense experiences are dependent on something in reality causing them. Like sense experience, the essences of objects come to us effortlessly. This is unlike truly foreign concepts, such as numbers, which require effort to “see in” things. It is absurd to posit that this is a result of evolutionary mechanism, because essence is instantly comprehended even when there is no material correlate. For example, music, paintings, and poems all evoke a deep sense of beauty. How could a genome measure these things and unify them under one heuristic?
Second, we see that reality molds creatures to fit their environments. But without purpose, humanity is logically incoherent, and men can hardly stand to live at all. There is no reason to assume reality would craft an innately incoherent creature. It would be absurd to assume that the people who found joy in concentration camps have a weaker grasp on reality than those who can’t even handle satiety.
Third, we see that morality is either an objective corollary to essence, or else is simply opinion. But the human conscience is so fundamental no one is even capable of treating the moral behavior of, say, the Nazis as if it were valid. Even the people who support relativism never even touch that conclusion. We cannot say moral relativism is a good modal assumption if we aren’t even capable of accepting its conclusion.
Now I have spent this entire argument taking existentialism on its own modal terms and showing there is no good reason to assume that it’s true. But now that I feel this has been accomplished, I will present an even stronger and more conclusive argument against existentialism: there is very good reason to think God actually does exist. So, not only is existentialism not even worth believing on its own terms, there is also substantial proof that its most fundamental basis is false.