Can Man Live Without God? – A short reflection

If man could exist independently of any Supreme creator, that is that man spontaneously came into existence without the need of a creator, then life itself would show that man could indeed live without God. Of course, when addressing this question, we hope to delve a little deeper, and define ‘live’ not as mere existence, but meaningful existence.

Before meaningful existence can occur, there must be some notion as to what is meaningful and what is not. The assumption that God does not exist would also mean that there is no universal standard as to what is meaningful and what is not. This creates an interesting scenario that is worth exploring.

Let us attempt to conceptualize a world without God. Man would first exist as individuals, but one could picture – by virtue of the communal nature that is inherent in most individuals – that over time these people would congregate to form collective entities. Such entities would probably require a rule of law or a prevailing standard, one that would govern the people and ensure order – without which, the existence of such entities is indeed questionable. At this juncture, we realize, after some thought, that the need for a prevailing standard brings up the question of what is right or wrong – for without a notion of what is right or wrong, how are the people to define a standard to live by?

As we have seen, the assumption that there is no God raises several issues – first that there is no universal standard of what is meaningful (and thus no notion of what is meaningful living), and second that there is no universal moral standard (and order will be difficult to achieve). The problem here is that people will naturally search for something unchangeable and eternal – perhaps the hypothesized world of the forms that Plato mentions – but we slowly realize that without an eternal God, this search will never end. Perhaps Hegel’s dialectic process, with all its synthesis of theses and antitheses would arrive at an eternal standard, but further thought only leads to an endless paradox (perhaps old antitheses will be continually recycled, or we arrive back at the beginning).

Having realized that without God, no eternal standards can exist, some people choose to focus on the individual. This group, known as the existentialists, in general feel that since there is no eternal standard, one should define for oneself what is right or wrong, meaningful or meaningless, and live according to one’s standards, not that of the world. Others choose to face the absurd and live with it, arguing that the unanswerable question of whether God exists should be left unanswered, and life continued as it is. And yet there are others who simply take the leap of faith and believe in a God, thus finding meaning in pursuing a closer encounter with God.

Evidently, man can live meaningfully with or without God – the existentialists believing that even without a God man can define meaning for themselves. But at this point I would like to raise one last point, and we shall have to return to the scenario of a world without God. Recall that man had to define for themselves a standard to live by.

In defining this standard, surely there will be arguments, disagreements, but suppose a standard is finally agreed on, or suppose an individual finally steps out to dictate and impose a prevailing standard upon the rest – even so, this standard, or that individual, would become a figurative ‘god’. Over time, this ‘god’ will be altered according to the times, but regardless of which, there will always be a ‘god’ of that time and that place – and ‘god’ which must be lived by for meaningful existence.

And so we wonder, can man live without God? Certainly a man cannot live meaningfully without a notion of what is meaningful living, and surely such a notion can only come for either a true eternal God, or a figuratively sort of ‘god’. Some may argue otherwise, but this would be my viewpoint after some reflection.