R: If God Does Not Exist, We Must Invent Him

"If God did not exist, we would have to invent Him," wrote the great philosophe Voltaire. These words, which started out as a quip, are in fact more provocative than their author would have ever dared to imagine. For what Voltaire did was jam a wedge between goodness and truth. It is perhaps rightly assumed by Voltaire that objectivity and order only come from God, but is God valuable to us because of this moral order? Does one act on the truth he cannot shake from conviction, or does he act on the impulse of good, regardless of its logical merits?

We like to think of the truth as a universal pursuit, undertaken by every human being. And yet, all too often the citizenry of myriad democracies floods the streets with apathy and jarring relativistic mottoes boiling down to a philosophy of "you do you." Moral systems play out in pluralistic societies with the specific end goal of stunting any one of them from claiming victory. Man seems wholly unfit for the truth, yet utterly desperate for some kind of structure, sold at bargain prices in the marketplace of ideas. And what of those who do seek it? Some ascend literally to the heights of heavenly ecstasy, while other collapse in insanity, unable to grasp its ineffability. The man who seeks truth seeks the ultimate destiny of his essence in a Ragnarök of earthly pleasures, values, and customs.

And what of the good? This is the age where being a "good person" is paramount. The ideal is to live in that middle ground, shunning greatness and avoiding evil, while embracing the pretty spouse and two-child family in the fenced house just off Main Street. It seeks to bring us the contentment and happiness we all seek from the little things in life. Even those of us who don’t know much still comprehend the most basic ideas of right and wrong. And yet, where is the meaning and purpose to this? The fear of societal chaos or coercion stands to keep us from the extremes of both thought and potential. To live for goodness without knowing whence it comes is best summarized by Lord Tennyson: "Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do and die." Is this necessarily bad?