Is Ethics Without God Possible? A Sufi Metaphysical Perspective

Abstract

Is ethics without God possible? This enduring question, I argue, depends in part upon a more fundamental metaphysical distinction: whether God is conceived as a being—however supreme and perfect—or as Being itself. If God is understood as a being who possesses moral perfections such as goodness, justice, and compassion, a conceptual distinction remains possible between God and the qualities attributed to Him. One may then ask whether these qualities possess an intelligibility and normative force independent of God. Within such a framework, morality can conceivably constitute an autonomous domain, opening the possibility of ethics without God. The situation changes, however, if God is understood not as a being who possesses goodness but as Being itself, and goodness as intrinsic to the actuality and perfection of Being itself. On this account, moral goodness is neither an external standard to which God conforms nor a property added to the divine essence; rather, it is grounded in the very reality of God as Being itself. Moral value and action therefore cannot be metaphysically independent of God, even when it is recognized and enacted without explicit reference to God. Ethical action—whether or not the agent recognizes its metaphysical ground—remains possible only within and through the reality of Being as such that makes agency, value, and moral intelligibility possible in the first place. This distinction allows us to separate two questions often conflated in debates about the foundations of morality: whether an ethical life is possible without belief in God, and whether ethics is metaphysically possible without God. While the former may be possible, the latter is not, if God is understood as Being itself that is intrinsically related to moral goodness. Drawing primarily on Ibn ʿArabī and the broader Akbarian tradition, this article develops this ontological approach to moral value and, in its final section, critically examines James Sterba’s arguments for the possibility of ethics without God.