JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing

32Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic WritingsAnd when we speak of “abandonment”—a favourite word of Heidegger—we onlymean to say that God does not exist, and that it is necessary to draw the consequencesof his absence right to the end. The existentialist is strongly opposed to a certain typeof secular moralism which seeks to suppress God at the least possible expense.Towards 1880, when the French professors endeavoured to formulate a secular morality,they said something like this:—God is a useless and costly hypothesis, so we will dowithout it. However, if we are to have morality, a society and a law-abiding world, itis essential that certain values should be taken seriously; they must have an a prioriexistence ascribed to them. It must be considered obligatory a priori to be honest, notto lie, not to beat one’s wife, to bring up children and so forth; so we are going to do alittle work on this subject, which will enable us to show that these values exist all thesame, inscribed in an intelligible heaven although, of course, there is no God. In otherwords—and this is, I believe, the purport of all that we in France call radicalism—nothing will be changed if God does not exist; we shall re-discover the same norms ofhonesty, progress and humanity, and we shall have disposed of God as an out-of-datehypothesis which will die away quietly of itself. The existentialist, on the contrary,finds it extremely embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with Himall possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. There can no longer be anygood a priori, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. It isnowhere written that “the good” exists, that one must be honest or must not lie, sincewe are now upon the plane where there are only men. Dostoievsky once wrote “IfGod did not exist, everything would be permitted”; and that, for existentialism, is thestarting point. Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is inconsequence forlorn. For he cannot find anything to depend upon either within oroutside himself. He discovers forthwith, that he is without excuse. For if indeedexistence precedes essence, one will never be able to explain one’s action by referenceto a given and specific human nature; in other words, there is no determinism—man isfree, man is freedom. Nor, on the other hand, if God does not exist, are we providedwith any values or commands that could legitimise our behaviour. Thus we haveneither behind us, nor before us in a luminous realm of values, any means of justificationor excuse. We are left alone, without excuse. That is what I mean when I say that manis condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet isnevertheless at liberty, and from the moment that he is thrown into this world he isresponsible for everything he does. The existentialist does not believe in the power ofpassion. He will never regard a grand passion as a destructive torrent upon which aman is swept into certain actions as by fate, and which, therefore, is an excuse forthem. He thinks that man is responsible for his passion. Neither will an existentialist