The End of Man (Part Nine), Existentialism

There is not one precise definition or understanding of existentialism. There is not even an agreement among existentialists about what it means to an existentialist. Some existentialists have been Christians (Kierkegaard) others have been atheists (Camus). Some have been political conservatives (Dostoevsky) others have been left-wing radicals (Sartre). One thing that unites them all is their reaction against the enlightenment, their reaction against reason. Writers of the Enlightenment said in essence, there is absolute truth that will tell us how to live ethically and how to best order our governments and this truth can be found by use of man’s reason. Existentialists say in effect: there is no truth, there is only you, and what you make the truth.

What do existentialists think of man’s end? They say man has no absolute end. There is no set in stone, pre-determined end or goal for all of mankind. The only end that man has is the end that man chooses to create for himself. Existentialists would disagree with Bentham, Nietzsche, and Freud. They would argue that happiness, power, or sex is not man’s end. However, they would say nothing is man’s end unless a man chooses to make it his end. If a man wants to make happiness, power, or sex his end, that is valid. Sartre wrote ‘we paint our own portraits.’ This means, we do not enter a pre-existing reality, we create our own realities, our own worlds. There is no right or wrong, we choose what is right or wrong and best for ourselves. Music, coin collecting, mugging old woman—any of these may rightly be man’s end, a man only needs to choose it and it will be so for him.

But this philosophy is false. There is an external reality that exists independently from individual men. There is order and absolute ends in nature. Absolute truth exists in the rational field of math and there are moral truths. Therefore one can infer that there is order and an absolute end for man (for we are a part of nature) as well as absolute truth as to how we ought to live.

Everything in nature has an end. The end of an acorn is an oak. The end of a fawn is a stag. The end of a guppy is a fish. The end of an egg is a rooster. Man is a living, breathing, biological entity. As such he is a part of the natural order. Just as the rest of creation has an end, so too, man has an end.

When an object fulfills its end it operates in unity with the rest of creation. The fact that the cosmos are filled with order is testament to the fact that most of creation fulfills its end. Think of if seeds did not grow and become plants (if they did not full their end). There would be no food or homes for animals and no oxygen for man. There would be utter chaos and all life on this planet would quickly die. The fact that there is harmony and order on earth shows that plants and animals live according to their end.

There is only one creature that lives in disharmony with plants, animals, and his own species, that creature is man. Because man does not live in unity and order, we may infer that man is not fulfilling his end.

The three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angels. This is a mathematical truth. It is a rational truth in that one can not easily discern this by observation alone, one must reason with their mind to come to it. This truth will not change from world to world or from time to time; it is a universal and eternal truth. Since there are universal, eternal truths that we can understand by use of our reason in one field of life, it follows that there may be universal, eternal truths that we may discover through reason in other fields of our lives as well.

Can one think of one universal moral truth? How about the fact that it is wrong to kill and torture babies for fun alone? This is an absolute moral fact. There could be no time or place were it would not be wrong to kill babies for fun. Just as the mathematical fact that 2 + 2 = 4 reveals that there is a whole field of mathematical truth this simple demonstration of one moral truth demonstrates that there is a field of morality.

Here is what we have decided. Everything in nature has an end, therefore man, being a part of nature, has an end. When an object fulfills its end it lives in harmony with creation. The fact that man lives in disunity with the rest of creation shows that man is not fulfilling his end. The fact that man can know math shows that man can understand rational truths. In the same way man can rationally discover moral truths. We found a least one universal moral truth. The fact that there is at least one moral truth leads us to the conclusion that there is a field of morality. Morality tells a man how he ought to live. Since man may know morality man may know how he ought to live.

Existentialism is false. There is truth that exists beyond the individual. This truth exists at least in the fields of math and morality. Our premises lead to the conclusion that man has a knowable end, but man is not fulfilling his end.