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.

1. God as a Being and Morality

It is quite common to encounter theological perspectives that conceive of God as a being, albeit the highest, most perfect, and most exalted. Within such frameworks, God is often described as possessing attributes of moral, epistemological, and ontological perfection: knowledge, power, will, compassion, justice, and so forth. These attributes are typically seen as markers of divine excellence, distinguishing God from all created beings. Yet, this raises a fundamental metaphysical question: what exactly is the relationship between God and these attributes? Are they distinct from the divine essence, or are they one and the same with it?

Different theological traditions have answered this question in different ways, as I will discuss in the following section. Some schools assert a real distinction between God’s essence and His attributes, while others maintain a strong ontological unity, dissolving the attributes into the divine essence itself. In many classical formulations, however, these attributes are treated as accidents—that is, qualities that inhere in the divine essence but are not identical with it. This conceptualization likely stems from the initial assumption that God is a being—albeit unlike any other—who must necessarily possess such qualities in order to be worthy of worship and metaphysically complete.

As a result, it becomes natural within these frameworks to say that God has love, rather than that God is love. The distinction is subtle but significant. In the former, love is a quality that accompanies the divine nature; in the latter, love is the same as it. This also holds for other attributes, such as goodness, justice, or knowledge. They are often regarded as divine possessions rather than the very reality of the divine. Morality, in this view, is something God possesses or conforms to rather than what God grounds and manifests. It is something God has, not something God is.

The theological orientation that conceives of God as a maximally great being is not confined to any single tradition; rather, it is a perspective shared across various religious and philosophical systems. Indeed, it would not be an exaggeration to claim that many classical and modern theistic frameworks within mainstream Christianity, Islam, and Judaism tend to conceive of God as a being endowed with a set of perfect attributes.

For example, it is very common in modern philosophical writings—particularly in the modern European philosophical tradition—to conceptualize God as a being rather than as Being itself. This tendency is already evident in Descartes, whose philosophical gaze explicitly approaches God as Deus est ens perfectissimum. For Descartes, God is fundamentally conceptualized as a perfect being (ens perfectissimum), that is, as the most perfect existent and the ultimate cause of other things, rather than as Being itself. As he states, “God is the most perfect being, that is, the cause of all things, and the first efficient cause of things which bring themselves to perfection, especially insofar as He is the cause of Himself.”1 The formulation is significant: God occupies the position of the highest and most perfect being within an ontological order that also includes created beings. God is distinguished from other beings by His perfection, necessity, and causal priority, but He is nevertheless approached conceptually as a being.

A similar tendency can be discerned in Leibniz. Although his metaphysics develops a sophisticated account of necessary existence and divine perfection, Leibniz ultimately conceives of God as a supreme and maximally perfect being (ens perfectissimum), rather than as Being itself (ipsum esse) understood as the non-individual act or ground of existence.2 God is the necessary being whose existence explains the existence of contingent beings, but the distinction between God and beings remains fundamentally a distinction between different kinds or degrees of beings: God is the supreme, necessary, and perfect being, whereas created things are contingent and imperfect beings.

Even certain critical or rejectionist approaches appear to retain this basic conceptual framework. Kant, for instance, famously refers to God as the Ens realissimum—the “most real being”—conceived as the being that contains the totality of reality or all possible perfections in the highest degree.3 As he writes “the concept of an ens realissimum is the concept of an individual object… we derive the ideal of supreme reality as a fundamental concept”.4

Interestingly, this alternative conception of God was already available within the Christian philosophical tradition. Thomas Aquinas explicitly distinguishes between ens (a being) and esse (the act of being), identifying God not merely as the highest being but as ipsum esse subsistens, Being itself. In De ente et essentia, Aquinas develops the distinction between essence and existence in created things, while in the Summa theologiae he argues that in God essence and existence are identical: God “is not only His own essence, but also His own existence.”5 For Aquinas, therefore, created things have esse, whereas God is esse itself. God is consequently not simply the most perfect being within the order of beings, but the very ground of the being of all other beings, as Being itself. And It is precisely this ontological shift—from ens to esse, from a being to Being itself—that seems largely absent from the modern conceptions of God discussed above.

Given my primary engagement with Islamic philosophy and theology, let me also provide an illustrative example from the Islamic tradition. While expanding the scope to include other traditions could prove illuminating, it also risks diluting the focus of the argument. For our purposes, a helpful point of departure is the early and foundational debate between two major theological schools: the Muʿtazilites and the Ashʿarites.6

The two schools disagree on the nature of the relationship between the divine attributes and the divine essence. The question was “are the divine attributes distinct or identical with the divine essence?” The Muʿtazilites uphold a strict form of divine unity and reject any real distinction between God’s attributes and His essence. To affirm otherwise, they argue, would imply a multiplicity of eternals (taʿaddud al-qudamāʾ), thereby violating the principle of divine oneness (tawḥīd). Namely, there cannot be any eternal thing alongside God; otherwise, one would undermine the notion of unity and uniqueness of God. Consequently, they insist that all divine attributes are identical to the divine essence. God does not have attributes as accidents. All attributes dissolve in the divine essence. To say “He” is to say all attributes. This perspective is articulated through expressions such as ʿālim bi-ʿilm huwa huwa (knowing by a knowledge that is He), qādir bi-qudra hiya huwa (powerful by a power that is He), and ḥayy bi-ḥayāh hiya huwa (living by a life that is He). In this formulation, God’s perfections—such as knowledge, power, justice, compassion, generosity, and life—are not external entities but are fully subsumed within God’s essential unity.7

In contrast, the Ashʿarites navigate a different position. They reject both the complete identity and total separateness of the divine attributes and essence (lā hiya ʿayn al-dhāt wa-lā ghayruhu).8 Later Ashʿarite theologians such as Abū Bakr al-Bāqillānī (940–1013) and ʿAbd al-Malik al-Juwaynī (1028–1085) describe the attributes as modes or states that are neither created (ḥādith) nor eternal (qadīm) and neither wholly existent nor nonexistent. These entities—while dependent on the divine essence—are nonetheless metaphysically distinct in some meaningful way. In this framework, God is understood to be pre-eternally qualified by the attributes affirmed in revelation, for denying these attributes would imply a deficiency in the divine nature.9

The key distinction between the Muʿtazilite and Ashʿarite positions lies in their understanding of the relationship between the divine essence and attributes. The Muʿtazilites strongly resist positing eternal attributes distinct from the divine essence, lest this compromise divine unity. Hence, rather than saying that God knows through a knowledge subsisting in Him, they could speak of God as “knowing by a knowledge that is He” or “powerful by a power that is He.” The Ashʿarites, by contrast, affirm real and eternal attributes subsisting in the divine essence: God has knowledge by which He knows, power by which He is powerful, and will by which He wills. The attributes are neither simply identical with the essence nor independent entities alongside it. This preserves the reality of the divine attributes, but it also introduces a notoriously difficult metaphysical question concerning their precise relation to the divine essence.

The Ashʿarite position is particularly significant for the argument developed here because it reflects a particular way of conceptualizing divine reality. Classical Ashʿarī kalām generally approaches God as the uniquely eternal and uncreated existent, absolutely distinct from the originated existents that depend upon His power and will. God is characterized as knowing, willing, powerful, and living through eternal attributes subsisting in the divine essence. Although Ashʿarī theologians emphatically deny that God belongs to the same ontological category as created things, their metaphysics does not ordinarily identify God with wujūd, Being as such. God is the eternal and transcendent mawjūd, while everything other than God belongs to the created order.

The Ashʿarite account of the attributes reinforces this ontological orientation. God is not approached primarily as wujūd itself, but as the transcendent divine reality characterized by knowledge, power, life, will, hearing, sight, and speech. Thus, God knows through eternal knowledge, wills through eternal will, and exercises power through eternal power. This does not make the attributes accidents or entities independent of God; classical Ashʿarism explicitly rejects both conclusions. Nevertheless, it establishes a conceptual grammar in which a distinction can be drawn between the divine essence and that by virtue of which God is characterized as knowing, powerful, willing, and so forth. God thereby functions as the transcendent subject of knowledge, power, will, and action, even though He remains categorically unlike and external to the created subjects. Correspondingly, the God–world relation is articulated primarily through the agency of an eternal Creator who knows, wills, and produces a created order ontologically distinct from Himself.10 Significantly, the relationship between God and the world is articulated principally through the divine attributes, particularly knowledge, will, and power, rather than through the manifestation of the divine essence as such. God knows the world, wills its existence, and brings it into being through divine power; creation does not constitute a manifestation or extension of the divine essence. In this sense, divine presence in the world is understood through God’s knowledge, will, power, and continuous creative activity while the ontological distinction between Creator and creation remains intact.11

This distinction has important consequences for the question of ethics. If God is conceived primarily as a transcendent being who is characterized by perfections, then it becomes at least conceptually possible to distinguish God from the perfections predicated of Him. Once God and goodness are conceptually distinguishable—once “God” names the divine existent and “goodness” names a perfection predicated of that existent—it becomes possible to ask whether goodness possesses an intelligibility that can be specified independently of God.

This possibility becomes particularly consequential in forms of theism that conceive of God as a supremely perfect being. If God is morally perfect because He possesses or exemplifies goodness, justice, compassion, and other moral perfections, one may then ask what makes these qualities good. If their goodness can be understood independently of the divine reality that exemplifies them, morality acquires a degree of autonomy from God. Ethical truths might then be grounded in rational necessity, human flourishing, empathy, utility, or some other basis without requiring God as their ontological ground. The familiar question—whether something is good because God wills it or whether God wills it because it is good—becomes possible precisely because God and goodness can be placed on opposite sides of a conceptual relation.

The situation changes substantially, however, if God is understood not as a being who possesses goodness but as Being itself, and if goodness is understood as intrinsic to Being itself rather than as a property subsequently attributed to it. On such an ontology, the relation between God and goodness cannot be modeled simply as that between a subject and one of its predicates. Goodness is not something external to God as Being itself; rather, it is rooted in the very actuality and perfection of Being itself. The possibility of separating the moral order from God therefore becomes a different—and considerably more difficult—metaphysical question. If God is conceived as a supreme existent qualified by moral perfections, it remains conceptually possible to ask whether those perfections can be understood independently of God. If, however, divine reality is understood as Being itself and goodness is shown to be intrinsic to Being, then the separation of goodness from God would require the radical separation of goodness from its own ontological ground.

2. God as Being Itself and Moral Qualities

There are also metaphysical perspectives that do not conceive of God as a being among other beings, but as Being itself—in its purest and most absolute sense. This metaphysical stance finds its boldest expression in the Sufi metaphysical tradition, particularly in the works of Ibn ʿArabī. The Akbarian school12 takes a markedly different path from the classical theological perspectives by asserting that God is not merely a supreme being but is Being itself. Ibn ʿArabī affirms that “God’s essence is none other than pure being”13 and declares unequivocally that “He is identical with Being itself (fa huwa ʿayn al-wujūd).”14 God as Being itself encompasses infinite possibilities and cannot be bounded by anything else. As such, there is no limit to the being of the Real (al-Ḥaqq). Anything with limits or boundaries, anything that is placed within something else or conditioned by an external standard, cannot be the Real. He is, as the Qur’an says, “the First and the Last, the Outward and the Inward” (Qur’an 57:3).

Here, Ibn ʿArabī departs sharply from the theological perspective mentioned above. He insists that the attributes are one with the divine essence. He explicitly rejects the Ashʿarite view that the attributes are “neither identical with nor separate from the essence,” calling such formulations deeply inadequate. As he states: “The claim that the attributes are neither identical with nor other than His essence is, in truth, far removed [from reality].”15

For Ibn ʿArabī, any metaphysical separation between God’s essence and His attributes threatens to undermine the divine perfection, infinity, independence, and self-sufficiency. If God were in need of any external quality—if He were completed by something not intrinsic to Himself—this would suggest some deficiency or incompleteness. But the Real is pure actuality, infinite plenitude, and absolute perfection. To attribute to Him any external qualities would be to compromise His essential completeness. As Ibn ʿArabī writes:

When God is described with attributes like life and power, these are only relations and comparisons; they have no additional ontological reality. To think otherwise would be to suggest that the Creator is deficient—for that which becomes perfect only through something else is not perfect in itself. But God is, by His very essence, complete and perfect.16

So, Ibn ʿArabī removes the distinction between the divine attributes and the divine essence. If God’s essence is understood as pure being (al-wujūd al-maḥḍ), then all divine attributes must be viewed as manifestations or appearances of this essence. They cannot be conceived as distinct ontological entities or as separate from the divine essence. Rather, they are necessary concomitants of the plenitude of the divine essence, which is nothing but pure, unlimited, and absolute wujūd.

Once the divine essence is perceived as Being itself, other attributes also follow. God is absolutely one and unique. There cannot be multiple Gods for such multiplicity would require a differentiating essence, thereby reducing God to the level of possible beings. God is pure undifferentiated unity, for God cannot be composed of parts, for this means God needs something else (parts) to be what He is. It also implies a delimiting essence reducing God to the level of possible beings. God is the First because nothing can be prior to Being itself. God is the Last because pure being cannot be undone by nonexistence. God is the Manifest (al-Ẓāhir) because nothing is more evident than Being itself. God is the Inward (al-Bāṭin) because nothing is more hidden than Being itself. God is the Creator and the Powerful, because all beings are ontologically dependent on God as Being itself. God is all-knowing because God is present in all things as their innermost principle, as Being itself.

Finally, God is pure good (khayr maḥḍ), because Being itself (al-wujūd) is untouched by nonexistence, limitation, or deficiency. In Akbarian metaphysics, nonexistence (ʿadam) is associated with privation: whatever is limited, deficient, or incapable of actualizing some perfection suffers, in some measure, from the absence of being. Pure Being, by contrast, is entirely free from such privation. It is therefore not merely good but pure goodness, possessing no admixture of deficiency or evil. As Ibn ʿArabī affirms: “The Real (al-Ḥaqq) possesses absolute being without any limitation. For this reason, the Real is absolute goodness, in whom there is no evil whatsoever.”17

This conclusion can be developed from three related considerations. First, the good is that which is desired insofar as it fulfills and perfects a being. To exist and to possess the fullness of existence is, in this sense, desirable. Every existent seeks, according to its mode of being, the realization of its own perfection. Pure Being, which possesses existence without limitation or deficiency, is therefore pure good. Second, evil can be understood as the privation or absence of a perfection that belongs, or ought to belong, to a being. A possible existent does not possess existence through itself; its existence is received from God. Its being is consequently delimited by its particular essence and accompanied by the possibility of nonbeing. Every contingent being therefore exhibits some degree of limitation and privation. Pure Being, however, is not subject to such limitation and is thus untouched by evil. Third, the good is not only that which possesses perfection but also that which communicates and sustains perfection. Pure Being bestows existence upon possible beings and thereby becomes the ground of every perfection found within the created order. The good that creatures possess is therefore derivative: they are good insofar as they participate in and receive the perfection of Being.

God, as Being itself, is also pure Beauty (jamāl wa-bahāʾ al-maḥḍ), for Being is desirable in itself and manifests itself as perfection and beauty without requiring reference to anything external. Unlike contingent entities, whose beauty and value are conditioned by particular forms and relations, divine beauty is intrinsic to wujūd itself. Goodness and beauty are thus not accidental properties added to the divine essence. They express what Being is in its absolute and unrestricted fullness.

This provides the metaphysical foundation for understanding the divine names that signify moral qualities. Names such as generosity, compassion, justice, wisdom, benevolence, and love do not describe independent moral properties which are acquired by the divine essence. Rather, they articulate different modes in which the perfection of the divine essence as Being itself is manifested in relation to possible beings. The multiplicity of the divine names therefore does not introduce a multiplicity of realities within God. Their apparent plurality is reconciled in the unity and infinity of the divine essence.

From this perspective, God is generous because He bestows Being upon possible beings. The possible beings, insofar as they are possibilities of the divine knowledge, possess no existence through themselves; they receive wujūd from God. Divine generosity is therefore fundamentally the generosity of Being itself: God gives what He alone possesses essentially, Being. God is likewise compassionate because He responds to the demand of the possible beings for existence by bringing them from hidden possibility into actuality. Their “silent prayer” is answered through the divine bestowal of Being. The bestowal of Being upon contingent beings is an act of pure generosity and compassion, for this bestowal adds nothing to God. Every form of perfection is already actual in the divine essence. The created order does not increase the divine perfection, but it follows from it. Compassion is thus not something external to divine essence but a manifestation of Its self-disclosure and bestowal.

God is just because He gives existence to each possible being in accordance with its own essence and capacity (istiʿdād). Divine justice does not mean that God arbitrarily distributes existence among possibilities; rather, each existent receives the mode and degree of manifestation appropriate to its immutable essence. God knows every essence and gives each what its ontological capacity requires. Divine justice is therefore the perfect correspondence between the divine act of bestowal and the receptivity of the possible.

God is also lover and beloved. God eternally knows and loves His own perfection, and the possible beings are the loci in which the infinite possibilities contained within the divine knowledge become manifest. Divine love can therefore be understood as the love of Being for its own perfection and for the manifestations of that perfection. God is pure love because what loves in God is not something added to Being; it is Being itself in its infinite perfection and self-disclosure. In this sense, love, generosity, compassion, and justice are different articulations of the same fundamental reality, God as Being itself.

This becomes especially clear in Ibn ʿArabī’s account of the divine attributes. From an Akbarian perspective, the divine names and attributes do not possess an additional ontological reality distinct from the divine essence. No attribute inheres in the divine essence as an accident or an independently existing property. The attributes are one with the essence, although they signify the essence from different relational perspectives. Thus, what we call divine love, compassion, generosity, or justice does not constitute a collection of properties added to God. Each name expresses the one divine reality of wujūd under a particular aspect of manifestation.

Perhaps, the presence of the divine attributes in the divine essence can be likened to the presence of different colors within the colorless light. All colors are present and concealed within the undifferentiated unity of colorless light. These colors become manifest only when different objects are illuminated by the colorless light. Similarly, the divine pure being conceals all divine qualities within itself. When God bestows existence to possibilities, these qualities become manifest. What is “hidden” within the abundance of pure existence becomes apparent in possible existents to the extent allowed by their essences and capacities.

This understanding of divine attributes as identical with the divine essence that is pure being, stands in stark contrast to the framework presumed by most theological perspectives that conceive of God as a being who possesses perfect attributes in maximal degree. Ibn ʿArabī’s view grounds all attributes in the divine essence. God is not only a being possessing or conforming to perfect properties but also Being itself is the same as all perfect moral properties.18 The moral qualities are disclosures of God’s inexhaustible purity, goodness, and plenitude in their relationship to possible beings.

The same reasoning allows us to move from ontological goodness to specifically moral goodness. If goodness is grounded in the fullness and perfection of Being, and if the divine essence is pure Being, then the divine names traditionally understood as moral qualities are not arbitrary ethical predicates imposed upon God from outside. They express the ways in which the perfection of pure Being relates to and communicates itself to the realm of possibilities.

Accordingly, moral goodness is not external to ontological goodness but represents its relational expression. Creatures participate in goodness insofar as they participate in the divine essence that is pure being and actualize the perfections appropriate to their essences. A moral agent is good insofar as its actions embody and communicate the perfections that flow from God as Being itself—giving rather than withholding, sustaining rather than destroying, acting justly rather than arbitrarily, and responding compassionately to the existence and needs of others. The closer a creature’s action conforms to these perfections, the more fully it participates in the divine goodness from which all existence and perfection derive.

Thus, from an Akbarian perspective, pure being is pure good because it is unrestricted perfection, untouched by privation, and the source of every created perfection; and the moral qualities attributed to the divine are the determinate expressions of God as Being itself in relation to creation. The apparent multiplicity and polarity of the divine names—justice and compassion, majesty and beauty, giving and withholding, transcendence and immanence—are ultimately reconciled in the simplicity, purity, and infinity of the divine essence. What appears to us as a plurality of divine attributes is, at the level of al-Ḥaqq, the infinite articulation of one reality: Being itself that is absolutely perfect, good, beautiful, loving, compassionate, generous, wise, and just.

3. The Moral Inescapability of God as Being Itself

This metaphysical orientation bears profound implications for the question of whether ethics is possible without God. In this view, all things—including moral actions—unfold within the all-encompassing plenitude of God as Being itself. If God is not merely a being but Being itself, then every act, including every ethical act, occurs through the presence of God. Thus, no moral behavior is ultimately possible apart from God, even if one remains unaware of this divine grounding. Whether one believes in God or not, all moral actions participate in the divine essence, which is pure being and pure good. From this perspective, belief in God is not a prerequisite for ethical behavior—but God as Being itself is the necessary condition for any ethical act to occur at all.

The idea that morality could be distinct from God only becomes thinkable within frameworks that treat God as a being who merely possesses moral properties. In such paradigms, moral value is something God has, rather than something God is. The former perspective says “God has love,” while the latter affirms “God is love.” This distinction is decisive. If God is merely a being who possesses or is qualified with love, then love can conceivably exist apart from God as an independent and external reality. However, if God is love itself—just as He is Being itself—then no act of love is possible without God. From this standpoint, to love our children, spouse, justice, or the poor is to participate in God as pure love.

When divine qualities are subsumed into pure being, then ethical action is nothing other than participation in God. If nothing is prior to Being itself, then no ethical act can be independent of God. Consider, for example, the act of compassion. In conventional ethical discourse, compassion may be seen as a virtue cultivated through social norms, emotional maturity, or rational deliberation. Yet from an Akbarian perspective, one who acts compassionately is, knowingly or not, participating in the infinite plenitude and all-encompassing reality of God as Being itself. Just as light illuminates everything while often remaining unnoticed, so too does God—as pure being and pure good—saturate all moral reality without necessarily being recognized.

In short, God is Being itself; then nothing—neither moral thought, nor ethical action, nor the recognition of value—is truly possible without God. All goodness arises from the intrinsic goodness of Being. Any attempt to imagine an ontological gap between God and the world—a space in which ethics might occur “without God”—dissolves in this light. Such a “withoutness” is not metaphysically sustainable. God is most intimately and universally present in all beings through their innermost principle.

Perhaps, an old analogy may help illustrate this: the relationship between the ocean and its waves. The ocean can be understood as the ground of the waves, while the waves are individuation, expressions, and particularizations of the ocean. Waves exist because of the ocean—but not vice versa. The two cannot be absolutely separated, for each wave participates in the reality of the ocean. Similarly, the “ocean” of pure existence grounds all acts and relations among beings. All beings become what they are by participating in wujūd to the extent allowed by their essences. And if wujūd is identical with all divine qualities—such as consciousness, freedom, and power—then beings become conscious, free, and causally efficacious by participating in the divine reality. Similarly, ethics without God as Being itself is not possible—not because belief in God is a psychological or cultural prerequisite for moral behavior, but because moral behavior is grounded in and permeated by the divine essence. Even if someone claims to act ethically without belief in God, the claim is metaphysically incoherent. God is the unacknowledged background of all moral action—not only as the source of our recognition of the good, but also as the origin of our desire and capacity to realize it.19

4. Awareness of God as Being Itself in Secular Moral Theories

Secular moral theories typically argue that ethical behavior does not require belief in God or adherence to divine command. Humanism, for instance, roots morality in human reason, empathy, and concern for the well-being of others. Utilitarianism, as developed by thinkers like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, defines ethical action in terms of outcomes: the greatest good for the greatest number, measured in terms of happiness and suffering. Kantian ethics locates moral obligation in the categorical imperative, which demands universalizable moral maxims—completely apart from divine revelation or theological considerations. Aristotelian virtue ethics, similarly, envisions ethics as the cultivation of character and the pursuit of eudaimonia, or flourishing, which can be conceived as attainable through reason and habit, without necessary reference to God. Evolutionary ethics seeks to explain ethical traits such as altruism and cooperation in terms of their survival value.

From within their own conceptual frameworks, many modern ethical theories function as coherent systems. They articulate visions of moral responsibility and value that appear to operate independently of theological commitments. However, from an Akbarian metaphysical perspective, this independence is more apparent than real. While these systems often present themselves as self-contained, they may still be understood as unconsciously participating in a deeper metaphysical ground that makes moral thought and action possible in the first place.

In the language of Ibn ʿArabī, one might say that all ethical reflection and action remain grounded in the divine essence that is Being itself. The very concepts these theories depend upon—such as cognition, life, happiness, utility, and flourishing—derive their intelligibility and meaning from the givenness, goodness, and self-manifestation of wujūd. Ethical discourse, even when it distances itself from overt theological claims, does not escape Being itself as the background of all morality. Rather, it draws upon it knowingly or unknowingly.

For instance, evolutionary approaches to ethics often explain the emergence and persistence of moral dispositions in terms of their contribution to survival, reproduction, cooperation, or fitness.20 Yet this explanatory account leaves open a prior normative question: why should these be valued in the first place? To say that survival is good is already to move from a description of what organisms tend to preserve toward an affirmation of what ought to be preserved. Survival is valuable because it preserves life, and life is valued because it constitutes a continuation of existence rather than a lapse into non-being. From the perspective developed here, this suggests that wujūd functions as a largely unarticulated ontological background even to naturalistic accounts of value. We value life because life is a mode of remaining in and participating in Being; we seek its preservation because existence is implicitly experienced as preferable to nonexistence. Thus, even when an ethical theory grounds value in survival, it may presuppose a more fundamental ontological valuation of Being itself. Evolutionary explanations may tell us how certain valuations arose and were selected for, but they do not by themselves explain why existence, life, or flourishing should count as valuable. The question of the ultimate ground of that value therefore remains open. Once, however, we shift our fundamental ontological assumption and conceive of God as Being itself, divine presence can be understood as the silent ontological background against which actions directed toward survival, reproduction, cooperation, and flourishing acquire their value. What appears, at the empirical level, as an instinct or disposition toward preserving life can thus be interpreted, at a deeper metaphysical level, as an orientation toward preserving and participating in wujūd.

Similarly, utilitarianism, grounded in the maximization of utility, rests on the assumption that the promotion of the greatest overall good is a desirable aim. Classical utilitarian thinkers such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill identify this good primarily with pleasure, happiness, or the absence of suffering.21 Yet this raises a more fundamental question: why should happiness, pleasure, or the satisfaction of interests count as goods in the first place? Whatever the particular account of utility, utilitarian calculation presupposes beings whose well-being can be enhanced or diminished. Health, life, security, wealth, and other goods are valuable insofar as they contribute to the flourishing and continued existence of beings. From the metaphysical perspective developed here, however, these goods can be understood as different modes through which beings preserve, enhance, and participate in wujūd. What utilitarianism treats as utility can therefore be situated within a deeper ontological horizon: the preservation and flourishing of beings is valuable because it affirms and enhances their participation in Being. Happiness, on this account, is not merely a pleasurable psychological state but can be understood as a fuller realization of one’s mode of being. Thus, the utility of an ethical action, even when calculated in terms of happiness or well-being, can be interpreted as operating within a more fundamental metaphysical horizon in which wujūd constitutes the ultimate background of value. The utilitarian calculus may determine which action produces greater well-being, but it does not, by itself, explain why the flourishing of beings ought to be valued. A metaphysics of wujūd seeks to address precisely this deeper question.

Ethical systems grounded in empathy, respect, human dignity, or human flourishing—such as various forms of humanism—likewise presuppose some conception of well-being as a fundamental good. Yet the notion of well-being raises a more basic ontological question: well-being is always the well-being of a being. Without wujūd, there are no beings whose lives can be characterized as flourishing or failing to flourish. Similarly, the Aristotelian conception of eudaimonia understands the good life in terms of the actualization and fulfillment of human capacities.22 Although Aristotle does not formulate this account in terms of Being itself, his conception of flourishing nevertheless presupposes that the realization of a being’s potential constitutes a genuine good. From the metaphysical perspective developed here, this can be understood more radically: to flourish is to actualize more fully the possibilities of one’s being and thereby to participate more fully in wujūd. Flourishing is therefore not simply the accumulation of desirable psychological or social conditions; it concerns the realization, perfection, and fulfillment of a mode of being. The very intelligibility of such realization presupposes an ontological horizon within which being is already affirmed as valuable. Thus, wujūd can be understood as the silent metaphysical background against which notions such as well-being, flourishing, fulfillment, and human dignity become intelligible as goods.

Similarly, Kantian ethics, which grounds moral obligation in the universalizability of maxims and the intrinsic worth of rational beings, can be read as presupposing a more fundamental ontological horizon. The Kantian prohibition against treating persons merely as means, for example, rests on the recognition that rational beings possess an intrinsic dignity that cannot be reduced to their instrumental value.23 Yet the very notion of the “worth” of a being raises a deeper metaphysical question: what makes the being of a being something that ought to be respected and preserved? The prohibition against killing an innocent person illustrates this question particularly clearly. Killing does not merely frustrate a preference or diminish utility; it terminates the life, agency, and embodied presence of a being in the world. From the perspective developed here, such ethical judgments can be understood against the more fundamental horizon of wujūd: the preservation and affirmation of being constitute an implicit condition of the goods that ethical reason seeks to protect. Universalizability itself presupposes a world populated by beings whose existence, agency, and rational capacities matter morally. Thus, even where Kantian ethics begins with rational autonomy and universal moral law, wujūd can be understood as the deeper ontological background within which rational beings appear as bearers of value in the first place. Being itself need not function as an explicit premise within Kant’s ethical argument; rather, it operates here as a pre-cognitive and ontological condition of intelligibility for the beings, agency, and dignity upon which moral valuation depends.

Seen in this light, all ethical theories—whether evolutionary, humanist, utilitarian, deontological, or Aristotelian—can be understood as implicit responses to the self-evident goodness and beauty of Being itself. Any ethical system that aims at happiness, survival, flourishing, utility, or the intrinsic worth of beings becomes unintelligible apart from the all-encompassing reality of Being itself and our fundamental awareness of it. Thus, all moral action—whether consciously acknowledged or not—is grounded in and expressive of the all-encompassing presence of God as Being itself. Even when secular moral theories deny, ignore, or suspend theological claims, they remain unknowingly shaped by the metaphysical presence of God.

Seen in this light, the various ethical theories discussed above—whether evolutionary, humanist, utilitarian, deontological, or Aristotelian—can be understood as implicit responses to the self-evident goodness and beauty of Being itself. Each begins from a particular conception of what ought to be preserved, promoted, respected, or actualized: survival, well-being, happiness, flourishing, utility, autonomy, or the intrinsic worth of persons. Yet all of these goods presuppose beings who can possess them and, more fundamentally, the reality of wujūd within which such beings and their possibilities become intelligible. The ethical question therefore always unfolds against an ontological background that precedes explicit moral reflection. From the perspective developed here, Being itself is not one value among others but the ultimate ontological horizon within which all finite values become possible and intelligible. Thus, moral action—whether consciously acknowledged or not—can be understood as grounded in and expressive of the all-encompassing presence of God as Being itself. Even when secular moral theories bracket, reject, or remain silent about theological claims, they may nevertheless operate within an ontological horizon that, from the perspective of this metaphysics, is ultimately grounded in wujūd. The divine presence therefore need not appear as an explicit premise within every ethical theory; it can function more fundamentally as the ontological condition that makes valuation itself possible.

Perhaps, an analogy with light may help clarify this point: light is the ever-present condition for seeing, both background and foreground, yet it cannot itself be seen directly. It is always before us, enabling vision, but we rarely attend to it. We should, in truth, see the light before we see anything else—for it is by the light that all else becomes visible. The problem is not that we fail to see the light, but that we do not realize we are already seeing by it—before, within, and alongside everything we perceive. In the same way, God as Being itself is always already present in moral acts and values, operating intimately and immediately as the ground of their reality.

A second analogy, that of the mirror, also illustrates this point. Whenever we see an image in a mirror, we are also, in a real sense, seeing the mirror itself—though we may not consciously focus on it. The mirror is not separate from the image; rather, it precedes and grounds the appearance of the image. Likewise, God is not an external moral observer or addendum to the ethical world but is its very ground and condition—present in, through, and as every moral reality.

Similarly, ethics without God as Being itself is ontologically impossible, though ignorance of this truth is phenomenologically plausible. Our pursuit of the good is grounded in a tacit awareness of the goodness of Being itself, and therefore of God. The structure of moral consciousness, the recognition of value, and the movement toward the good—all unfold within the ever-present manifestation of God as Being itself. Therefore, even when secular moral theories deny, ignore, or suspend theological claims, they are still unknowingly shaped by the metaphysical presence of God. The goodness they affirm, the happiness they pursue, and the justice they seek are only possible because Being itself is inherently good and absolutely manifest to us. So, these theories, while often presenting themselves as self-contained, remain metaphysically immersed in the divine.

5. An Engagement with James Sterba’s Argument

On the basis of the preceding conclusions, I now turn to an examination of James Sterba’s argument, as presented in his article “An Ethics without God That Is Compatible with Darwinian Evolution.”24 Building on his claim that the existence of horrendous evil and suffering in the world is incompatible with an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God, Sterba offers a critique of the standard formulation of the Divine Command Theory, which is often invoked by believers to argue that ethics without God is impossible. Having concluded that this formulation cannot withstand philosophical scrutiny, he argues instead that ethics can be grounded entirely in reason in a manner consistent with our understanding of the world in light of modern science, particularly Darwinian evolution. On this basis, Sterba maintains that atheists can live fully moral lives without reference to God. While his arguments are thoughtful and compelling, they also raise several issues that warrant further critical consideration.

5.1. The Divine Command and God as Being Itself

It is true that the Divine Command Theory seeks to ground morality in God. Yet this argument itself rests on deeper metaphysical assumptions about God and the nature of morality. This is to be expected, since any attempt to establish morality in relation to God must presuppose certain views about God and His relationship to moral order. I contend that it is precisely these metaphysical assumptions that are often bracketed or overlooked—both in the standard formulations of the Divine Command Theory used to defend morality with God and in the critiques, that aim to expose the weaknesses of such defenses.

What, then, are these underlying assumptions? By turning to the famous Euthyphro problem, first introduced by Plato and frequently invoked to challenge the Divine Command Theory, as Sterba also does, we can begin to identify some of them.

Plato asks: “Does God command something because it is good, or is it good because He commands it?” Both ends of this dilemma present serious theological and moral difficulties. If “something is good because God commands it,” then goodness derives solely from the divine command. This implies that God’s essence lacks any inherent moral goodness, making God’s will appear arbitrary. It would follow that even killing an innocent person could be considered good if God had so commanded. Moreover, this reduces ethics to mere authority, grounded in the threat of punishment or the promise of reward, thereby making self-interest the ultimate principle.

On the other hand, if “God commands something because it is good,” then God is placed within a transcendent and independent moral framework. In this view, morality becomes the new absolute, and God is reduced to a mediator—or even a follower—of something higher than Himself. This undermines divine completeness, for separating moral qualities from God implies that He can only be morally perfect by reference to something external to His essence.

Thus, the Euthyphro dilemma does indeed expose the weaknesses of the standard formulation of the Divine Command Theory. However, one might argue that what makes the dilemma irresolvable are our prior assumptions about God and morality. For example, when we assume that “God commands something because it is good,” we conceive of God as a being placed within a larger framework, thereby limiting divine reality and reducing its absoluteness. Likewise, when we claim that “something is good because God commands it,” we again reduce God to a being who lacks moral qualities in Himself, with goodness and badness existing “outside” Him.

So, in both cases, the guiding metaphysical assumption is that God is merely a being who can be situated within a broader and independent moral or ontological structure. Moreover, this fundamental assumption appears to be shared both by defenders of the standard Divine Command Theory and by Sterba in his critique. Perhaps this is why he writes “By contrast, the God of traditional theism, if he exists, would be just a concrete rational being, not an abstract norm. Such a rational being, if he exists, like ourselves, would be subject to the requirements of morality.”25

What I propose instead is that once God is understood not merely as a being but as Being itself, the duality between God and morality dissolves, and the Euthyphro dilemma ceases to be a problem. If God is Being itself, then He cannot be placed within a transcendent framework, for nothing can transcend Him. This secures divine absoluteness. Furthermore, if pure being is identical with pure good (since nonexistence is the root of evil), then God is also pure good, and thus the very source of all morality. In this view, God is no longer subordinated to an external moral order, for His essence itself is identical with moral perfection. The problem of arbitrariness also disappears, since God’s commands express His own essence as pure good.

A question may arise here: does removing arbitrariness diminish divine freedom? I would argue not. God’s actions are indeed free, but they are not arbitrary. God is free as the uncaused cause of Himself and due to the plenitude and infinity of His own essence. Acting in conformity with goodness is not an external limitation but the pure expression of His essence. True freedom lies precisely in this harmony.

Thus, the difficulty Sterba highlights with the Divine Command Theory seems to arise from conceiving of God as a mere being. Once God is recognized as Being itself—identical with pure good—the dilemma no longer poses a genuine challenge.

What, then, becomes of the Divine Command Theory? In my view, within this broader metaphysical framework, the theory need not be rejected but rather contextualized—and in so doing, strengthened. Yet, this very contextualization also removes the ultimacy often attributed to the theory in its standard form as the sole foundation of morality from a religious perspective. Divine commands continue to establish ethics within the created order, but they do so as expressions of God’s essence as Being itself and as pure Good. In this way, God commands what God is—freely and necessarily.

In conclusion, the Divine Command Theory can be articulated from different metaphysical assumptions. If it is formulated on the basis of God as a being, then it may indeed be vulnerable to the kinds of criticisms raised by Sterba and others. However, if it is grounded in the assumption that God is Being itself, then within this more comprehensive framework, the theory proves resistant to such critiques.

5.2. The Presumption of “Withoutness”

Sterba also argues that ethics can be grounded entirely in reason, such that atheists can be fully moral without God. While I agree that an atheist can live a morally upright life without belief in God, I question whether such morality is truly without God. If God is Being itself, and if morality is identical with the divine essence, then morality is nothing other than the unfolding of the divine in the world. In this sense, while moral behavior may occur without belief in God, it cannot occur without God.

I believe this very issue arises in Sterba’s argument. Namely, he rightly notes that ethical value lies in treating others fairly, since all have an interest in fairness. Clearly, “not plunging a knife into another innocent person’s chest”26 is good. Yet in affirming this moral value, Sterba seems to “bracket” the very ground from which moral axioms arise—Being itself. The moral worth of such actions derives from the beauty and goodness of life itself, which is nothing other than our conscious participation in Being itself. Similarly, principles upon which ethical systems are constructed—such as utility, justice, fairness, and human flourishing—derive their intelligibility from the goodness of Being itself. Ethical discourse, even in its atheistic forms, does not seem to escape Being itself as the constant background of all morality. From this perspective, the independence of atheistic moral systems appears more illusory than real. Although they often present themselves as self-sufficient, these systems remain—whether explicitly recognized or not—rooted in and participating in the deeper metaphysical ground of God as Being itself.

5.3. The Ontological Limits of Sterba’s Critique

A possible critique of the argument developed here is to ask why one should accept the Akbarian ontological framework in the first place. My aim in this paper, however, is not to persuade the reader that God ought to be conceived as Being itself rather than as a being. Providing a comprehensive argument for the superiority of this conception lies beyond the scope of the present study. My more modest claim is that the conception of God as Being itself is a philosophically available alternative. It is articulated within Sufi metaphysics, most prominently in the thought of Ibn ʿArabī, and has a significant parallel in the Christian philosophical tradition, particularly in Thomas Aquinas. Nor is this conception unique to these traditions; analogous approaches can be found in various philosophical and spiritual traditions across religious contexts.

The point, therefore, is not to establish why one must adopt an ontology of Being itself, but to show that Sterba’s critical project operates within a particular ontological framework—an ontology of discrete beings. Within this framework, God is ultimately conceived as a being, albeit the supreme or perfect one, standing alongside other beings as their creator or ultimate cause. It is precisely within this ontological framework that Sterba develops his conclusions concerning the possibility of ethics without God. The force of his critique consequently depends, at least in part, on accepting the same underlying ontological assumptions about what God is.

If one accepts the reduction in God to a discrete being, Sterba’s critique carries considerable force. Once, however, the contours of this particular ontological framework are made explicit, the scope and structural limitations of its conclusions become apparent. If the ontological paradigm is shifted from conceiving God as a supreme being to understanding God as Being itself (wujūd), as Ibn ʿArabī does, the terms of the ethical question change fundamentally. The question is no longer simply whether moral values can be derived from the commands or properties of a divine being. Rather, it becomes a question of whether morality itself is intelligible apart from God as Being itself. From this perspective, the possibility of ethics without God may require reconsideration, because God is no longer posited as one being upon whom morality depends but as Being itself, within which beings, values, and the very intelligibility of moral action are grounded.

6. Conclusions

This study has revisited the enduring question of whether ethics is possible without God by bringing the metaphysical framework of Ibn ʿArabī and the broader Akbarian tradition into conversation with contemporary debates about the foundations of morality. From an Akbarian perspective, moral reality is ultimately grounded in God understood not simply as a being, however supreme or perfect, but as Being itself (wujūd). This distinction allows us to differentiate between the epistemic possibility of ethical life without explicit belief in God and the ontological possibility of ethics apart from God. Human beings may recognize moral value, pursue justice, and act compassionately without consciously relating these activities to God. Yet it does not follow that moral reality is therefore metaphysically independent of God. If God is Being itself, the very possibility of moral agency, value, and intelligibility remains grounded in the divine reality irrespective of whether that ground is explicitly recognized.

On this account, morality cannot be reduced to a set of commands externally imposed by a transcendent divine lawgiver. Nor is goodness simply one property among others possessed by a supreme being. Rather, the Akbarian framework invites us to locate the foundations of moral value within the metaphysics of wujūd itself: Being, perfection, and goodness are internally related, and finite moral goods participate in and manifest this more fundamental ontological goodness. Ethical life can therefore be autonomous from explicit religious belief at the level of human deliberation and practice without being ontologically autonomous from its metaphysical ground.

This distinction also clarifies the scope of Sterba’s critique. If God is conceived primarily as a discrete supreme being possessing moral attributes and exercising agency in relation to a world ontologically external to Him, Sterba’s arguments concerning the possibility of ethics without God carry considerable force. Once the contours of this ontological framework are made explicit, however, the scope of the conclusions that follow from it also become clearer. Sterba’s argument does not necessarily establish the metaphysical independence of morality from every possible conception of God; rather, it operates within—and is therefore partly conditioned by—a particular conception of God.

If the ontological point of departure shifts from God as a supreme being to God as Being itself, as in Akbarian metaphysics—and, in analogous approaches across other philosophical and spiritual traditions—the terms of the ethical question change accordingly. The question is no longer simply whether moral obligations and values require the commands, intentions, or properties of a divine being. It becomes the more fundamental question of whether moral value itself is intelligible independently of God as Being itself as the absolute ground of beings, perfections, and value. From within this framework, ethics without explicit belief in God may remain possible, but ethics without God does not. What appears at the epistemic and practical levels as an autonomous moral life may therefore remain, at the metaphysical level, dependent upon the reality that makes moral agency and value possible in the first place.