The concept of a needy God is internally contradictory
Evidence
Devotion to a needy God would, for example, grant a foundational, noncontingent reason for me to exist, if such a needy God exists. Of course, God cannot be both needy and absolute, and foundational justifi cation turns out to be nothing but a comforting illusion. “By positing an absolute end before me, I have abdicated my freedom; questions are no longer posed; I no longer want to be anything but a response to that appeal which requires me” (PC, 117). Th is familiar existential move announces Beauvoir’s commitment to anguish in the absence of absolutes, where belief in absolutes suppresses the risk and uncertainty of existence. While no possible being can be absolute in the required sense, Beauvoir argues that one can justify one’s life through devotion to fi nite Others, if and only if one respects the freedom of Others: “Th ere is devotion only if I take an end defi ned by the other as my end. But then it is contradictory to suppose that I could defi ne that end for him” (PC, 118–19). — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 180
Categorization
- DEFINE: Fixes Beauvoir’s account of devotion and its condition: respecting the Other’s freedom means never defining their ends for them.
- XREF: connects to: Deifying an actually present man guarantees torment because he is not God — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1866; Theologians object that subjecting God to the concept denies his creative freedom; A God who reveals everything withholds nothing, hence cannot give anything. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 686 (+4 more)