A core tenet of this essay is not just that coherent existence is required for pretty much any imaginable thing, but also that existence is a good thing. If someone could make an undoing bomb, to make coherence impossible, should they do it?
I agree with you that they should not. But the question remains, why? "Yes, they should" can be answered, and the answer "no, they shouldn't" can be as well. Whether you value coherence is the key difference. I value existence. And so I value coherence.
But some people do not think existence is intrinsically valuable, many antinatalists for example.
Another idea that occurs to me reading is that the unit of stability that is valued, apart from stability itself, is an open question. Is an individual the unit of stability worth admiring, or a lung, a cell, an atom? What about a family, society, humanity? A planet? Is coherence valuable, always? When would an individual be right in sacrificing themselves, if ever? If we blew up the moon to save a goldfish, is that good?
To be more rigorous, Taleb in his book _Antifragile_ discusses both Hormesis, which is the strengthening of the whole by a stressing of the parts, as well as evolutionary antifragility, or a destruction of the parts to make a more sustainable whole. It is my view that evolutionary idea can explain both, and actually explain a large extent of the coherent existence you describe. Parts break down, leaving the parts that are sustainable remaining. This explains catalysts, cellular dynamics, Darwinism, as well as knowledge by conjecture and refutation.
The point is that just valuing coherence isn't enough. The unit of coherence that is valuable is still worth considering more deeply. At least I think so, before coming to the more grand ethical statements you make in the essay.
Excellent critique. You are raising exactly the kinds of questions I hoped the essay would surface.
I agree that coherence alone is not enough if by coherence we simply mean “stability.” A dictatorship can be stable. A tumor can be stable. Each are stable within its context. The deeper question is, stable relative to what? Or as you framed it, what is the unit of coherence being evaluated against?
I actually think your examples (cells, lungs, individuals, families, societies, planets) help illustrate the issue. None of these can serve as the ultimate unit of coherence because all are contingent and context-dependent. Sometimes parts are sacrificed for wholes (cells, organs, individuals, even civilizations), and as you mentioned, hormesis and evolutionary antifragility are real features of reality. Tradeoffs are real.
The deeper question becomes, what remains stable enough to evaluate those tradeoffs coherently?
That is where the metaphysical axiom enters. Historically, this is what people meant by God or gods, not merely theological characters or ritual objects, but the ultimate unit of coherence against which reality, morality, sacrifice, authority, and meaning were evaluated.
The undoing-bomb example you made is interesting because even the claim that “existence is not valuable” still presupposes coherent existence in order to reason, suffer, evaluate, prefer, or conclude anything at all. In that sense, coherence is not simply another value preference, it is upstream of valuation itself.
Where I think modern discourse becomes confusing is that this entire question has been redirected into theology (“Do you believe in a religious idea?”) while political and institutional systems continue operating through implicit units of coherence without making them transparent.
So I agree with your core point that the unit of coherence matters deeply. My argument is simply that the only candidate capable of grounding coherent evaluation universally cannot itself be contingent, composite, or context-dependent.
If you have questions you would like to see covered in an essay, consider joining the God Objectively chat and posting your questions and topics in there, thanks!
Great article! I reposted a paragraph I loved. Your bottom of conference reminds me a lot of Deutch's definition of knowledge.
One nitpick.
> secularism itself still operates metaphysically. It still assumes things about truth, morality, legitimacy, authority, freedom, reality, and evidence.
Does it? Isn't secularism about the promotion of the separation of religion and government? Wouldn't this be like, un-introspective scientism or something?
Every governance system already presupposes a model of reality. Since secularism governs justice, legitimacy, rights, authority, and human value, it too rests upon model(s) that determine those assumptions. Metaphysics comes first because it concerns the underlying model of reality itself. Governance is downstream from metaphysics.
In other words:
metaphysics → governance → institutions
What secularism did is reframe religions as “theology,” shifting them into a downstream institutional or private category, while treating governance as neutral or procedural. This obscures the fact that governance itself still depends on metaphysical assumptions no different than religion.
I think the issue is the way “theology” is being used here.
Religion only appears “downstream of coherence” because it has been recategorized as theology, where it is examined in terms of belief, ritual, and institution. But originally, these were historical expressions of metaphysical models, not something separate from them.
Every religion is already a metaphysical model at the level of its axioms: God, gods, or no God. These are not downstream claims. They are grounding assumptions that determine the unit against which coherence is defined.
Secular ideologies and governance systems do the same thing, they simply do not make their axioms (or lack of axioms) explicit. All metaphysical models ultimately fall into one of three structures: a single independent grounding principle (God), multiple contingent grounding principles (gods), or no grounding principle (no God), which results in purely reactive interpretation.
So the disagreement is not about who cares about coherence. It is about whether any system that organizes humans and reality can exist outside metaphysics. None can.
I think we agree on a great deal, actually. The thing I'm hung up on is how you get to your value system from the thing we agree about. Sustainable coherence is actually amazing and underlies basically everything. Are you trying to define God as coherent "being" itself, as the ability of coherence to exist?
> But originally, these were historical expressions of metaphysical models, not something separate from them
Interesting! Do you have reading suggestions for me to learn more about this :)
> Every religion is already a metaphysical model at the level of its axioms: God, gods, or no God. These are not downstream claims. They are grounding assumptions that determine the unit against which coherence is defined.
Sometimes they are. For instance, some gods of the past were contingent on others. Titans, for instance, were the parents of the gods of olympus. If the claim is religions have grounding assumptions, sure but so does almost everything. Religion isn't unique here either, no?
I’m going to focus on the last part of your question, as I really want to address your other comment because you brought up some excellent points.
You are right on the nose to point out that religion is not unique here. That is actually part of my point.
I agree that everything has grounding assumptions. What I’m highlighting is that this is precisely because metaphysics is unavoidable.
The difference is that historical religions made those assumptions more explicit, whereas modern ideologies and governance systems often treat theirs as neutral, procedural, or self evident.
And yes, good catch on contingent gods like the Olympians and Titans. In that scenario, it is a distinction between contingent gods within a model and the ultimate grounding of the model itself.
For example, in Greek mythology, the Olympians are not the ontological foundation of reality. They are contingent beings inside a manufactured layer of a larger cosmology. The deeper metaphysical question remains: what grounds the system itself?
That is what is meant by God, gods, or no God:
God → a singular independent grounding principle
gods → multiple competing or contingent grounding principles
no God → no stable grounding, leaving coherence reactive or emergent
My claim is not that religion is special here. It’s actually the opposite: no worldview escapes metaphysical assumptions, including secular ones.
The deeper disagreement is about which metaphysical structure can maintain coherence consistently. All metaphysical models ultimately fall into one of three categories: God, gods, or no God.
A singular, independent grounding principle is the only structure capable of maintaining universal coherence, because multiple grounding principles introduce contingency and competing standards, while no grounding principle leaves coherence reactive, interpretive, and unable to ground itself consistently.
In other words, only one metaphysical structure preserves a stable unit of coherence against which reality can be evaluated consistently.
A core tenet of this essay is not just that coherent existence is required for pretty much any imaginable thing, but also that existence is a good thing. If someone could make an undoing bomb, to make coherence impossible, should they do it?
I agree with you that they should not. But the question remains, why? "Yes, they should" can be answered, and the answer "no, they shouldn't" can be as well. Whether you value coherence is the key difference. I value existence. And so I value coherence.
But some people do not think existence is intrinsically valuable, many antinatalists for example.
Another idea that occurs to me reading is that the unit of stability that is valued, apart from stability itself, is an open question. Is an individual the unit of stability worth admiring, or a lung, a cell, an atom? What about a family, society, humanity? A planet? Is coherence valuable, always? When would an individual be right in sacrificing themselves, if ever? If we blew up the moon to save a goldfish, is that good?
To be more rigorous, Taleb in his book _Antifragile_ discusses both Hormesis, which is the strengthening of the whole by a stressing of the parts, as well as evolutionary antifragility, or a destruction of the parts to make a more sustainable whole. It is my view that evolutionary idea can explain both, and actually explain a large extent of the coherent existence you describe. Parts break down, leaving the parts that are sustainable remaining. This explains catalysts, cellular dynamics, Darwinism, as well as knowledge by conjecture and refutation.
The point is that just valuing coherence isn't enough. The unit of coherence that is valuable is still worth considering more deeply. At least I think so, before coming to the more grand ethical statements you make in the essay.
Great read. I enjoyed it.
Excellent critique. You are raising exactly the kinds of questions I hoped the essay would surface.
I agree that coherence alone is not enough if by coherence we simply mean “stability.” A dictatorship can be stable. A tumor can be stable. Each are stable within its context. The deeper question is, stable relative to what? Or as you framed it, what is the unit of coherence being evaluated against?
I actually think your examples (cells, lungs, individuals, families, societies, planets) help illustrate the issue. None of these can serve as the ultimate unit of coherence because all are contingent and context-dependent. Sometimes parts are sacrificed for wholes (cells, organs, individuals, even civilizations), and as you mentioned, hormesis and evolutionary antifragility are real features of reality. Tradeoffs are real.
The deeper question becomes, what remains stable enough to evaluate those tradeoffs coherently?
That is where the metaphysical axiom enters. Historically, this is what people meant by God or gods, not merely theological characters or ritual objects, but the ultimate unit of coherence against which reality, morality, sacrifice, authority, and meaning were evaluated.
The undoing-bomb example you made is interesting because even the claim that “existence is not valuable” still presupposes coherent existence in order to reason, suffer, evaluate, prefer, or conclude anything at all. In that sense, coherence is not simply another value preference, it is upstream of valuation itself.
This essay touches on this topic in more detail:
https://www.godobjectively.com/p/business-partners-in-truth
Where I think modern discourse becomes confusing is that this entire question has been redirected into theology (“Do you believe in a religious idea?”) while political and institutional systems continue operating through implicit units of coherence without making them transparent.
So I agree with your core point that the unit of coherence matters deeply. My argument is simply that the only candidate capable of grounding coherent evaluation universally cannot itself be contingent, composite, or context-dependent.
If you have questions you would like to see covered in an essay, consider joining the God Objectively chat and posting your questions and topics in there, thanks!
Great article! I reposted a paragraph I loved. Your bottom of conference reminds me a lot of Deutch's definition of knowledge.
One nitpick.
> secularism itself still operates metaphysically. It still assumes things about truth, morality, legitimacy, authority, freedom, reality, and evidence.
Does it? Isn't secularism about the promotion of the separation of religion and government? Wouldn't this be like, un-introspective scientism or something?
Every governance system already presupposes a model of reality. Since secularism governs justice, legitimacy, rights, authority, and human value, it too rests upon model(s) that determine those assumptions. Metaphysics comes first because it concerns the underlying model of reality itself. Governance is downstream from metaphysics.
In other words:
metaphysics → governance → institutions
What secularism did is reframe religions as “theology,” shifting them into a downstream institutional or private category, while treating governance as neutral or procedural. This obscures the fact that governance itself still depends on metaphysical assumptions no different than religion.
True, but a lot of theology is downstream of coherence.
Secular people and theologians as currently thought about are capable of caring about fundamental sustainability.
I think the issue is the way “theology” is being used here.
Religion only appears “downstream of coherence” because it has been recategorized as theology, where it is examined in terms of belief, ritual, and institution. But originally, these were historical expressions of metaphysical models, not something separate from them.
Every religion is already a metaphysical model at the level of its axioms: God, gods, or no God. These are not downstream claims. They are grounding assumptions that determine the unit against which coherence is defined.
Secular ideologies and governance systems do the same thing, they simply do not make their axioms (or lack of axioms) explicit. All metaphysical models ultimately fall into one of three structures: a single independent grounding principle (God), multiple contingent grounding principles (gods), or no grounding principle (no God), which results in purely reactive interpretation.
So the disagreement is not about who cares about coherence. It is about whether any system that organizes humans and reality can exist outside metaphysics. None can.
I think we agree on a great deal, actually. The thing I'm hung up on is how you get to your value system from the thing we agree about. Sustainable coherence is actually amazing and underlies basically everything. Are you trying to define God as coherent "being" itself, as the ability of coherence to exist?
> But originally, these were historical expressions of metaphysical models, not something separate from them
Interesting! Do you have reading suggestions for me to learn more about this :)
> Every religion is already a metaphysical model at the level of its axioms: God, gods, or no God. These are not downstream claims. They are grounding assumptions that determine the unit against which coherence is defined.
Sometimes they are. For instance, some gods of the past were contingent on others. Titans, for instance, were the parents of the gods of olympus. If the claim is religions have grounding assumptions, sure but so does almost everything. Religion isn't unique here either, no?
I’m going to focus on the last part of your question, as I really want to address your other comment because you brought up some excellent points.
You are right on the nose to point out that religion is not unique here. That is actually part of my point.
I agree that everything has grounding assumptions. What I’m highlighting is that this is precisely because metaphysics is unavoidable.
The difference is that historical religions made those assumptions more explicit, whereas modern ideologies and governance systems often treat theirs as neutral, procedural, or self evident.
And yes, good catch on contingent gods like the Olympians and Titans. In that scenario, it is a distinction between contingent gods within a model and the ultimate grounding of the model itself.
For example, in Greek mythology, the Olympians are not the ontological foundation of reality. They are contingent beings inside a manufactured layer of a larger cosmology. The deeper metaphysical question remains: what grounds the system itself?
That is what is meant by God, gods, or no God:
God → a singular independent grounding principle
gods → multiple competing or contingent grounding principles
no God → no stable grounding, leaving coherence reactive or emergent
My claim is not that religion is special here. It’s actually the opposite: no worldview escapes metaphysical assumptions, including secular ones.
The deeper disagreement is about which metaphysical structure can maintain coherence consistently. All metaphysical models ultimately fall into one of three categories: God, gods, or no God.
A singular, independent grounding principle is the only structure capable of maintaining universal coherence, because multiple grounding principles introduce contingency and competing standards, while no grounding principle leaves coherence reactive, interpretive, and unable to ground itself consistently.
In other words, only one metaphysical structure preserves a stable unit of coherence against which reality can be evaluated consistently.
I agree. I don't think we disagree about the last part. Not everybody wants long term coherence though.
nice essay