Earlier we said that fundamental to reality according to the materialists is the fact of “what-is”--with “what ought to be” of a lower level of reality; either totally subjective illusion, having no basis in the Real; or at the least, of a much inferior ontological status than what-is. Given that the human stake in life is almost entirely composed of pleasure and pain (the “ought” and “ought not”), we must now turn to the fundamental difference between a philosophy that places what-is as exclusively or nearly exclusively Real, and that which deals with or attempts to grapple primarily with what-ought-to-be--philosophy of life.

Admittedly there may be many philosophers of life who place the “ought to be” on the highest level of the Real, and deal primarily with this, who are yet atheists. But we might make a distinction here as regards the controversy between the what-is and the what-ought-to-be. We might say that, if there is a God, the most fundamental level of the Real has its basis in the ought-to-be. Like Leibniz, we will say that, if there is a God, then life, and the experience of sentient beings, is the ultimate end of the cosmos, everything in this world having purpose, that purpose being bound up in sentient consciousness, at whose service it all comes. The Big Bang, the ages on Earth of the dinosaurs, the ice ages and all of history and pre-history--if there is a God, these are all ends-directed things, the end being the good and the welfare of sentient beings. It seems to me absurd that there should be a God, but that he would care more for a stone than for a child; likewise that he should care more about a sea than a man. No--that stone, that sea--all the laws by which they came to be and by which they transform this way or that: all of this has its grounding in the “ought” rather than the “is”--the end and purpose of all reality is the welfare of sentient beings in a teleological manner, ought pertaining to exclusively the psychology of sentient beings.

Again, it is possible in philosophy to deal primarily with the “ought” and yet be atheistic. But it is not very coherent to believe in God, and disregard the “ought”. That which is fundamental and elemental in this world--its ultimate purpose, end and standard--if there is a God--must be based in the “ought”. On the other hand, at least materialist atheists would hold that the “what-is” is fundamental in this world, with the “ought” being relegated to a secondary component of consciousness, which has no ground in the ultimate foundation of things. The “ought”, according to materialist atheists, would be of a secondary and inferior level of reality, having nowhere close to the fundamental reality as has “what-is”. So there is one thing consequent: if there is a God, is the priority of the “ought” over the “what-is” attains; and, for the materialist and certain other atheists, we have precisely the inverse relation.