If God is dead, all is permitted, Dostoevsky said.

Westerners, particularly Protestant Westerners, instinctively translate that into a statement about authority. If God is dead, there are no rules, no laws to keep us in check.

Protestants especially should see the folly of that conclusion. Law doesn’t eliminate evil. It provokes transgression even as it partially restrains evil - Paul, Protestant Paul, taught us that.

Dostoevsky was more likely talking about desire. If God is dead, there is no final object of desire, no final and full satisfaction, no magnet of infinite good toward which we are drawn. If God is dead, desire has no direction or order, but goes every which way. If God is dead, everything can seem desirable, and so can nothing.

If God is dead, truly, everything is permitted.