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Course 19 · Lesson 7.2

Meaning and purpose in secular and Christian thought

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 19 outline

Module 1: The Secular Age: Humanism and Naturalism

  1. What secular, secularism and secularization mean
  2. Secular humanism: its claims and its moral vision
  3. Philosophical naturalism and its alternatives
  4. Christian responses to naturalism and humanism

Module 2: Science, Evolution and Faith

  1. Models of science and religion: conflict, independence, dialogue, integration
  2. What the theory of evolution claims and what it does not
  3. Christian positions on creation and evolution
  4. The history of the conflict story and its critics

Module 3: Criticism of the Bible

  1. The rise of historical and literary criticism
  2. What critics claim about authorship, sources and development
  3. Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant responses to criticism

Module 4: Truth, Relativism and Postmodernism

  1. What postmodernism is, and why the term is hard to define
  2. Truth, language and interpretation
  3. Moral relativism: descriptive, cultural and philosophical forms
  4. Christian responses to relativism and postmodern thought

Module 5: The Masters of Suspicion

  1. Marx on religion, ideology and economic life
  2. Nietzsche on Christianity, morality and the death of God
  3. Freud on religion as illusion
  4. The genetic fallacy, and when explaining the origin of a belief matters

Module 6: Power, Corruption and Morality

  1. Church, state and political power in history
  2. Institutional failure and abuse
  3. Critiques of Christian morality and how Christians reply
  4. Judging a faith by its failures: what follows and what does not

Module 7: Mind, Meaning and Nihilism

  1. Consciousness and the limits of materialism
  2. Meaning and purpose in secular and Christian thought
  3. Nihilism, despair and Christian hope

Module 8: Writing a Response

  1. Stating a challenge in its strongest form
  2. Building a structured response
  3. Conceding what is true in the critic’s case

All courses

Program / Course 19: Modern Challenges / Lesson 7.2

What you will learn

  • Distinguish meaning in life from meaning of life, and meaning from purpose and from happiness.
  • State how secular thinkers understand meaning, including the view that it is made and not found.
  • State the Christian account of purpose as grounded in creation, redemption and a final end.
  • Identify what each side finds hardest to explain.

The big idea

People ask whether their lives matter, and whether anything gives them a point. Secular thinkers answer that meaning comes from what a person values and builds: love, work, knowledge, service and beauty. Christians answer that meaning is given by a Creator who made human beings for a purpose and for a love that does not end. The two accounts differ about where meaning comes from and whether it can survive death. Each takes the question seriously, and each faces hard objections.

Key terms

Meaning in life
The sense that one’s life has value, direction and significance, whether or not the universe as a whole has a purpose.
Purpose
An end or goal for which something exists or acts. The question is whether human life has one that is given and not only chosen.
Teleology
The study or doctrine of ends and purposes. Aristotle and Aquinas held that natural things have ends.
Subjective meaning
Meaning that depends on a person’s own attitudes, such as caring about a project.
Objective meaning
Meaning that depends on something worthwhile in itself, whether or not a person feels it.
Eudaimonia
A Greek word for flourishing or a good life, central to Aristotle’s ethics. It is not the same as pleasure.
Summum bonum
Latin for the highest good. In Christian thought it is God, in whom human desire finds its end.

Background

Questions about meaning are as old as the book of Ecclesiastes, which says that all is vanity, and the Greek philosophers asked what makes a life good. Aristotle held that the best life uses reason and virtue. The Stoics held that a person should live according to nature and accept what he cannot control. Augustine began his Confessions by saying that God made human beings for himself and the human heart is restless until it rests in him.

In the modern period, as belief in God weakened for many, the question became urgent. Existentialist writers, such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, said that the universe has no given meaning and that individuals must create it. Contemporary philosophers, such as Susan Wolf, have argued that meaning arises when subjective engagement meets objective worth. Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist and survivor of the camps, wrote that the search for meaning is a basic human drive.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Sorting the questions

The question of meaning has three forms. What is the meaning of life as a whole, for the cosmos or the human race? What is the meaning in a particular life, the sense that it matters? And what is a good life, one that goes well? An answer to one is not an answer to the others. A person can believe that the universe has no purpose and still find his own life rich, and a person can believe in a divine plan and still feel empty.

Keeping the questions apart prevents unfair arguments. It would be unfair to say that unbelievers cannot find meaning in life, since many plainly do. It would also be unfair to say that believers are only hiding from the facts.

Step 2: The secular account

Secular thinkers point to sources of meaning that are available to all: love of family and friends, creative and productive work, learning, the pursuit of justice, the appreciation of nature and art. Camus described a person who finds that life lacks given meaning and chooses to live with courage, comparing him to Sisyphus pushing his rock. Many humanists add that a life lived for others is meaningful because the others matter.

They also say that the meaning of a life does not require eternity. A finite thing can be valuable, and a short life can be a good one. Some argue that if life were endless it might become tedious, as the philosopher Bernard Williams suggested.

Step 3: The Christian account

Christians hold that human life has a purpose given by the Creator. The Westminster Shorter Catechism states it in a well-known line: the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Catholic and Orthodox writers speak of friendship with God and of sharing in the divine life. Humans are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), loved by God (John 3:16) and called to love God and neighbor (Matthew 22:37 to 39).

On this view, the goods that secular thinkers name, such as love, truth and beauty, are real and are gifts. They have their source and fulfillment in God. Death is not the last word, since Christ is risen. Meaning is therefore both present, in daily love and work, and ultimate, in a final end.

Step 4: The hard questions for each side

The secular account is asked whether meaning that is only made can be enough. If the universe is indifferent and all will end, does anything matter in the end? Some thinkers, such as Thomas Nagel, say that from the cosmic point of view nothing matters, and that this is absurd but not a cause for despair. Others say that the question assumes a standard that no one can meet. Secular thinkers also face the task of explaining why some projects are more worthwhile than others.

The Christian account is asked whether a purpose given by another can be a purpose that belongs to the person, and whether the promise of eternal life makes present life less important. It is also asked about the suffering in the world and the existence of people to whom life has seemed empty. Ecclesiastes itself voices this, and Christians answer that meaning comes from God and is not removed by the experience of its absence.

  1. Which question about meaning is being asked: of the cosmos, in a life, or of a good life?
  2. Does the account depend on something beyond the person’s own feelings?
  3. Could this meaning survive failure, illness or death?
  4. Is it fair to say that people without belief cannot find meaning?
  5. Is it fair to say that believers are merely comforted?
  6. What gives my own daily work its worth, and is that source enough?

Examples

A secular source of meaning

A paramedic finds her work meaningful because she saves lives and helps people on their worst days. She does not believe in God and does not feel that her life lacks purpose. She admits that when she thinks about the whole of existence, she cannot say what it is for. (A constructed example.)

A Christian source of meaning

A widower finds that his daily prayer and care for his grandchildren give him a sense of being held in a larger story. He says that his love for them matters because God loves them. Yet there are bleak mornings when the sense of meaning is absent, and he prays anyway. (A constructed example.)

Different perspectives

Secular humanist and existentialist views

These thinkers hold that meaning is created by persons who commit themselves to values and projects. Sartre said that existence precedes essence, so that people have no given nature and must make themselves. Camus said that one must imagine Sisyphus happy. Humanists say that this view is more honest than a comfort that depends on the afterlife, and that it respects human freedom.

Catholic

Catholic teaching, following Aquinas, holds that humans are made for happiness, which is found fully only in the vision of God. The Catechism begins by saying that God has created man to share in his own blessed life. Catholic thinkers such as John Paul II speak of the meaning of work and suffering as ways to share in Christ.

Orthodox

Orthodox theology holds that the human end is theosis, union with God by grace. Schmemann wrote that the human being is a priestly creature who receives the world as a gift and offers it back in thanks. In this view, meaning is found in worship and in a life that makes every thing a means of communion with God.

Protestant

Protestants, following the Reformers, stress that meaning is received through God’s grace and calling. Luther taught that ordinary work is a calling from God, and Calvin that all of life is lived before God. The Westminster Shorter Catechism states the end of man as to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Protestant writers also draw on Ecclesiastes to affirm that life apart from God is vanity.

Why it matters

The question of meaning is the point at which the intellectual arguments touch daily life. A person may accept every argument about God and still ask what to do on Monday. A person may reject every argument and find that the question returns at a funeral. A student should be able to speak of meaning fairly and without scorn for those who answer differently.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Without God, life has no meaning for anyone.

Correction: Many people without belief find rich meaning in love, work and service. The disagreement is about whether the meaning is ultimate and whether it can be grounded.

Misunderstanding: Christians believe in meaning only because they fear death.

Correction: This is a version of the genetic fallacy. Christians give reasons, and some of them, such as Pascal, felt the fear of death and also the grandeur of human life.

Misunderstanding: A given purpose is slavery.

Correction: Christian teaching holds that the purpose given by a loving Creator is the fulfillment of human nature. Critics doubt this, and the question is whether a purpose that is chosen can be as deep.

Misunderstanding: Meaning and happiness are the same.

Correction: A person can be happy without meaning or can find meaning in suffering. Frankl and others have argued that they should be distinguished.

Knowledge check

Distinguish meaning of life from meaning in life.

The meaning of life as a whole concerns whether the cosmos or humanity has a purpose. Meaning in a life concerns whether a particular person’s life has value, direction and significance. The two can come apart: a person might believe the universe has no purpose and still find his own life meaningful, or the reverse.

How do secular thinkers account for meaning?

They point to sources open to all, such as love, work, learning, justice and the appreciation of beauty. Existentialists such as Sartre and Camus hold that meaning is made by persons who commit themselves, and some philosophers say meaning needs both subjective engagement and objective worth. They hold that a finite life can be fully valuable.

How does the Westminster Shorter Catechism state the purpose of human life?

It says that the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Catholic and Orthodox writers state the same idea in terms of friendship with God and union with God. All hold that the purpose is given by the Creator and fulfilled in loving him and one’s neighbor.

What is the hardest question for the secular account, and for the Christian?

For the secular account, whether meaning that is only made can be enough if the universe is indifferent and life ends in death. For the Christian account, whether a purpose given by another can truly belong to the person, and how it fits with suffering and the experience of emptiness. Each side offers replies, and neither is accepted by all.

Think it through

  1. What gives your life meaning, and could you lose it?
  2. What would you say to a friend who says that nothing matters?
  3. Is it easier to find meaning in joy or in suffering?
  4. What do you admire in the secular answers to this question?

Independent assignment

Two accounts of a Monday

In your notebook, describe an ordinary working day and write 300 words on how a thoughtful secular person would find meaning in it. Then write 300 words on how a thoughtful Christian would. Add 200 words on the points at which the two descriptions agree. Do not send it.

Further study