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It has been said that it’s not enough to know your “What?” in life. It’s crucial to dig deeper and understand your “Why?” The former is like a compass pointing toward what direction to go. The latter nourishes you along the journey. The question of “What?” is vital. It tells a person they’re a parent and have a responsibility to care for his or her child. Yet the question of “Why?” provides the motivation, resilience, and joy to continue caring for that child through the good times and bad. Having answers to both one’s “What?” and “Why?” is, I think, the key to a happy, healthy, and well-adjusted life. This is the reason I’ve spent a great deal of time pondering what I consider to be the ultimate “What?” and “Why?” questions: What is the meaning of life and why am I here?
The meaning of life according to whom?
Throughout the centuries, many religious and philosophical answers have been put forth to answer the age-old question, “What is the meaning of life?” The following list is by no means exhaustive, but here’s a sampling of these diverse outlooks as I’ve come to understand them:
- In ancient Greek culture, Platonism taught that the meaning of life lies in attaining knowledge of the transcendent form of “Good” where all goodness and justice derive their utility and value. Other conceptions that focused upon defining overriding good were later put forth by Greco-Roman Aristotelians, Cynics, Epicureans, Stoics, and others.
- In Chinese Confucianism there is a belief that humankind is driven by positive and negative influences alike, so a primary goal in life is attaining virtue through reason and strong relationships in tandem with minimizing negative influences.
- Taoism teaches the need for all conscious beings to return to the primordial, thereby rejoining the Oneness of the Universe via self-cultivation and self-realization.
- In Islam humanity’s ultimate purpose is to submit to and worship Allah.
- Buddism is about the process of attaining and perfecting dispassion, which ultimately results in a state of Nirvana as freedom from suffering and rebirth.
- The Baháʼí faith emphasizes humanity’s unity, and its promotion at all levels of existence, as the meaning of life.
- In Hinduism the goal is to consciously come into an acceptance of the fundamental truth about oneself that the soul and the world are one.
- In Christianity’s Reformed tradition, the 17th century Westminster Shorter Catechism states, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” Of course, under the broader category of Christian thought there’s an incredible spectrum ranging from the pseudo-magic extreme of the Prosperity Gospel, which says that personal happiness and financial wealth are the meaning of life, to the other extreme where the truest meaning of life lies in continual empathetic suffering with Christ up to and including self-flagellation.1
- Naturalistic pantheism affirms that the meaning of life is harmoniously caring for the environment and looking after the natural world of which humanity is a part.
- In the 19th century, Utilitarianism held that the meaning of life is whatever brings the greatest happiness to the most people whereas Nihilism held that life is without objective purpose, so the only meaning is what people create for themselves.
- Postmodernism is a rather ambiguous philosophical movement, but it tends to be suspicious of any metanarrative and see anything akin to a “meaning of life” as only understood within social and linguistic frameworks, so real autonomy is pursued through an individual’s self-aware deconstruction and reconstruction of the constraints imposed by external power structures.
- Shortly after surviving the Holocaust, Viktor Frankl wrote his classic book, Man’s Search for Meaning. There this Jewish Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and philosopher wrote, “[T]he meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche… self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.”2
What did I learn from these perspectives?
Most of them have had some sort of influence upon my soul, so I’ve somehow become even more of a mutt than I already was. The view I’ve tentatively arrived at evinces a five-year process of discerningly gleaning and consciously synthesizing whatever elements of truth, beauty, and goodness I perceive throughout these divergent philosophical and religious outlooks. While I’m now convinced my forthcoming perspective is completely compatible with The Way of Jesus, it’s not necessarily a uniquely or exclusively Christian perspective.3 That is to say, this perspective helps flesh out my Christian faith in a way that had always been lacking yet I don’t think it necessary to be a Christian in order to affirm my answer.
The result of this investigation?
I’ve come to believe in an artistic and spiritual perspective where the overarching meaning of life is connection–with God,4 with others, and with the natural world. Put in more theological language, we’re intended to commune with our awe-inspiring Creator, with other beloved people who are incredibly made in God’s image, and with the pure beauty and majesty of creation itself. It seems to me too many people think the meaning of life lies deep within ourselves OR outside of ourselves. In my opinion, that’s a false dichotomy. All these different belief systems keep saying it’s one or the other. It’s not. It’s both! This journey may begin with an effort to “know thyself” through inward silence, stillness, and solitude, but it must become manifest in our outward interaction with God, others, and the world.5 It’s only when we genuinely open up our inner-selves and reach outside that we encounter the intersection of the internal and the external, and we experience the fullness of our humanity. As the 2nd century church father, St. Irenaeus, once put it, “The glory of God is the human being fully alive.” This is the spiritual movement from separation to connection. This is the food and drink of the soul by which we experience the vitality of humanization.
There are so many possibilities for connection with God, with others, and with the natural world that it seems unnaturally limiting to even point to examples. Nevertheless, it seems important to share anecdotes for there to be understanding. While not always the case, this connection can often be found in a mother’s first embrace of her child after labor, the act of being spiritually united in the covenant of marriage, the harmony with the earth that comes with growing and eating one’s own food, the mystical partaking of the Body and Blood in Communion, the love between an owner and his dog, the fierce intimacy with one’s partner that’s unique to a good erotic experience, the brotherhood that exists between two soldiers who fought and served next to one another, the unwavering support of helping a friend move far away, the transference of knowledge from teacher to student, and the overwhelming experience of sheer awe looking out over the Grand Canyon. There’s some kind of basic human impulse toward connection that produces a transformational encounter with truth, beauty, and goodness.
This existential sense of connection can also be found in feeling truly seen during a conversation with an old friend, standing in solidarity with an oppressed group at a rally, being captivated by a painting at a museum, achieving a breakthrough by finally having that tearful conversation, staring for hours into a crackling fire, experiencing a transcendent sense of peace on a mountaintop or in an old cathedral, receiving a kind word of encouragement, reveling in the aesthetic beauty of one’s lover, savoring every note of a live musical performance, and being cuddled by a spouse. Connection happens when we calm our spirits with a contemplative liturgy, welcome a stranger into our home with courageous hospitality, look up at the heavens through a telescope with wondrous awe, get the old band back together, embrace a lifestyle of simplicity, have one’s worldview shattered by a transformational book, get an unexpected gift at an unexpected time, build a home or dig a well for the impoverished, hear a hilarious story that lightens the heart, read the timeless words of someone who died centuries ago, recite the words of an ancient creed with one’s faith community, express gratitude for having been blessed, or share a moment of simultaneous joy and sorrow. I believe these connections with God, with others, and with the natural world are what life is all about.
If I’ve still failed to paint the picture, here’s the best cinematic portrayal of connection I’ve seen:
In the end, “What is the meaning of life?” is a question of human flourishing.6 Unlike animals like deer that are able to stand and walk within minutes, humans are born utterly helpless. We start off entirely dependent upon our loving caregivers for our most basic needs and this remains the case for a comparatively long period of time. Biologically speaking, homo sapiens are by nature a deeply interconnected species whose survival depends on working together throughout the entirety of our lifespan. We intrinsically need one another for food, water, shelter, safety, procreation, and companionship. Without getting into the mechanisms by which this was accomplished, it’s my belief that this reality was intentionally hard-wired into us by our Creator. It’s who we’re meant to be and how we’re supposed to function. In order to flourish, we need the resources provided through connection with God, our loved ones, and the physical world.
OK, but why am I here?
A Judeo-Christian perspective of human nature from Genesis holds we were made in God’s image (good) yet in all ways marred by the fall (bad). In the same Ancient Near Eastern creation account, we see God separating the heavens and the earth, the light and the dark, male and female. Also, historic Christian doctrine teaches that Jesus is both fully God and fully man, and this both/and cannot be alleviated. These deep tensions and paradoxes exist all throughout the Christian tradition. Meanwhile, the ancient Chinese principle of Yin and Yang holds that the world exists in separate and contradictory opposites. These opposites are not so much in conflict as beautifully complementary. For example, Taoism sees an intrinsic harmony between day and night, summer and winter, male and female, young and old, passive and active, water and fire. Together they bring about a healthy, ever-evolving balance that achieves peace and harmony.7
The reason I bring that up is because I’ve observed that humanity seems to continually vacillate between the polarities of selfishness and selflessness. We go back and forth between pleasure and deprivation, safety and wildness, freedom and commitment, change and stability, mystery and understanding, the needs of the individual and the needs of the community. It seems to me it’s an ongoing dance between the human needs for growth and equilibrium. The Quaker theologian, Elton Trueblood, once wrote, “One of the best contributions which Christian thought can make to the thought of the world is the repetition that life is complex. It is part of the Christian understanding of reality that all simplistic answers to basic questions are bound to be false. Over and over, the answer is both/and rather than either/or.” I heartily agree. That’s why I’ve accepted that there is no static, settled, one-time answer to the question, “Why am I here?”8
Even if the answer is fluid, the question still remains: “Why am I here?”
At the age of 35, and with my wife now three days past her due date with our first child, I’ve come to accept that a healthy life necessarily involves an ever-evolving Yin and Yang kind of dynamic. In the ancient wisdom of Ecclesiastes, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.” There is a time for a Stoic temperance and a time for Epicurean pleasure. There is a time for serving others and a time for taking care of yourself. There is a time for intentionally making a difference in this world and a time for casually enjoying this world. Put another way, I’m convinced there must be a rhythm between these two. Either selfless service of others or selfish preoccupation with personal happiness continuously taken to an extreme will lead to despair, but joyful fulfillment is found in discerningly alternating between the two.
John O’Donohue once said, “Spirituality is the art of homecoming.” Leaning into the Christian understanding that we’re all beloved children of God made in his wondrous image, down deep I believe we all sense the draw of the infinite within ourselves. Though our vision is distorted by the limitations of our human finitude and the corruption of our human fallenness, we still have telescopic eyes able to zoom in to see the temporal and physical as well as zoom out to perceive the eternal and spiritual. We are still able to sense our Creator calling us back to wholeness in perfect harmony with Himself. The reason we’re here, then, is to reconnect with God’s infinite love within ourselves, serve as a radiating presence for His transcendent goodness in this beautiful yet broken world, and to simply enjoy the good world God made for us.
I have thoughts on all these perspectives, but my intention here is merely to acknowledge the breadth of ideas rather than critically assess them.↩
Here’s a fuller version of the quote: “[T]he meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system. It denotes the fact that being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself — be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself — by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love — the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.”↩
To my mind, it actually makes greater far sense of the biblical narrative of redemption than anything I’ve ever been taught in church, Bible college, or seminary!↩
As a Christian, I think of this with a Trinitarian understanding of God. Others might prefer the language of Allah, the spiritual realm, a cosmic force, Higher Power, or the like. It’s all good. We might disagree but I think this flexibility opens up some interesting avenues of conversation.↩
It’s strange to me that it’s even necessary to say that introspection and self-care are an essential piece of this puzzle, but apparently this needs to be said explicitly in era of unending escapist numbing through entertainment.↩
That is, how do we survive and thrive?↩
Many Christians want to jump straight to a “Yeah, but…!” and dismiss off-hand any Taoist insight about duality on the grounds that good and evil are not equal nor are they harmonious. Here’s the deal: Quite explicitly, right there in Genesis, there was a lot of dualism before the Fall, so let’s not perceive everything through the subsequent lens of good vs. evil thing, OK? That’s not the only duality that matters. I find the Yin and Yang to be largely compatible with the world God made… before the Fall. Also, I’m not down with this knee-jerk dismissal of anything not explicitly Christian in origin, especially with a half-baked pseudo-argument. I’m interested in gleaning all truth, beauty, and goodness regardless of the source. ↩
As we say at St. Isidore Episcopal Church, the truth is in the tension. To that I would add that truth is always dynamic, always moving.↩
