Only God Can Provide Meaning

Essays

Do You Think Your Life Has Meaning?  Here’s the Issue:  Without God, we are an accidental byproduct of nature.  Death is all we can look forward to, and whatever we gain in life will be gone, with no memory of it in the end.  The whole universe will eventually collapse upon itself, and everything that exists will be dead, ruined, and with nothing or no one to care what ever happened in our comparatively short period of existence.  Compared to the infinite lengths of time that will exist after the death of our universe, our existence becomes insignificant and ultimately meaningless, because we will end in nothing. 

But Think About It:  If nothing exists after the universe is gone, then what we do during our life has no ultimate meaning.  Objective values can only exist if they survive after everything is dead and gone. 

If nothing exists after the universe is gone, then there is no ultimate purpose of our lives.  The accidents of chance are all that exist, having arrived with no reason, and with nothing to show for itself after it is gone.  No one will remember, no one will care.

If nothing exists after the universe is gone, then there is no ultimate value.  All things can be permitted, and there is no right or wrong.  We have seen how this is an un-livable condition, since we all live as if we have a right or wrong, even if we (vainly) try to develop their definition ourselves.  No evil acts will be punished, no good acts will be rewarded.  Anything accomplished in this life will be left for nothing, in the end when everything is waste. 

Talk about the ultimate ‘waste of time’!  Yet, these thoughts have driven the concerns of man since the beginning of time.  It fuels what has been called our ‘religious impulse’.  People in all ages, in all nations, in all races, have feared this inevitable doom, and have pursued a meaning that is beyond themselves.  But we all desire our lives to be purposeful, to have meaning.  We want to know what is right and wrong, and know how to live our lives.  How can we resolve this issue?  How can we continue to have a will to live – to live a life that enables meaning, purpose, and value?

The Resolution:  In order to have ultimate meaning, there must be life after our current existence.  Something must exist beyond nature.  In order to have purpose to our current life, there must be something that remains after all is dead and passed.  What is the common definition of this condition?  Immortality.

By definition, God is that which is beyond nature, and that which created everything for it’s own purpose (this is the most basic definition of God.)  With God, we have a creation that has a purpose (the Glory of God), mankind that has value and meaning (made in the image of God, created for fellowship with God).  With God, we have ‘Truth’, meaning and objective guideline: Objective right and wrong, which will allow us to determine what is good or evil. 

There is no consistent alternative.  If God does not exist than anything goes.  Nihilism is the inevitable result; anything else is an inconsistent lie. 

Beware The Ignorance – The ultimate mistake is to ignore this issue.  Postmodernism (Relativism) is a description of the condition where people choose to develop their own personal value and morality.  We choose to not think about it – we choose instead to believe that we have meaning in our own time, and that our own purposes will satisfy our needs.  But this is but a placebo – it makes us feel better, but is totally ineffective in describing or determining ultimate value.  What we do to keep from going crazy is ignoring the issue.  We lose ourselves in ‘escape’ (Craig). This is the Ultimate Condition of Denial.  Most other religious worldviews are designed by man to solve the human condition and ease the pain of the religious impulse.  But there can only be one truth.  This argument does not prove the case for Christianity, but it does lead us to investigate and look for God, and His meaning and purpose.

Summary – If God does not exist, then life is futile.  If God does exist, then life has meaning.  Atheism is impractical, as it is un-livable and un-bearable.  It is reasonable, therefore, to believe in God, and by further extension, Christianity.  For Christianity is the only consistent ‘religion’, and the only worldview with the power of reconciliation with the Creator.

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(3) comments

Bryan Christopher December 2, 2011

Life does not need an ultimate meaning. Find something that makes life worth living. Maybe just to see my son grow up and raise a family and love people for who they are without judgement or telling them they are incomplete as people with out Jesus is enough to make life meaningful. You are creating a false problem. There is nothing wrong with death, creating a false crisis scares people into thinking they need to change something that never was messed up in the 1st place."Inevitable doom" more like a beautiful end. If you don't understand the small scale of your life you are not able to live out each day with purpose, because you are relying on the promise of forever. Relativism does not ignore any issues, it addresses them with logic. This post just makes me sick. This is pure Propaganda based on a book full of it. You're the ignorant one, thinking that your religion is the only "consistent" one. Christianity has used the power of fear to control and enslave people and prevent them from thinking on there own by providing them with one book full of some pretty twisted stuff. I was a christian for many years, and always had a problem reading the book of Matthew then reading some of the crazy things in the old testament. Any God who kills every single human on earth is not a good God. To even allow a place like "hell" to exist makes God awful. Any god who would make humans, and not be there to guide them like a good parent should is not a good god. God is not good, the idea of god is a poison. But Jesus as a human and nothing more had some awesome ideas and thoughts.  See you not in heaven.

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    Mike December 5, 2011

    Hello Bryan!  THANKS for your comment!

    I believe that people do indeed have a choice to make – we can either believe that we indeed have no purpose in life, as you evidently have, or we can believe that we do.  It appears to me, that most people believe that they do have a purpose in life, and actually live their lives that way – that life is more than ‘nice things to do that we enjoy’ such as watching our kids grow up.  You’re right that there certainly is nothing wrong with death, at least as understood in a long term type of view.  To most people death is quite scary, and the thought of it being the end of purpose can be debilitating.  The promise of purpose actually gives us meaning to our current lives!

    Now just because we ‘want’ something to be true certainly doesn’t make it true, although it does imply that there may be an actual something that satisfies (a la Lewis’ analogy of hunger implying that food actually exists.)  All I’m arguing in the post is that many people go thru life acting like there is a purpose without thinking what it is, and why it can ONLY be something transcended to have real purpose – can you give me that?   OR people can choose a life with no purpose, as you ascribe to, although with nothing really there.  The whole purpose is intended to get us all thinking.  And indeed, I do think on my own…

    Now – I am glad to hear that you experienced the blessings of Faith, but sad to hear you have abandoned it.  The essay I am currently working on addresses the issue you brought up – God’s seemingly terrible acts of cruelty in the OT.  I of course have reconciled these issues, and I hope to help those who need it addressed in language that isn’t I hope you read it and contemplate.  I pray that your dilemmas can be cleared up, and hope to call you ‘brother’ again soon…  Tell me- have you reconciled the issues of non-belief in your head?  Issues such as 1) Everything from nothing; 2) Order from Chaos; and 3) Life from non-life?

    Grace and Peace to you Bryan!

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Bryan Christopher December 2, 2011

But very thought provoking post none the less

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