Finding Purpose in a Meaningful World!

Well if Life is meaningful because we are rational beings. What is our purpose on earth. What am I supposed to do with my days. It’s so easy to waste time and lose a day and wonder what have I gained today.

I still find in my own life, knowing that the world is meaningful, that there are days when what I’m doing or the mindset I’m in seems to feel meaningless. Its not that there is no meaning, but that I can’t see any great worth or purpose in the acts.

I guess there is a huge difference between a foundation for the existence of meaning and being fulfilled and satisfied in this meaningful world. So many people think rationally but are empty inside. We live in a meaningful world, but are our experiences and days meaningful to "US"!

I think the key is to understand that our feelings and ideas may need to change. Feelings can be so misguided at times. Some days I feel the world is the worst place to live in and then I can tell myself to snap out of it and the world becomes a great place to live in.

Our feelings must connect to the purpose of our creation to find full satisfaction. I think the world’s greatest problem is its struggle for fulfillment of self. If there is nothing in it for us (as in pleasures) then the act or situation is not purposeful.

Every thing and reaction has a purpose in the universe because there is a rational mind behind it. I think for me when I feel that my actions have no purpose in this rational world, I should stop thinking about myself, my feelings of pleasure and worth and go and help some one else. Life is not about self, but community. When we serve others their needs and feelings touch us and we feel purpose and needed.

We are always searching for self-fulfillment in feelings that we focus on our selves instead of others. Even our problems and struggles can help others if we seek to serve community instead of fulfilling self.

Jesus said "Deny your self and serve others, become the servant of all". Sow love and your heart will be opened and you will see brokeness. Love people more and more and you will see and feel purpose. Jesus also said "love your neighbor as your self" meaning respect and help their needs as you would want help. This builds communion. .

When we deny self, meaning we don’t reject self, but we don’t focuses on our pleasure only, we will feel the heartbeat of God and a purpose will connect to our actions. The key is to take our feelings and apply them to the world under the Lordship of Christ.
We must do this, as we must have a standard that holds our feelings together and keeps them pure and in correct motive. Purpose is connected to divine action not subjective feelings.
Jesus the ultimate purpose to reality and creation came as the example for our acts to have purpose. He came as a sacrifice for others.

The eternal purpose behind the universe is love and sacrifice. What are we to do with our days? Be stewards of God’s creation. Love and take care of the environment and love people, as Christ loves us.

When we reject God, we lose our call to ministers to others, and it is here that we then lose ourselves in ourselves for ourselves, and our acts feel purposeless.

So what is our purpose, it is to glorify God in all we do.

"Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing upon the earth that I desire beside you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is my strength of my heart and my portion for ever" (Ps. 73;25-26)

"You are worthy our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created" (Rev 4;11)

Eve was the first Irrationalist

As we saw in the last post whenever fallen man tries to interpret reality and wisdom without God’s revelation and light , one becomes irrational in their thinking.
We live in a world where this is done often because of the rejection of God’s existence. But funny enough the first person to become an irrationalist was Eve.

She knew God existed without a doubt. But in the Garden of Eden under the Serpent’s temptations she fell and took of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. She rejected God’s interpretation and wisdom and looked for her own wisdom apart from God’s.
We can’t just only blame Eve, Adam soon followed Eve in partaking of forbidden knowledge that would bring them death.

How was Eve deceived if she knowingly disobeyed God? The answer is that as soon as she ceased to be regulated by the light of God’s word, her imagination became filled with the false impressions presented to her by Satan, and her mind became darkened. She was persuaded to disbelieve what was true and believe what was false.

This is what our world does today. It suppresses God’s truth ( Rom. 11;18) and believes what is false as there is no criteria or standard for them to judge their views on.
Professing to be wise they become fools (Rom. 1; 22).

We may laugh at the story of Genesis in the Garden, but this story is the only foundation for meaning and understanding for where humanity gets its sin nature from.
Our world thinks it can fix all problems with money and science, but what it can’t fix is the power of sin and death.

Scripture and Autonomous Reasoning!

In this post I will be looking at what scripture tell’s us about reasoning apart from God’s interpretation of reality. Please note that if you can’t understand a post, then read the one before as these posts are all part of a series Im writing. They all follow on from each other. For some it may be worth while reading from the beginning.

I think I have made it clear in all my post that there are two main struggles for authority. There is God’s interpretation of his creation and the interpretation of mans (those who reject God) who seeks to label impersonal matter and find impersonal fact’s in the universe. This is the only thing they can look for, as they do not believe there is an absolute interpretation behind the universe. Some my like to go over and read again the post "How do we know, what we know" where I have explained this more clearly in detail.

Remember that there are know such things as uninterpreted facts in the universe. Also knowledge can not be found in the impersonal. Facts are an interpretation of an object.

Scripture is clear in condemning man in reasoning apart from God’s interpretation and revelation. Quite simple because it is irrational.

It is God who is personal and the creator and interpreter of his creation who infuses meaning to all reality, and it is in God that man must seek to find knowledge and wisdom.
God say’s "In Thy light shall we see light" (Ps. 36;9) and in Christ "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are deposited" (Col. 2;3).

The Christians final standard is the inspired word. It teaches us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Knowledge (Prov. 1;7).

As for those who would try and reject God and interpret reality as if it was impersonal. Scripture condemns this approach of reasoning apart from God’s revelation. God declares it as irrational. ‘Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Has not God made foolish the wisdom (impersonal facts) of the world (1 Cor. 1;20). We need to see that those who suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness inescapably "become vain in their reasoning…Professing themselves to be wise, they become fool’s (Rom. 1;21-22). We need God to make reality meaningful.

Scripture warns us to be careful of those "Beware least anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ (Col. 2;8).
For let God be true and every man a liar (Rom 3;40 when it comes to interpreting all reality and this universe. It is God’s creation and runs according to his plan and rules and interpretation.

Greg Bahnsen says in his book on "Van Til’s Apologetic",

"Someone who is so foolish as to operate in his intellectual life though there were no God (Ps. 14;1) thereby "despises wisdom and instruction" and hates knowledge" (Prov 26;5).

To say that ultimate reality is meaningless is to hate knowledge and wisdom.

Correct Function!

Plato once asked "How do you know what a things function is?" meaning, do our mind’s and bodies have a correct way to function because it has been designed and fashioned to work that way.
For instance, If God is the creator and designer of all things then he has created things to function according to his plan and rules. But if we reject God’s existence, we are in fact saying that there is no correct function to follow.

So going back to Plato’s question "How do we know what a things function is?" Is it just what works? What fits? What fulfils our tastes and feelings? When you reject God’s interpretation and revelation of reality, you are stuck with having to define reality with what works. For in our lust driven world, we see people sticking their genitals in to anything that fits and works, there is no such thing any more of the Divine order of Male and Female in a faithful marriage.

This is where society is at, it’s always redefining a things function. Today we have peopled who believe marriage, genders, and morals and truth’s are all just our own inventions. Have you ever heard people say "Who are you to say?" or "Says who?" For if there is no absolute meaning to this world or a designed correct way to function, then we are only left with adopting human conventions and agreed upon tastes.

Society I believe is getting lost to reality, some people don’t even know what gender they are or even if genders exist at all, that meaning that male and female is just society conditioning people. They have lost a fixed reference point to reality, that being God’s.

So many people reject God’s existence and principles and then spend their whole lives searching for significance, understanding and fulfillment. They stand in a world believing it is impersonal and hope to understand their lives and find purpose, but they are lost to the understanding of true correct function in a designed governed moral world under God. Drugs, sex and rock and roll will not fill the gaps.

God designed us in his image, gave life great worth and made us moral being’s to live under his principles to give us life and happiness. This only comes when we are functioning correctly. This does not mean that we will not have problem's in life, for we will. We live in a sin filled world.

The answer is not "what works is right" Lying works, but is it right and where will you find the answer to what is right? Did we not invent it and aren’t we always changing it as society moves on from believing in God. No we didn’t, to have a moral universe you need an absolute moral standard behind it, a reference point to judge your actions against.

Our minds and bodies were created to function in Excellency according to its design I believe!

True wisdom is the knowledge of God.

The Sum of true Wisdom!

This last month I have been reading through John Calvin’s book "Institutes of the Christian Religion". What a profound thinker and writer, Oh I wish we had more thinkers’ like him today.
In his first book of the Institutes, Chapter 1, He looks at the sum of true wisdom.

The sum of true wisdom- the knowledge of God and of ourselves!

John Calvin says,

"Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom consists almost entirely of two parts; the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other. For, in the first place, no man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts towards the God in whom he lives and moves; because it is perfectly obvious, that the endowments which we posses cannot possible be from ourselves…Thus, our feelings of ignorance, vanity, want, weakness, in short, depravity and corruption, reminds us that in the Lord and none but He, dwell the true light of wisdom, solid virtue, exuberant goodness. For what man is not disposed to rest in himself? Who, in fact, does not thus rest, so long as he is unknown to himself."

John Calvin makes the point that man can not survey himself and explain himself unless he see himself in the light of God’s wisdom and interpretation of personhood. It is in God’s wisdom and light that we find who we are and what is our function in this world. When man reflects on himself and his endowments, he is lead to the knowledge of God, who gives his understanding meaning.

Without God we find ourselves in a world with no foundations, rules or instructions on how we should function. It is a world of Chaos.

Ravi Zacharias in his book "Can Man Live without God" gives a good creed of what life is like without a reference point of order and design in creation. There are no boundaries, All is relative!!

"We believe in marxfreudanddarwin . We believe everything is Ok as long as you don’t hurt anyone, to the best of your definition of hurt, and to the best of your knowledge. We believe in sex before, during, and after marriage. We believe in the therapy of sin. We believe that adultery is fun. We believe that sodomy’s Ok. We believe that taboos are taboo. We believe in Masters and Johnson. What’s selected is average. What’s average is normal. What’s normal is good. We believe that man is essentially good. It’s only his behavior that lets him down. This is the fault of society. Society is the fault of conditions. Conditions are the fault of society. We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him. Reality will adapt according. The universe will readjust. History will alter. We believe that there is no absolute truth excepting the truth that is no absolute truth."

This is the story of a large part of the people who live today, a story of chaos and irrationalism because they reject the knowledge of God.

Ultimate Authorities!

In this post we will try and bring some answers to some conclusions.
There are only really two views we can take,

1. Does the impersonal universe produce meaning and rational minds? That being does non-intelligence produce intelligence.
OR
2. Does God, who is the ultimate personality behind the universe makes this world and our minds rational and life meaningful?

My question to you is after reading all the posts, which sounds the most rational and intelligent to believe?

The problem with this world is that we have a conflict of ultimate authorities. We have finite man who rejects God and becomes the standard of truth for reality, and we have those who submit to God’s absolute interpretation of reality, which he gives by natural revelation and special revelation.

If you believe that the world is rational, then you have to believe that God exists. To try and deny that God exists, and still believe in a rational world- is to make you irrational.
The Bible says that fallen man suppresses the truth in unrighteousness (Rom 1;18). Because of our sin we hide from God, so that his light does not expose our deeds.

Romans 1;18-22 says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because what may be known of God is manifested in them, For God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts and their hearts were darkend. Professing to be wise, they became fools.

This text clearly tells us that since the creation of the world Gods Godhead attributes can clearly be seen and we are without excuse. These include Gods rational mind, and we see this rationalism in us to. We also see his moral laws written on our hearts, we live in a moral universe. We see that the world is rational cause there is a rational cause to it. When man rejects God he looks on to the creation as impersonal and becomes the ultimate authority and standard of truth (subjectivism). Professing to be wise, by trying to interpret impersonal facts, which don’t exist, they became fools. This is why our world today believes that truth and morality is subjective, because it comes down to our opinions.

Romans 1; 25 says, They exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature (creation) rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.

The truth is, either you worship the rational Creator or you worship nature, which is impersonal, that’s if you believe there is no God. What will you believe?

How do we know, what we know?

In this post we will be looking at the subject of Epistemology. This is the subject of how we justify our beliefs and how we know that we know something. It is a subject that not many people every think about but is in fact very important.

If I was to ask, "What is your reference point for truth", how would you answer? Or if I asked what is the standard you judge your thoughts and beliefs against, what would you say?
For most people today this standard is their own mind, what man says, "IS". All is relative.

We will be looking at how man can attain true knowledge without God! The whole history of thought has struggled to find a way on how the mind can gain knowledge of the impersonal world. There has been three main views on how we can gain knowledge, these include Rationalism, Empiricism, and Subjectivism.

Rationalism believes that our laws of thought, logic and theory’s bring us true knowledge of the world.

Empiricism believes that the facts are outside our minds and come to us through the senses.

Subjectivism believes that knowledge is personal and experienced and is judged by ones own feelings.

In an impersonal world all these views have major problems in justifying what true knowledge is. Most of them are looking for facts in the world, or should I say looking for knowledge. But what are facts and what is knowledge? A fact is an interpretation of something. Interpretation is a mind of meaning given to something. For all these views, how is one to find facts in the world when it is impersonal with know interpretation behind it. They just claim that brute facts just live in the world for us to find, this is false as we never encounter brute facts, that are, uninterpreted facts.

Why should we expect our rational thinking minds of logic and reason to correspond to an impersonal world. All we are doing is labeling objects with concepts and theories. Mater in itself has told us nothing. The reasoning mind is not in fact passive, but plays an active role in forming its ideas, imposing conditions and concepts upon matter. This is where we get the rational irrational tension. All one is doing is reasoning upon his reasoning. The non-rational can not be the source of intellectual knowledge. As for the Empiricist, he waits for the facts to come to his mind as he looks out, but there are none. The subjectivist just claims knowledge for himself. These views make man the sole judge of truth and all become subjectivists. To claim one has true knowledge one must have a reference point to judge his thoughts and beliefs against.

On a non-Christian basis facts are rationalized for the first time when interpreted by man. Man becomes all-knowing and the sole subjective source for knowledge. But there is no reason why it should correspond to reality. True knowledge without God is impossible.

The difference between a Christian and an Atheist is that for a Christian, God is the final standard for truth and he has interpreted all reality, and for the Atheist man becomes the final authority for truth.

For they’re to be facts, there must be a rational mind behind the universe. Man interprets Gods revelation in a finite form. Minds corresponds to the rational ordered universe. Human thinking must be subject to a norm of thought. Truth is when a thought or belief corresponds to God's ultimate interpretation of his creation. If man was all-knowing, then he would not need God, but he is not!

The great Apologist Greg Bahnsen says,

For the Christian, all the facts are part of Gods personal plan and serve his personal purpose; all of the laws by which we relate the facts (whether conceptually, logically, or causally) are a reflection of God’s personal mind and his ordering of reality. Man’s mind was created to imitate God’s thinking with respect to these personally qualified facts and personally qualified laws. God’s personal influence over all the objects of knowledge as well as the mind of man, and his purpose to have man understand and control the facts of his environment, provide for the possibility of the mind accurately apprehending the extramental world. Every thing and every event must be ultimately related to God, who controls the relations between things and between events in order to be part of a coherent and intelligible system.

Absolute Personality and the Trinity

Well let’s get back to the subject of "Absolute Personality". When thinking about reality one can not get away from an absolute. This meaning that either reality has a cause or that it is eternal. If it has a cause then it must have an absolute cause for it’s existence and if it is not caused, then it t is eternal and is the absolute cause for everything else.

When I use the word absolute I mean a changeless, eternal source. This either being personal or impersonal. As we have seen for the world to be rational there must be an absolute personality behind it to infuse meaning to the universe. To try and deny God’s existence rationally is to prove God’s existence.

If God creates and governs all things, then he interprets all things. His plan is the ultimate source of the events of nature and history.

So if God must exist as an absolute, eternal personality, what kind of God must he be? Well we know he is eternal, all powerful, all good, and all knowing. This comes with the nature of being eternal. But what kind of eternal God is he?

The great Apologist Cornelius Vantil came to the reflection that this being had to be a Trinity as the biblical scriptures describes. The Doctrine of the Trinity teaches that God is one being with three persons. This may seem strange but in fact is very true. If God was just one blank unity this would be impersonal. Consider Love , as an attribute of God. If God is a mere unity without Trinity then what is the object of Gods eternal love? Himself? But love in the fullest biblical sense by its very nature reaches out to another, not merely to the self. The world? Then God eternal attributes of love depend on the world; it needs the world to be love. If this was true then God before he had created anything was not a God of love, as he had no one to love. Only when he had created could he be bound to love, by being dependent on the world. This is what Islam’s god is like because he is a single being. There is no eternal personal community.

This is not the case, the biblical God is both interpersonal and self contained; God’s love is the love among Father, Son, and Spirit for one another, and it is not dependent on the world. God is eternal love in himself, dependent on nothing.

John Frame in his book "Apologetics to the Glory of God" says of the absolute,
The major religions of the world in their most typical forms are either pantheistic (Hinduism, Taoism) or Polytheistic (animism), Pantheism has an absolute, but not a personal absolute. Polytheism has personal gods, but none of these is absolute. In Greek polytheism the gods are personal but nonabsolute. However, this polytheism is supplemented by a doctrine of fate, which is a kind of impersonal absolute. Similarly, behind the gods of animism is Mana, the impersonal reality.

Frame, makes it clear that you can’t get way from an absolute, either it is personal or impersonal. As we have seen to have a rational world God must be an absolute Personality with Trinity.

The Meaning of History!

Well I did say that we would be looking next at what it means to have an absolute personality behind the universe. But as I was flicking through my books I came across some important material I believe should come first.

The book I was reading was "The meaning of history" by; Ronald Nash.
Nash asks the question "What is the pattern of history?

As we have seen either the universe is Rational or running on Blind irrational fate!
Philosophers have proposed about three main patterns of history. The first is a linear pattern, where history has a goal or end toward which it is moving. A goal, meaning a purpose and reason, or according to a rational plan (God’s)
The 2nd being a Cyclical theory of history; in this view history repeats itself over and over again and the 3rd being the Spiral theory which believes the world is getting better and better. There could be a forth one being the Chaos theory; meaning history is impersonal and irrational.

Nash says; "Philosophers of history want to know if history has meaning or whether it is simply "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". They also want to know if there is an end or goal towards which history ultimately is moving.

Is history merely the result of chance or inexorable fate or is it a divine drama with a plot, a plan, or a goal.

Nash also says, "Almost all of the great civilizations existing before the beginning of the Christian era ascribed a cyclical pattern to history. This was true in most of the great ancient cultures, including Babylonia, Persia, ancient Egypt, India, China, Greece, and Rome"

The Cyclical theory teaches that the sequence of historical events in the cycle we are living in has repeated itself many times in the past and will continue to be repeated in the future. If history goes round and round never getting anywhere, forever repeating itself, there can be no goal either for individual humans or for the species. Whatever happens to humans will happen again; whatever humans accomplish, they must accomplish again and again forever.

That means that Evil and human suffering will never cease and we can never improve humanity. Today many people love the theories of reincarnation and karma, which are connected to this cyclical system. One problem with the view of karma is that it just does not correspond to reality. I heard John Frame once say, that it is strange that in life it seems that the most decent and righteous are those who suffer the most. Also karma has does not follow a moral law, but works with the laws of nature, the laws of cause and effect.

As the Bible asks "Why do the righteous suffer and the unrighteous prosper"

As for the Spiral theory, the teaching is that the world is getting better and better. It keeps improving. As far as I see, this is false we live in the most messed up world. More hatred and violence then ever.

The Chaos theory of history is basically irrational blind random reactions and events. Which again gives us no meaning at all of history.

As for the view of Linear, this theory holds that a rational master designer has a plan for all events and they are all following a plan. There is a journey from the beginning to the end. God’s plan infuses history with meaning. There is a plot to our actions. Man is created in the image of God, given purpose and value, instructed with the rules and principles of life. That evil and suffering will end and our struggles are not meaningless. For some, there will be eternal paradise and for others justice will be repaid.

Either History has some rational meaning to it or it is irrational!

The rational VS the Irrational !

If man finds himself with a rational mind that he did not create, which seems to be a property in the universe, What source can we seek to explain this property.

It is either a rational source or a irrational force. Rationality exists in minds, so the source of our rational faculties was either produce by the personal or the impersonal.

Either a rational mind is behind the universe or the universe is impersonal, evolving by mindless blind random chance.

One must ask; did intelligence produce our rational minds or did non-intelligence produce intelligence by the process of evolution. If non-intelligence produced intelligence then there can be no distinction between intelligence and non-intelligence.

Why should we trust our thinking minds if it is only the accidental result of irrational happenings. If there is no absolute mind behind the universe why should we think that we can find knowledge in an impersonal world. To look for facts in the universe there must be an interpretation behind the objects.

But if the world is rational and personal then the world was made according to a rational plan that can be understood by rational minds. For the universe to be meaningful there must be an absolute personality behind it, that being God.

John Frame makes the great quote,

In a factory, human workers produce a tractor (designed and planned by people); a farmer uses that tractor to plow his field. But we have never seen a plowed field produce a farmer, or tractor produce a workforce.

It is clear that the personal comes before the impersonal. Without God the world is irrational and so is all thinking about the question.

In the next post I will deal will why we must have a personal absolute behind the universe and why this must be a Trinity to produce meaning.

Can we create our own meaningful paths?

Can we even create our own meaningful path for life. If one can not create meaning, can we then say that it is possible to choose a meaningful path for our lives. Clearly one has not found "The meaning to life", but could we not say he has found a meaning for his life? This being that he/she has engaged in a chosen path undistorted by external manipulation. By this I mean that their choice for their path was not influenced by any one else’s paths.

It seems this view is bankrupt also, because how can one live in isolation without being influenced or dictated to.
It seems that we can not hold or chose our own meaningful path solely in a closed world dictated by our own wills. Reality outside of us seems to dictate to us a large part of the choices we make in this life, we are not totally free.

Cottingham says,

"But this is not quite good enough. It is not as if we are speculating in a vacuum about disembodied, deracinated beings who have a clean slate on which to devise the plan that will confer meaning on their lives."(Cottingham, The Meaning of Life, p. 26)

The fact is humans interacted with the world. If one person acts out of anger, resentment or a sense of inferiority, Cottingham says, "It looks as if they may be falling short of the autonomy and selfhood that is necessary for us to stay that their projects represent their own unmanipulated choices about how best to live". It seems to be meaningless and impossible to have meaning in isolation. It reveals to us that we live in an objective open world of meaning where we can all interact with each other.

What is the foundation for having a rational meaningful mind in this universe?

The Search for Meaning!

The question of the meaning of life is one of the most important questions that face humans living in this universe. Every individual should reflect on this question and answer Why/How this world has meaning and what makes life worth living.

The answer to these questions effects every move we make. Many of the decisions we make with regard to Careers, Leisure time, Moral dilemmas, and other matters depend on how we answer the question of the meaning of life.

The question is not an easy one with simplistic answers, and the majority of people I find cannot be bothered, or even care about tackling the question. This is the problem with our world, we cry out that we have so many problems, but we don’t care about the most important questions of life. When it comes down to the most important questions, we are not interested. We must not be scared or overwhelmed of asking such deep questions about life.

The great Philosopher Plato, following socrates, once said, "That the unexamined life is not worth living". Plato’s simple statement is profound and grounded in the starting point for us to seek for an answer to the meaning of life. Unless we examine life, how can we know that life is worth living. Is life worth living just because I think or say it is worth living? People believe many things.

In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus writes,

"I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them reasons for living (what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions."(O’Brien, trans, The Myth of Sisyphus, p. 1)

Camus demonstrates a good point to think on. Do our beliefs or thoughts answer the question of wither life is worth living?
What we believe shapes how we live life, and we must have a foundation for "Why we believe, what we believe". What is our justification that the universe is indebted with meaning or is meaningful, or has a purpose or goal to achieve.
The question "What is the meaning of life" opens the doors to asking any of the following inquiries,

1.Why does the universe exist
2.Why is there something rather than nothing? Is there some plan for the universe?
3.Why do humans exist? Do they exist for some purpose? If so, what is it?
4.Why do I exist? Do I exist for some purpose? If so, how am I to find what it is? If not, how can life have any significance or value?

Some may be quick to think after reading these four inquiries that I am slowing drawing them in to a conclusion that will make them have to get into "God talk". I say this as I find as soon as one feels they are being directing to hear about God, they pull away and put the book down. This is not the case, I am looking at examining the world, as Plato said. I will be looking at the question by examining life and the universe, and this will include looking at the Theist response that God exists. But I will also be looking at the response of the Atheist for the meaning of life. Let us not be arrogant and try and keep safe without wanting to deal with examining both sides, and any other options.

We must come to an answer after examining all the data from its conclusions. To pull away from the inquiry is to show intellectual dishonesty.

E.D.Klemke in his chapter "The question of the meaning of life" in the book "The Meaning of life" gives an outline of the two approaches to the question,

"*According to the theistic answer, the meaning of life is found in the existence of a god-a supremely benevolent and all-powerful being, transcendent to the natural universe, but who created the universe and fashioned man in his image and endowed him with a preordained purpose. In this view, without the existence of God, or at least without faith in God, life has no meaning or purpose and hence is not worth living…
*The nontheistic (or humanistic) alternative, of course, denies the claim that the meaning of life is dependent on the existence of a god. According to this alternative, since there is no good reason to believe in the existence of a transcendent god, there is no good reason to believe that life has any objective meaning or purpose-that is, any meaning that is dependent on anything outside of the natural universe. Rather, the meaning of life, if there is one, must be found within the natural universe. Some adherents of this view go on to claim that there is no good reason to think life has any meaning in any objective sense, but there is a good reason to believe that it can nevertheless have meaning in a subjective sense. In other words, it is up to each individual to fashion or create his or her own meaning by virtue of his own consciousness and creative activity.(Klemeke, The Meaning of Life, p. 3)

Klemeke gives us some data to reflect on. I will latter on brake down these two views and examine them both critically. But for now I would like to just reflect on where these two views hold that they have meaning for life.

For the Theists,

"In this view, without the existence of God, or at least without faith in God, life has no meaning or purpose and hence is not worth living."

For the Nontheist (Atheist),

"But there is a good reason to believe that it can nevertheless have meaning in a subjective sense. In other words, it is up to each individual to fashion or create his or her own meaning by virtue of his own consciousness and creative activity."

Both views claim that they have meaning. For the Theist it is based on Gods existence for an objective meaning and the Atheist is based on that God does not exist, so there is no objective meaning, but one can have a subjective meaning. This is created fashioned for ones own life. This reflection can be broken down even more to two points for each view.

Theist

1. God exists?
2.Our belief or faith says we have meaning.

Atheist

1.There is know objective meaning nor God.
2.We create meaning for our lives.

When I say objective meaning, I am saying that there is a meaning or purpose or goal prescribed to the universe from outside the universe. This includes for objects, events, people lives, in the universe. This is prescribe to the universe and only exists if God exists.
When I talk about subjective meaning, I mean a meaning (Given by humans) that is created for something that has know objective meaning for being here.

Science can tell us what something is, and why it has become something, but it cannot tell why the universe or we exist.

John Cottingham in his book "The meaning of Life’ says of science,

"While science claims to provide as complete and comprehensive a description as it can of the universe, no matter how successful and unified the theory it ends up with, it cannot explain why there should be a universe there to be explained. We collide with the ancient philosophical question ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ and it seems clear on reflection that nothing within the observable universe could really answer this. If there is a solution to the riddle of life in space and time, it would have to lie outside space and time."(cottingham, The Meaning of Life, p. 7-8)

Cottingham makes a good point, that for us to have a reason for the meaning of the universe and why we are here and what our purpose is we would have to seek an answer from beyond the universe. Meaning is contained in a mind so this would have to be projected or prescribe by God. If God is the source and creator of finite reality, then the world is an interpretation of God’s mind and plan. God is the rational mind behind the universe and give his fashioned objects its design and its interpretation (meaning). If there is know God, then there is no objective meaning for the following,

1.Why does the universe exist
2.Why is there something rather than nothing? Is there some plan for the universe?
3.Why do humans exist? Do they exist for some purpose? If so, what is it?
4.Why do I exist? Do I exist for some purpose? If so, how am I to find what it is? If not, how can life have any significance or value?

Science tells us that the universe came from the Big-Bang, if it has know reasons for being here or purpose, then there is no answers to these questions. Atheism says that we can have subjective meaning for our lives. We just create our purpose and meaning.

Can one create meaning, I believe this is not possible. The philosopher Protagoras once said, "Man is the measure of all things". This implies that man has the power to generate meaning for all things. But this is clearly false.

Cottingham in his book "The Meaning of Life" says of this view,

"Man, said the philosopher Protagoras, is the measure of all things; of what is, that it is, and of what is not, that it is not. Socrates had little trouble refuting that piece of pretentiousness. Pretentious it is, in its arrogance; the Psalmist’s cry ‘It is he that hath made us and not we ourselves’. Whatever one may think of the underlying creed, at least has the humility to acknowledge the basic truth that we exist in the universe as wholly contingent beings, dependent on a reality we did not create…We create our theories, certainly, but we can only delay, never ultimately prevent, their collapes when they fail to measure up to the bar of actual experience."(Cottingham, The meaning of Life, p. 16)

Cottingham says that we do not invent meaning, we discover that we have meaning in our minds because reality has it. Man is not the measure of all things. To a point, reality is the measure of man. Man can only have and be what he has been created to be, wither this is from God or evolution. Yes we may use our meaning to describe a path we have chosen for life, but this does not explain where conciseness meaning came from!

Nietzsche was another philosopher who thought one could invent meaning from within. Cottinghams writes,

"How does Nietzsche’s heroic attempt to generate meaning from within? By supposing the unaided human will can create meaning, that it can merely by its own resolute affirmation bypass the search for objectively sourced truth and value, he seems to risk coming close to the Protagorean fallacy. For meaning and worth cannot reside in raw will alone; they have to involve a fit between our decisions and beliefs and what grounds those decisions and beliefs. That grounding may, as some religious thinkers maintain, be divinely generated; or it may be based on something else for example certain fundamental facts about our social or biological nature. But it cannot be created by human fait alone."(Cottingham, The Meaning of Life, p. 17)
What grounds their beliefs, if this world is objectively irrational and meaningless. Also we are part of the universe, so what gives our thoughts meaning. In fact we are saying nothing about reality at all. Why should what we think be meaningful? We do not invent meaning, we discover that we have it. It is part of reality, the universe. This means that the universe can not be irrational or meaningless, but must be meaningful.

Reflecting on Life!

Well before we dive in to some deep philosophical inquires, I would like us to take time to reflect on some of these following questions. The meaning of life is almost like a cure to the struggles and pains we endure in this world. For how can a person survey himself and his problems without meaning and understanding to his life. Is life totally meaningless?where do we go to get an answer?

Our consciousness brings us great joy and sorrow. Our gift of consciousness is a two-edged sword. While it brings us great happiness, it also brings us a great awareness of lifes terrors. This is the knowledge of sorrow and the sorrow of knowledge. Suffering is the price of consciousness. We may become painfully aware of the apparent fact that we were born into this existence without our consent, are confronted by a world with conditions we did not chose, needs, feelings, limitations, injustice, and violence we did not design, and a genetic time clock of aging and death. We came into a world in pain, and we leave in pain. As soon as we are born we are old enough to die. What is the meaning of all this and does it even matter? If we are going to die anyway, why bother to live? Is all our pains and struggles a waste of time?

To come to any answers to these questions we must reflect on these questions,

Is there a God?, What is ultimate reality?, What if any, is the purpose of the universe?, Who am I?, Why am I here?, Is there life after death?, Is life worth living?, What is the importance of this world?, Why so much suffering?, What is goodness?, what is evil? How ought I to live?, How do we know when we know?…

Before I start looking at how there can be meaning in this world, I would like your comments on some of the above questions. Have you reflected on these?
Feel free to type…..

Weclome to my world !

Welcome to my Blog, My Blog name is: Rich7. I ‘m honored that you are taking the time to read my site. Grammar and spelling have never been my strong points. But I thank God that he has gifted me with the mind to reflect and seek wisdom. Truth is what I live for and scream for. To find a reference point that touches reality and brings meaning to my thoughts and struggles.

Is truth so important that it makes a practical difference in our personal lives? Consider some of the alternatives; ignorance, superstition, self-delusion, superficiality, prejudice, false hopes, powerlessness, blind conformity, and meaninglessness.

It has been my heart to Blog my findings and thoughts on paper (website) to express my thoughts and push people to examine life. Socrates once said "That the unexamined life is not worth living".

It is my intention to defend and analyze worldviews to come to understand the world we live in. I will be starting of with the most basic, but complex question of "what is the meaning of Life and how can one claim he has meaning".

As I am a Christian, this Blog will also examine Apologetics, Doctrines, and Philosophy and Moral issues.
I have found it sad that many in the church do not understand their own faith or are even able to defend it.

Please join me on my journey of reflecting and searching for true foundations for reality. Feel free to comment and ask me questions. I ask that all posts are written in respect, and only the subject is attack or questioned. Any personal attacks I will clean up and wipe. Hang on my friends and I will get writing my first reflection on "What is the meaning of life and how can one justify the claim"

Thinking is not easy work, so don’t give up !!!!

Hello

Well Folks here is my blog, let see if this messages works and then i'll get down to some reflecting.