Under Non-theism:
There is No Lasting Purpose, No Ultimate Meaning, and No Hope
Introduction
Without God, all the ideas,
objectives, and achievements of mankind will collapse, fade, and vanish as they
ultimately dissolve into the desolation of inoperative energy. All human
experience and existence will be as though it had never been. Devoid of God,
the cosmos will end in futility and extinction as it subsides into the nethermost
mode of heat energy. The Second Law of Thermodynamics insures that without God,
in the end, one is left with no lasting purpose, no ultimate meaning, and no
hope. Moreover, reject the Christian
worldview and one lacks a ground for purpose as well as the analysis and
evaluation of purpose. To account for the notion of purpose, all men depend on the
Christian worldview as it supplies the necessary functioning features of the
analysis of purpose. Studying purpose and meaning, gathering knowledge
regarding such matters, and offering claims concerning such—these actions
require the use of universal operating features that the brute material cosmos
cannot ontologically underwrite. Purpose is not intelligible apart from the
biblical God.
Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever
you do, do all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31).
Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him
forever (Westminster Standards).1
Everything has been figured out, except how to live
(Jean-Paul Sartre).
In the West it used to be considered
the realm of the churches to solve the problems regarding the point of
existence, but these days the question “What is the meaning of life?” is
included in many exams for sociology, psychology, and philosophy degrees.
However, the issue also arises in a very real form in contemporary ethics,
particularly with the cases of the terminally ill, abortion, and the treatment
of the elderly. It seems ironic that for too many people, the only time the
question of the meaning of life is pondered deeply is when it is almost over.
Boundaries and Meaninglessness
A life without boundaries is a
meaningless existence (Josh McDowell).
So what’s the point of it all anyway?
There are numerous alternatives, some very hedonistic, some slightly epicurean,
and some idealistic, some morally principled, and some very virtuous. The later type may live a life that is about
truth, beauty, and honor—learning and growing in Christian virtue.2 Many
people seek fulfillment of the self-gratifying kind—pursuits along the lines of:
to seek personal comfort and pleasure, to get wealthy, or to gain power or
fame. But if life is merely about the “pursuit of happiness”—what if that
doesn’t satisfy? What if my happiness pursuit conflicts with another person’s
happiness? Or what If I’m not very good at pursuing happiness? Many people in
modern societies are not good at pursuing happiness; just look at the
alcoholism, illegal drug use, and violence in contemporary societies.
An Incoherent Noble Truth
Does Buddhism have a coherent and
satisfying solution? For Buddhists in selected sects, the answer to questions
about the purpose of life, the universe and everything, is that the point of
life is to put off desire. All men suffer because we lack that which we want—we
receive the trouble, which we do not desire. This desire to possess things is
the cause of our suffering (dukkha). This means that the soul is out
of harmony and seeks after the wrong things, and thus perpetuates the
suffering. An important part of enlightenment is the understanding that
suffering is just an illusion, like desire, and one escapes this desire through
following the Dharma (the law of life, one’s duty within cultural norms or the
basic philosophical principals of one’s life in the world).
In contrast, Van Til observed that “when apples are shaken off a tree, one can ask whether
there must not have been some sort of something that is higher than the apples
in order to account for the fruit. Similarly, not looking for the meaning of
man in the light of the revelation that comes from Christ revealed in the Bible
is even more absurd. He who does not look for the meaning of
humanity in the light of the revelation
that comes from God revealed in Scripture is like one who shakes off all the
apples of the apple tree,
grubs out the tree, and then asks
whether there
must not have been some sort of something that is higher than the apples in order to account for them. This
‘some sort of something’ or at most some sort of tree may, possibly or probably, tell us that it is an apple tree.”3
The Buddha taught that one should
strive to remove desire, and affirm that everything that seems real—things we
seek—are all just illusions.
•
If all desire is error and increases suffering
•
Then the desire to rid myself of desire is an error and actually
increases suffering
•
I should not desire to completely stifle desire
A goal to extinguish desire, as
asserted above, is self-impaling. On this crucial issue—the diagnosis of the
human problem—Christianity and Buddhism are infinitely different. Buddha
teaches that our desires need to be subdued and annihilated, but Jesus presses
men to cultivate passionate desires to please God and follow after love. Buddha
attempts to rid men of suffering by denying one’s aspirations and in
promulgating the notion that desires are part of the vast illusion of life.
This reveals that the real need that Buddhists have is for the forgiveness of
sins and acceptance by God. Only Jesus can provide this solution. The Buddhist
is taught to resolve to follow Dharma with precision so one can find Nirvana. By
contrast, the Christian, by grace, obtains salvation as a gift from God through
the person and work of Christ.
The concept of “God” invented as the
antithetical concept in life–everything harmful, noxious, slanderous, the whole
mortal enmity against life brought into terrible unity! The concept the life
beyond … invented to deprive of value the only world which exists (Nietzsche).4
Some
cultists advance the idea that life is about knocking on enough doors to sell magazines
or to participate in enough temple occultic rituals to please God. Selected Hindus
suggest that one needs to stay pure in order to escape the Karmic cycle. The
Prussian born Friedrich Nietzsche advanced the idea that life was about
attaining power. Nietzsche wrote of the will of power, the Superman, and magnificent
destinies. Yet Nietzsche was a physically and emotionally weak man: headaches, unattractive,
bad eyesight—a tragic figure. He ironically asserted: “A casual stroll through
the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.”5 A few
years later he fell into insanity and repeatedly declared that he was Jesus
Christ.6 Nietzsche stated that the goal of humanity is to rise atop
nature’s power-seeking—untrammeled by Christian notions of justice and compassion.
There is no meaning to life except that which individuals create for
themselves. The only way out of this meaninglessness is through the exercise of
power. Whereas Christianity teaches that men ought to glorify God, aim to do
good, love your neighbor, Nietzsche argues that this is slave morality and is
born out of weakness.
God the Foundation for Purpose
F--k damnation, man! F--k redemption! We are God's unwanted children? So be it! (Fight Club).7
I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers ... were ultimately prepared not in some ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers (Viktor Frankl; italics mine).
O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O LORD, You know it altogether. You have hedged me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful … You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; when I awake, I am still with You (Psalms 139:1-18).
The Christian worldview supplies hope. The proper application
of science is a wonderful tool to advance aspects of human life.
Nevertheless, the “religion” of science cannot provide enduring hope or
purpose. Mathematics and scientific observation have demonstrated that the
Second Law of Thermodynamics is a fundamental truth (all things are running
down). And without God, this law of physics leaves man without a future and a
hope. This principle reveals that the universe is running down like a clock.
One day in the distant future the whole universe will die in the whimper of an
eternal heat-death. The sun, the starry hosts, and all the galaxies will be
extinguished in a humming red flash. The pop-atheist Rosenberg observes that
“the second law of thermodynamics tells us that the universe is headed for
complete disorder—no purpose or goal can be secured permanently under such
circumstances (Alex Rosenberg: The
Atheist’s Guide to Reality).
An
Argument for Purpose
[1] Without an everlasting
existence, men have no enduring purpose.
[2] God supplies everlasting
existence for men.
[3] There is an enduring purpose.
[4] Therefore God exists.
One may extend this argument to
an antithesis:
[5] Non-theism cannot supply an
everlasting existence.
[6] Under non-theism men have no
enduring purpose.
[7] Without enduring purpose men
have no ultimate meaning.
[8] Non-theism offers no ultimate
meaning
[9] There is ultimate meaning.
[10] Therefore non-theism is false.
This argument places most its weight on [3]. It does not
stand as an assured argument. If the non-theist denies that there is an
enduring purpose, he can evade the weight of its vigor. But the denial is very
telling. Under non-theism there is no enduring purpose.
A
Transcendental Proposal for Purpose
To fashion the truth of purpose in an assured argument—a
transcendental form is much preferred since a transcendental inference is not governed by the truth value of
its antecedent premise, regardless of whether this premise affirms purpose or
not. This is the case since a transcendental supposition constitutes the very
ground for the proof of that premise.
Deny the Christian worldview and one lacks a
foundation for purpose as well as the investigation and evaluation of purpose,
meaning, and hope. To account for the notion of purpose, all men depend on the
Christian worldview since it furnishes the obligatory functioning features
required for the analysis of purpose. Investigating purpose and meaning,
gathering knowledge regarding such matters, and offering assertions concerning
such—these actions require the use (and presupposition) of universal operating
features that the mere cosmos cannot ontologically fund. Purpose, not merely eternal purpose, is not intelligible
apart from the biblical God.
The Distressing Reality of Purposelessness
Without God, all the schemes, dreams, monuments, and
attainments of mankind will be like a “cosmic sand sculpture” which will be
toppled, subdued, despoiled, dissolved, and swept off into the sea of
nothingness (unusable energy). All reality and existence will be as though it
had never been and the whole universe will wear the final mark of
purposelessness and oblivion, as it ebbs into the lowest vocation of soft heat
energy. The Second Law of Thermodynamics demonstrates that without God, in the
end, one is left with no lasting purpose, no ultimate meaning, and no hope.
God announces to His people that He is with them
everywhere, at all times. God’s will is to be our delight and purpose. The
universe and our individual lives are part of the culmination of a prefigured
design.
Sagacious But Illegitimate
Socrates believed that the best life, in part, is
realized when the soul ponders ultimate beauty in its pure form and when it
pursues knowledge of ultimate forms. This and many other theories (by Socrates
as well as other philosophers) have no ultimate footing to ground their claims.
They are just empty claims by individual men—though many times from very
brilliant men—nevertheless, just men. Those, who believe that human existence
and our universe are just “accidental afterthoughts,” leave souls in despair,
immersed in purposelessness. When one reads Bertrand Russell summing up life as
“unyielding despair,” one starts to ache for meaning and purpose. To find
meaning in life, one has to look to the true and living God. He is the God of
the living and He gives life purpose and meaning.
The inward area is the first place of loss of true
Christian life, of true spirituality, and the outward sinful act is the result
(Francis Schaeffer).8
The Bible instructs people to do “all things for the
glory of God.” Holy writ notifies the world that in our life, we can have the
supreme joy of knowing the Father in a loving, covenant relationship. One
cannot have real meaning in this life without the Lord Jesus Christ. Emptiness,
loneliness, purposelessness, and despair are the companions of those who do not
seek God in Christ. A covenant life with God Almighty brings daily enrichment,
enchantment, and a wonder-filled life. Doing all things for the glory of God
and enjoying Him brings a splendor-filled zest to the daily delights of nature,
employment, motherhood, children, friends, God’s Word, prayer, and a personal
relationship with Jesus Christ.
God is The God of Hope
He who has a why to live can bear
almost any how (Friedrich Nietzsche).9
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in
Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we
should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to
adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of
His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us
accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the
forgiveness of sins... having made known to us the mystery of His will,
according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself (Ephesians 1:3-9).
Conclusion
Hungering for the world’s disjointed abstract knowledge
will only lead to struggle and despair. Real purpose and meaning are pursued,
attained, and sustained by a hot-blooded, passionate pursuit of Jesus. The
non-Christian worldview leads to Heidegger’s ultimate, yet empty, answer to the
problem of the meaninglessness of life “is to stand on deck and salute” as the
ocean liner sinks. He tells us to do this because it is more visually appealing
than doing nothing. That is real despair. That is depressing. Thank God it is
false. Following Jesus lifts one up into a wonderful, enthralling life in the
Spirit.
Overlooking or rejecting God’s purpose in Jesus Christ
is:
1. Unrewarding.
2. It
leads to despair and desolation.
3. It
is arrogant.
4. Ends
in doom.
And may the God of hope fill you
with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, that you may overflow with hope
through the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13).
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1. See Psalms 86:9, 16:5-11; 144:15; Isa. 60:21; Rom. 11:36; I Cor. 6:20;
10:31; Phil. 4:4; Rev. 4:11, 21:3.
2. Galatians 5:22-23.
3. Cornelius Van Til: Christian
Theory of Knowledge, p. 348.
4. http://elearning.zaou.ac.zm:8060/PhilosophyPsychology/Nietzsche,%20Friedrich%20Wilhelm%201844-1900/Nietzsche,%20Philosopher%20of%20the%20Perilous%20Perhaps%20
%20Rebekah%20Peery%202008.pdf
5. Ibid.
6. One reaps what one sows. Nietzsche viciously attacked the truth of
Christianity—
even attacking Jesus Christ. But he, like all rebels, received what he
deserved.
9. Friedrich Nietzsche: Twilight of the Idols.
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