Fourth is the issue of ultimacy, where God as envisioned by the theologian admittedly fits nicely. However, should there be no God; the universe, life, perhaps even humanity, may serve as ultimate, not to mention immaterial concepts such as Being, beauty, creativity, or science. Moreover these possibilities are immanent while the divine is elusive and intangible. Meaning seems more secure when one’s ultimate concern is readily apparent rather than hidden or questionable.
On the other hand, theology-based expressions of the meaningful life are easily countered by secular versions of them or by adoption by the agnostic or atheist. Tolstoy may be correct that meaning for him was belonging to a community of persons with simple faith in the Christian God, 
but the same is likely true for a community of humanists such as the one created by Epicurus in Athens. Thomas A. Kempis may find powerful worth in imitating the life of Christ, but we would expect this with imitating the life of many great individuals. Centuries before Christ, Democritus said “One should be or imitate a great man.”
We have already seen in this site’s section called Suffering that human suffering does not negate human meaning.. In particular Viktor Frankl having suffered immensely in a concentration camp found being worthy of one’s suffering can instantiate meaning in one’s life. With all due respect to Paul Tillich, it seems to me self-transcendence and the conquest of finitude and ambiguity is possible without religious symbols; in fact, the concept of Being seems more tangible to me than Christian religious symbols, and his powerful presentation in The Courage to Be can be embraced without adding a deity beyond Being itself. Last Unamuno might himself admit, that acting so as to merit eternity and the approval of the divine is not contingent on there being a divine being at all.
Two final points- first the opacity of God’s will, purpose, and expectation of humans assures us we can never be certain we have achieved a divinely approved meaningful life. 
Second, formal religions take this even farther; their truth by authority will always be suspect, inevitably leading to a personal internal conflict of reason and dogma. A salient example is the Holy War, the killing of innocent non-believers at the urging of ecclesiastics in the name of God.
In summary there are reasonable counter-arguments to the necessity of God in the struggle to find meaning. Belief in God may affect how one chooses to find meaning and the role one plays, but it may well turn out that the meaningful life is more tenuous for believers. Now we must confront the opposite issue, that of nihilism – that there is and can be no meaning of life.
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but rather that in His perfection, he acts in a way that is always morally correct by some extra-divine objective criteria. God’s choice to do logically unethical acts would not impart moral goodness upon them: it seems equally evil for God to needlessly blind baby animals as for humans to do so.
In Systematic Theology,3 Paul Tillich refers to life as ambiguous, for example: the desire for individualization versus participation, acting on moral imperatives versus norms, and the contrast of essential and existential elements. What we seek is the ‘unambiguous’ life. Religion moves one into the realm of the spirit wherein self-transcendence is found, but religion too is ambiguous, especially ‘concrete religion.’ However religion produces three symbols of the unambiguous life: (1) the “Spirit of God” or “Spiritual Presence,” (2) the “Kingdom of God” – the historical dimension of life and the dynamics of historical transcendence, and (3) Eternal Life – the conquest of finitude and ambiguity. Through these symbols one can achieve self-transcendence, described as a vertical movement towards (though never reaching) the unconditional.
Unamuno in Tragic Sense of Life offers a slightly different take on the existence of God. Since proof or demonstration is impossible, belief in God is a longing, a decision to “act as if He existed.”4 And what will bring the greatest meaning to human life, what he calls the ‘heart’s truth’? The answer is apparent enough; the immortality of one’s soul or consciousness – “the truth of the human finality of the Universe. And what is its moral proof? We may formulate it thus: Act so that in your own judgment and in the judgment of others you may merit eternity.”5 In Kant-like words, Unamuno tells us faith in God is part craving and part pretending, but meaning comes from being worthy of God’s approval and from meriting eternal life.
Leo Tolstoy in My Confession1 describes an ‘arrest of life’ that occurred to him at age 50. His existential crisis and sense of meaninglessness led him to despair. He found no answers in science, philosophy, or the pursuit of pleasure, and drifted to the edge of madness and suicide. He eventually concluded that the answer is not in rational knowledge, but in the relation of the finite to the infinite, in the irrationality accepted by the masses – faith and life according to God’s law, “the union with infinite God, paradise.”
In Philip Quinn’s essay, The Meaning of Life According to Christianity,2 he begins by defining meaning as axiologic, teleological, and complete (both). For Quinn, a human life has axiologic meaning if it has positive intrinsic value and on the whole is good for the person living it; and teleological meaning if it contains some purposes of positive value the person takes to be non-trivial and achievable and contains actions directed towards achieving those purposes with zest. The secret of the meaningful life is to develop a narrative similar to that of Christ by imitating the life of Christ. He cites classic guides: The Imitation of Christ by Thomas A. Kempis and Practice in Christianity by Soren Kierkegaard.
William Lane Craig, a Christian philosopher addresses these in his essay The Absurdity of Life without God.3 He argues that in a Godless universe, everything ends in oblivion, even the universe itself, therefore it is impossible for any contribution by any person to have significance. “All these come to nothing. In the end they don’t make one bit of difference, not one bit.” His theory is that if the universe is an accident we exist “to no purpose,” we are nothing more than insects. In fact this situation becomes tolerable only if we embrace a Noble Lie of some pretended purpose or meaning. Self-created meaning in Craig’s opinion is an illusion.
he argues in a world without God, morality is relative or mere opinion; literally anything goes. If there are no objective standards of right and wrong, there is no moral difference between the life of the despot and life of the saint. And since there is no immortality, there is no possibility to rectify evils done in this world or to reward goodness and sacrifice done in life. Last without God there is no ultimate reality, purpose, or meaning. Everything is finally trivial, or as T.S. Eliot wrote: “This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper.”
It is equally unreasonable to say my life cannot be meaningful unless something I do outlasts humanity and the existence of planet Earth knowing this is implausible. Human meaning is only viable if its requirements are possible. The proof is simple enough; if any human life has been meaningful, we know de facto it must be possible.
“I shall say that an activity is fully meaningful if it suffers from none of these defects, so that it is valuable in itself, directed towards an end which is not trivial and not futile.” – W.D. Joske, Philosophy and the Meaning of Life.
In the course of life, all of us have a multitude of opportunities to experience non-physical pleasure – elation, feelings of accomplishment, and intense excitement. In rough order of increasing depth, some examples include.
for example wealth through theft or the fame (infamy) of the tyrant. Falling in love imparts immeasurable quality to life, but is typically fragile and impermanent. Having children likely brings the most predictable joy to life of any of these, but that joy fluctuates and eventually feels incomplete.
In speaking of happiness several ancient Greek philosophers consider the place for sensual pleasure. Aristippus, a friend and follower of Socrates, founded the Cyrenaic school of hedonism. His metaphysical skepticism and focus on practical ethics led him to the belief that physical enjoyments are the richest source of pleasure and should be fully cultivated.1 However he imposed a Socratic element of self-control in order to avoid slavery to pleasure.
Second many people attach greater importance to non-sensual features of life such as fame, honor, and aesthetic creation. Third pleasure may occur at another’s expense diminishing its desirability or goodness. Last pleasure can be induced by drugs, but it is unlikely anyone would consider a permanent drug induced euphoria as a meaningful life.
Taylor thinks this analogy applies to living things be they cave-restricted glow worms that struggle to subsist on stray insects until they reach a single day when they mature into winged adults, mate, and then are themselves eaten by other glow worms, or are birds that migrate great distances only to return to mate, or are humans who play out a Sisyphus-like drama in the generational cycle of birth-reproduction-death. Taylor believes that as would be the case for Sisyphus, the presence of the drive that compels these life courses gives living things a modicum of meaning.1
Other thinkers go somewhat further. Jonas Salk sees life as the continuation of evolution which for humans includes cultural advancement.2 Jane Goodall proposes the raising of children as highly meaningful.3 Freeman Dyson adds a further level – the prospect of humans controlling their evolution.4
