Third is the surprisingly emotional statement that the universe is wholly indifferent to human life specifically and all life in general. If the universe is not a conscious being, which some might debate, this point appears true but potentially irrelevant. However the entire statement is suspect as the universe is amazingly conducive to life especially human life. Since most scientists believe life exists on countless other worlds, ‘indifferent’ seems unduly harsh, even arbitrary. Regardless, human meaning need not come from love or caring by the universe, but may derive from one’s individual perspective on existence within it.
Fourth is the assertion that humans lack free will. Readers are referred to this site’s section titled Free Will, Fate, and Human Destiny for a detailed discussion of this topic, where the conclusion was that most of us decide our will is free based on the strength of empirical and moral arguments and the weakness of the scientific evidence to the contrary. Moreover it is not clear that even scientists claim to have proven humans lack free will, making this proposition essentially moot.
Fifth is morality, which is a field outside the domain of science. Anthropology, biology, and psychology may attempt to explain the origins of human morality, but cannot demonstrate morality is relative, only that cultural rules vary. The absence of God is often claimed to free man of moral constraints, but this too is debatable. It is more likely that if God exists, He has infallible knowledge of morality rather than his will instantiates morality per se. Philosophers typically believe reason and logic offer the best foundation for morality especially one free of traditional errors.
Sixth is the argument that nothing matters – a patently untrue statement. Everyone can think of something that matters to them. The word itself implies subjectivity. R.M. Hare says it beautifully: “ ‘Matters’ isn’t that sort of word; it isn’t intended to describe something that things do, but to express our concern about what they do; so of course we can’t observe things mattering; but that doesn’t mean they don’t matter…”1 “Nothing matters” turns out being a pseudo-problem due to linguistics.
In closing, science cannot demonstrate life is meaningless mainly because it is not the appropriate method to assess the question. Science can help us understand the world and aid our search for meaning, but philosophy is how we define what it means to say one’s life is meaningful. Next time we will look at perhaps the most famous nihilist, Friedrich Nietzsche, and his evolution to proponent of human meaning.
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1Klemke, E.D. (editor), The Meaning of Life. Oxford University Press, New York, 2000. ISBN 0-19-512703-X, page 281.
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“In the longest run the sum of all human endeavor has no recognizable significance.” – Wilhelm Otswald.
Next is the three part assertion that the universe is completely random, purposeless, and transient. That the universe is random seems contrary to the scientific assertion that events in the universe are determined. Random events have no explanation while science attempts to find explanations for all events using the logic of cause and effect. Alternatively to argue the universe could have been otherwise on a random basis is mere speculation and unprovable. With respect to purpose, another axiom of science is that there are no final causes to natural events meaning science assumes purposelessness. Demonstrating purposelessness is unimaginable; it may be the subjective opinion of many scientists, but is really based on the human notion of intention where the universe seems unable to have anthropomorphic intention. Nonetheless intention may manifest differently with respect to the universe. Last the universe may be transient or destined to end in a motionless freeze of subatomic particles, but even if this theory proves correct, it may be additional ‘universes’ will spring from this one in additional big bang events lasting indefinitely.
“My dear Fichte, I really shall not be put out if you or anyone else want to call chimerism that which I am opposing to idealism, to what I prefer to call nihilism.” – Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi1.
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.”
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.
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.
