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4S: Nihilism and Meaning part 2
Purpose
Full disclosure: I have no idea what Christians mean when they talk about meaning. My intuition is that what they are usually talking about is having a sense of purpose. Meaning, value, purpose, and function often get conflated. But I believe that purpose is the idea most Christians are trying to convey.
As for myself, I lean toward existentialism. There is no ultimate meaning or purpose to anything or anyone. That means that we can assign our own (small p) purposes. Further, such purpose cannot be authoritatively assigned by one person for another.
If we want to be more philosophical, we might try teleology. Personally, I believe that teleology is as false and fruitless a study as godology. When you really think about it, there is no way to grant the concept of purpose without granting some kind of god or purpose-giver. If an atheist and a Christian find themselves agreeing on the subject of purpose, it is because the atheist does not actually understand what the Christian is implying by the word. That seems like a good place to begin:
Giver of purpose
For purpose to exist, someone must assign it. Purpose is not an intrinsic quality of a thing. It is an assigned quality. The giver of purpose is the one who made the thing in question. It is the essence of the thing, again, as assigned by the maker. Examples include things like knives, obviously for cutting, chairs, obviously for sitting, and boots, obviously for walking. After all, no one would mistake boots as things made for sitting or cutting.
You might recognize a resemblance to the watchmaker argument. If there is a watch, we can deduce that there must have been a watchmaker. That is because watches don’t just construct themselves. This idea is extrapolated to the universe. If a watch has a maker, the universe must have a maker. If something is so clearly made for cutting, it must have the purpose of cutting assigned by a giver of purpose.
While it is true that everyday consumable objects were made by someone for a purpose, the assigned purpose means little to the person who ends up owning the product. A gun initially made for hunting deer turns out to also be pretty good at killing school children. Depending on its size and shape, it might also be really good at pounding nails. So what is the purpose of that particular gun?
We can take the idea of purpose to another level that better shows the problem with the concept. What are the constituent components of a gun? Frankly, I have no idea. But let’s pretend they include metal made from some kind of ore, wood from some old tree, and demon’s tears. Surely, there must be demon’s tears in guns.
Can we really say that the purpose of the tree that contributed the wood was to someday produce the butt of a gun? Perhaps that tree was planted by someone as a celebration of life. How is it that something purposed for life could also be purposed for death, or the pounding of nails?
What is obvious is that the raw materials that were selected to make an item didn’t have any such ultimate purpose in mind. You would have to suggest that the entire big bang was banged in exactly the way it was so that the right molecules would be in place to form that tree that would be harvested for the butt of that gun that mowed down seven school kids. A big bang indeed.
Things go from purpose to purpose. Your body could end up being fertilizer that grows a crop that saves a life. Does that mean your ultimate purpose is to be food? If a vegetarian eats food that was grown from fertilizer that used to be meat, does that count against them? Never mind. Anyway…
The giver of a particular purpose of a particular thing does not follow the use of that thing and its materials. The one who crafted the metal baseball bat never considered the product of his hand would live most of its existence as a TV antenna. All of this is to say that the only giver of purpose that matters is the one who owns the object at the time.
Ultimate purpose
There is purpose. Then there’s ultimate purpose. When you hear this terminology from a Christian, don’t just pass it off as them being hyperbolic. It actually means something important. It is what I call capital P purpose. That is the sort of purpose in which I don’t believe. Small p purpose is the kind we give ourselves. That is the kind Christians tend to discount.
If small p purpose is the only kind that exists, then we are the ultimate purpose giver and this wouldn’t work as an apologetic. That is why only large P purpose matters to them in conversations with skeptics. They are interested in the kind of purpose that only the creator of the universe can assign. But it still leaves me wondering what they mean by ultimate purpose.
As we have already noted, a thing can have multiple purposes over the course of its existence. But can a thing have multiple ultimate purposes? The very notion seems to make a mockery out of the idea of ultimate. It would be like calling god the ultimate being, except for all those other ultimate beings. It is therefore more than a little confusing when Christians reveal our ultimate purpose, and then in the space of a few minutes, reveal a different one as if unaware of what they are saying.
It is also confusing when you listen to sermon after sermon, as I did before doing this article, and hearing different preachers deliver different ultimate purposes. You would be surprised at how many there are. Since I never see them called on this contradictory messaging, I have come to the conclusion that the actual purpose is not that important to them. What is important is that the purpose comes from god and that He is the one who ultimately provides value, meaning, and purpose.
The unbearable burden of a purposeless life
To be clear, I do acknowledge the importance of having a sense of purpose, at least to some people. The feeling of purposelessness leads to a feeling of worthlessness. And that leans into depression and oppressing darkness from which many can never escape. For them, purpose is not a speculative, philosophical consideration; it is life and death.
But that can be said of a lot of things. The fact that it is important to many humans does not mean that it is real. Some people have a yearning to be loved in such a way that, without it, they would also spiral into that inescapable darkness. Some people are driven to succeed in some way that, without it, they would also be driven into that cold, eternal night.
The conceit of the Christian is that they are in possession of the ultimate purpose, such that if tasted, would fill the most ravenous appetite and never leave one wanting. The reality, though, is that despite their incessant posturing, they still have need of the same pharmaceuticals used to stave off depression as those without that magical purpose. They suffer fear, anxiety, and self-harm just like everyone else.
I must have heard parts of at least five sermons today where preachers were decrying things like money, sex, and friends as a source of meaning and purpose. Only god could provide them with true purpose. Not one of them mentioned the suicide rate among believers. So often, those who buy into that message the most are often the ones who later deconstruct as they realize that there was no more actual purpose in their relationship with Jesus as they found at the bottom of a bottle. The Holy Spirit wasn’t any more successful at imparting purpose than the spirits of grape and barrel.
I consider myself exceedingly lucky. Or maybe I just have a mental illness. Either way, I don’t really need a larger sense of purpose than what I give myself at any given moment. I always have some reason to get out of bed at 4:00 a.m. And it is not just my barking dogs. I am a self-starter, highly motivated individual to accomplish things that almost certainly won’t matter in the long run.
To my knowledge, I don’t have a Wikipedia page, and hope I never will. I don’t need that. When I die, I will be almost immediately forgotten because those who know me will also be nearing the dying age. I will have had a good run of it. Some will be helped as a result of knowing me. Some, not so much. I would like to have a positive impact as an insignificant link in the mighty chain of progress. But if I don’t, I guess I can live with that too.
What I am trying to say is that I do not, and never have suffered from the unbearable burden of a meaningless life. I’m sure I have had some rough spells between periods of high motivation. But it has never been any kind of overwhelming burden for me. So if that is a result of mental illness, maybe that is a lucky condition after all.
That said, I get it. I know that some people need more than the purpose they can give to themselves. They end up looking for it in all the wrong places. They go from purpose to purpose, each time, certain that they have found it, only to be crushed with yet another disappointment. For them, the search is not just for purpose, but for something else:
Transcenence
Here is yet another word that is little more than philosophical meandering to me. It should not come as a shock to you that I also do not believe in transcendence. It is another one of those ill-defined words that is a pointer to something bigger, something other.
In fact, the bigger and other is probably a good way to define transcendence. It is that to which one hopes to transcend. But why would anyone want to transcend to something else? Why would anyone want there to be something else?
In many, there is this sense of smallness. And that smallness is a comforting feeling. This, I kind of understand. I’m an idiot. Every creature that is remotely like me is also an idiot. It sure would be nice if there was something in this universe higher than an idiot. We would like to think that there is something out there that is pulling the strings and calling the shots, who knows what they’re doing, because we most certainly do not.
Do you remember the moment when you realized that your parents don’t have any more idea of what’s going on than you? I do. And it rocked my world. From the time I was rudely ejected from the womb, I believed that my parents were the ones with all the answers. More fool, I.
The sinking feeling was even more disorienting when I discovered that I actually had more knowledge about some things than my all-knowing dad. He was not only wrong about things, but terribly, tragically wrong. Has your mom or dad ever asked you for advice, or called you to unload about some nonsense because they just needed someone to talk to? It’s downright weird and kind of scary.
For the believer, god is the ultimate parent who will never need your advice about anything because he knows what he’s doing. He is the one that you can always go to for advice when it becomes painfully obvious that no one on this planet knows what they are talking about. God is transcendent.
Where in this world, in this life, will you find true justice? When justice is denied and justice is what you need, who you gonna call? You call the transcendent: he who transcends injustice and is the very embodiment of justice. When you have been robbed of your retirement, your house has burned to the ground, and your health is failing, who you gonna call? You call on he who transcends all such calamities.
For some people, it is all about aliens from outer space. They are highly advanced. They have figured out space travel, universal peace, and an end to scarcity, and gift-giving. They have it all together. And they want nothing more than to come to Earth and share all that wisdom with you. They are the transcendent.
For others, it is the elven folk, the magicals, the spirits, and the angelics. We beseech them with lyrical chant and whispered incantation. We make the signs, offer the sacrifices, and open ourselves to their possession. We clearly need help and so call upon the transcendent.
I am not sure we can ever be free from this evolutionary baggage. After all, there is an evolutionary advantage to believing our parents are transcendent, at least long enough for them to keep us alive and set us up for success on our own. But needing the transcendent doesn’t make it real.
The search for ultimate purpose is also the search for transcendence since only the ultimate transcendence can assign your ultimate purpose.
Knowing purpose
Some have said that our ultimate purpose is to discover our ultimate purpose. Another way to look at it is that the purpose is less about the knowing and more about the searching. Ironically, those who make that claim are claiming to know that it is more about the search than the knowing. So we have to ask, how do they know that? Granting that they have one, how does anyone know their purpose?
For the Christian, it can only be that the Bible tells them so. You see, it says so in this old book, don’t you know. This is just another way that the sacred text is crucial to the faith. Almost everything the believer has to say about purpose is couched in terms of something written in their sacred text. But for those who might want to frame their opinion in something outside the book, let’s try to imagine how else the believer might know their purpose:
Inner witness: I suspect the top candidate is the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. That is just god by another name. It is also just another appeal to magic by another name. Wholly apart from the Scriptures, god lives inside of them and tells them things via some undefinable and unknowable method of communication. When asked how they know certain things that they cannot possibly know, this is one of their favorite go-tos.
A church leader told them: A variation on the theme is that while god didn’t tell them their purpose, He told someone else to tell them their purpose. There are various gifts of the Spirit distributed throughout the church body. Some of these magically endowed people can tell you what god intends your purpose to be. Disregard these powerful seers at your peril.
Guided by providence: Outside of being directly told what your purpose is, you discover it via the circumstances and events of your life. You have likely heard the saying, “When god closes a door, He opens a window.” There are variations on the theme. The idea is that god has a plan for you that He only reveals by closing the doors to the wrong path and opening doors to the right path. However your life is going, it is a clue to where god is leading. You become a reader of your own tea leaves.
None of these methods of knowing are worth discussing as they are trivially dismissible as bad epistemology. On some level,I believe Christians know this. That is why some find appeals to seeking more satisfying than appeals to knowing. For them, you don’t really have to know your purpose. As long as you are earnestly seeking and following the guidance you are divinely given along the way, you will always be on the right track and fulfilling your ultimate purpose.
Function
We cannot talk about purpose without saying a few words about function. One of the ways a believer might determine human purpose is to try and discern the essence of human function. They might appeal to the fact that as far back as we can look, humans have been worshippers of something. It is in our very nature to worship and seek the transcendent. It is sometimes argued that we wouldn’t seek it or crave it if it weren’t real. So the fact that we seek it is reason enough to believe that it is there to be found.
In this view, seeking is a part of the function of humans. We are made in the image of god. Therefore, part of us is always seeking to connect with that which most defines who and what we are. We are compelled to seek the god in whose image we are made.
Another function the believer might identify is compassion. I have spoken with more than a few believers who point to the fact that human compassion and empathy for the downtrodden is unexplained by evolution. They argue that helping others at your own expense is not a natural behavior and can only be explained by the one who placed that function within us.
You do not need my rebuttal for these things because yours is more than sufficient. I would just point out that if human function tells us anything about our ultimate purpose, then our purpose is to suffer and die in unique, interesting, hilarious, and tragic ways. We are the undisputed masters of suffering and dying badly. Not all of us will suffer horrendously. But we are all going to die, most of us, before reaching 90.
Another function humans have mastered is the ability to kill everything in sight. We will level the oldest rainforest if it will get us a more efficient baseball bat. We will force young children into hard labor if it will make our factory money. To get another acre of land, we will kill every Native American who stands in our way and do so in the name of god. We will kill, murder, and genocide everyone and everything that looks at us funny and wrap ourselves in a flag while we do it. We will kill the planet for political cronyism. Clearly, our function is to kill.
If we wanted to get theological, we could say that our purpose is to sin. If Christians are to be believed, there is nothing we do better or more often. We have special words for various kinds of sin. There are special penalties for certain kinds of sin. And it seems we invent new ways to sin by the day. We are so prone to sin that the book tells us there is none righteous, no, not one. Given the choice of heaven or hell, even among those who believe in such things, sin and hell is the overwhelming choice.
I could go on in this way for a long time. But I think you get the point.
Conclusion: Your life, your purpose
The Christian book teaches that we are not our own. If that is true, then we are nothing more than slaves. Paul would agree as he has no problem with a phrase like, slaves for Christ. In the same way that I have no interest in a king, I also have no interest in being anyone’s slave. You can keep it.
The only purpose of a slave is to do the bidding of their owner. So it is with Christian purpose. We are here to reflect the greatness of the owner to the glory of the owner. He is the one who asks the mirror on the wall who the greatest is of all. We are that which reflects is glory back to himself. A more ignoble purpose I cannot imagine.
If your purpose is assigned to you by another, you will be in trouble if it turns out to be something you don’t like. The objection to this is that god is all-wise and knows what is most fulfilling for you since He created you for that purpose. Those believers arguing in that way are clearly forgetting about Satan and the one-third of all angels that left with him. They were clearly unhappy with their assigned purpose, and god didn’t seem to see that coming. He thinks I should be happy being His slave. Maybe He is not so good at assigning purpose after all.
If you are not the one assigning your own purpose, then your life is not your own in any way that matters. You might actually be happy in your enslavement. But to be clear, enslaved is what you are. To be self-possessed (owning yourself), you also have to be the assigner of your purpose. The one who assigns the purpose owns that which has the purpose.
You need not be burdened with trying to come up with a single purpose for all time. You are not the same person throughout your life. You have different stages of development. The purpose you have before your brain is fully developed is not necessarily the same as the one you have as a fully mature adult.
If you assign yourself a bad purpose, you are not stuck with it. Take your learnings to heart and assign yourself a better purpose. You also do not have to be limited to one at a time. You might have multiple purposes. More power to you. There are no rules when it comes to assigning purpose.
As for me, I see no need for it at all. I have a handful of goals that change from time to time. I have one or two bucket-list items that I never take too seriously. And I have an idea of the person that I want to be and the life that I want to live. Otherwise, my value as a human is not tied up in a sense of purpose.
I do not do this show or run this site for any reasons related to purpose. It suits me to do it. When it stops suiting me, I will stop doing it. However, if you are one that needs a sense of purpose, there are far more satisfying ways of coming up with that purpose than handing yourself over as a slave to someone else’s purpose. It is your life, your purpose.
See you in the comments…
David Johnson
