What is the Meaning of Life?
Our purpose is to
become most fully ourselves, to reach our full potential and to thrive. The
meaning of life is love, from God and through us.
What is the meaning of life? People
love this question, and they love to ask it of me when they find out that I am
a student of philosophy. Of course, as a student of philosophy, I can never
just give a straight answer. I have to do what my training in philosophy has taught
me to do: ask obnoxious questions to the point where the asker gives up in
frustration. But if anyone had the stamina to stick with the analysis of this
question, he might find a treasure.
First of all, one of the most important
parts of any discussion is the definition of terms. What do the words mean?
When we say “meaning” in the question at hand, what does that word mean? We
can’t avoid using it, and we see that “meaning” points to some content, some
idea or reality. The meaning of the word “dog” is either the idea of dog that I
can think in my mind or else a real dog in the world.
So, to what reality does life point?
The fact of life, and in particular the fact of my life, has something
important to tell me. What is it?
Well, here is the shocking fact: I
don’t have to exist. I did not create myself, and I do not sustain my own
existence. Nothing that has been created can create itself or keep itself
existing. There was a time when I did not exist. The rock bottom foundation of
my life is the fact that I exist, and that is not something that I actively
maintain in myself. The meaning of my life is whatever causes my existence.
As St. Thomas Aquinas has so logically
shown, all existence leads us back to nothing less than God Himself, He who is
not just something else that exists, but He who is the very act of existence
itself. It is impossible for us to conceptualize God, let alone imagine exactly
what it means for God to be Necessary Being, but it is enough for us to know
that, in the end, God is the root cause of our existence and our life. The
lover’s declaration, “I am nothing without you,” is literally true only when we
say it to God.
Since God is wholly free, He does not
have to create. You and I do not have to be, yet God wills our existence. And
since my existence is the fundamental good upon which all other goods depend,
God’s willing of my existence is love. The existence of anything is good for
it. Love is the willing of the good. If something exists, God loves it. The
meaning of the fact that I have life and exist is that God loves me. The
meaning of life is God’s love. Just as the word “dog” is a sign of the idea in
my mind, my life is a sure sign of God’s love for me.
I realize that most people probably
don’t have this kind of idea in mind when they ask about the meaning of life. I
imagine that most people don’t really have much of an idea of anything when
they ask the question. They just like asking it and don’t really expect to get
an answer. They just want to be like, “What’s the meaning of life? Whoa, man.
That’s deep.” But, as always, when definitions are given and careful rational
thought is applied, sense can be made.
If people have anything in mind, they
usually mean something a little more like, “What is my purpose in life? What am
I here for?” This is a different question, but the foregoing analysis is still
helpful here.
When I reflect on my existence, I
realize that I do not exist as fully as I can. I am not really fully alive. I
have not reached my full potential. Jesus loves me, this I know, and he wants
what is good for me. I want what is good for me. What is good? Wholeness of
being.
What grabs my attention at this point
is the fact that both good philosophy and Catholic teaching converge on this
point when looked at from a certain angle. Our purpose is to become most fully
ourselves, to reach our full potential, or to thrive. Those are all ways of
saying the same thing. In the context of Catholicism, we can phrase it this
way: to love and to be loved, or to be a saint. The meaning of life is love,
from God and through us. It is the fundamental human vocation, “for man is
created in the image and likeness of God who is himself love” (Catechism of the
Catholic Church, 1604).
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