The Age-Old Question

As children, my friends and I often posed it to ourselves and always struggled to answer it. “The meaning is to do good” – what for? “To study and work” – but why? “To enjoy pleasures” – maybe, but too shallow. “There is no meaning” – then you lose any sort of enthusiasm.

Usually we settled on “the meaning of life is to live”, or that “we make of life whatever meaning we want.”

The first is really just dodging the question, yet at least it is life-affirming. The second one is called existentialism: the meaning lies in what you choose to treat as meaningful.

Still, both these answers felt a bit forced.

Why Is It So Hard to Answer?

Now, having become an adult, supposedly knowing philosophy, theology, logic, ethics, Latin, and so on, I understand why. Alas, such understanding tends to come too late, when other concerns press, not when we are fifteen and the question burns hottest.

No one was able to explain this to me back then. So I will do it myself now, in the hope that it reaches you, dear reader, exactly when you need it.

The question “what is the meaning of life” is so difficult, even for those who can answer it, because it has a catch. It is formulated far too broadly. It is not one question at all, but ten questions in a trench coat.

Such as:

• “What am I supposed to do in life?”
• “What should I live my life for?”
• “Why was I born? Why do I even exist?”
• “Who am I?”
• “What is good and what is evil?”
• “What makes life (mine or anyone else’s) valuable?”
• “Why does life cling to itself so stubbornly?”
• “What do I like and dislike?”
• “Why is the world the way it is?”
• “Why is life so hard?”

…and countless others.

All these questions are related yet different, and their answers differ as well. Moreover, even within a single question there are several layers of answers.

For Example:

“What should I do with my life?”

• Biologically, you are meant to survive as long as possible and leave as many offspring as you can.
• Society expects you to acquire skills and contribute to common good.
• Existentially, you must define for yourself who and what you really are.

Or:

“What is good and what is evil?”

• In the most immediate sense, good is what we like and find pleasant, evil is what we dislike and find painful.
• Socially: good is conformity to the norms of society, evil is their violation.
• In Buddhism: evil is attachment, good is liberation from it.
• In Christian thought: good is everything that exists, evil is any defect or privation of being.

So, “what is the meaning of life?” is less a single concrete question and more a gigantic question mark that the human mind places in front of the entire universe.

Its proper answer must be a full worldview – on yourself, others, the world, duty, love, good, evil, and God.

To give an exhaustive answer in one clever, concise phrase is in principle impossible.

And Yet…

If we try to peel away all the layers and reach the core, we will see that the question of meaning is essentially a question of purpose.

What gives anything its meaning? Purpose or use. Imagine you see an electrical outlet in an odd place and ask, “What is the meaning of this outlet?” What you want to say here is “What purpose does it serve here? What function does it perform?”

Classical philosophy distinguishes four causes for any event: formal, material, efficient and final. Meaning, then, is tied most closely to the final cause, the one that answers “for the sake of what? for what gain? toward what end?”

Thus the original question comes closest to this:

“For what do I live? What benefit or good should my life bring to me or to others? Which goods am I actually pursuing?”

Here “good” is understood philosophically: not only personal gain or pleasure, but any positive reality that can be brought into existence.

The answer, again, has many layers:

– First of all, we strive for natural goods: warmth, food, sleep, safety. They are the most basic goals of life.

– Next come higher goods: raising children, accomplishment, recognition, self-actualization, and the like. For most people, the meaning of life is found somewhere on this level.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and all that jazz.

– Finally, we can aim to bring good to others, not only to ourselves. This ranges from honest professional work to charity, then to volunteering, and all the way up through ascending levels of altruism, even to the heroic kind.

Transcendence

All of this is good and worthy. But ask yourself: what is the highest good, the greatest goal one could possibly set before oneself?

Everything in this world is finite. We can never be fully satisfied by finite goods. Moreover, life itself is finite. Does it really matter what we obtain here on earth, if in the end we die and lose all of it?

That is why I believe the true meaning of earthly life is to transcend its limits. Our main goal should be victory over death and the attainment of immortality.

But even if we were to gain mere physical immortality, it would not free us from the tyranny of finitude. We need something greater, a breakthrough into infinity.

We live in a bounded world. It is right and noble to expand its horizons. But only omnipotent and infinite God can accomplish for us the metaphysical shift from finite to infinite.

There is nothing wrong with nurturing this “holy restlessness,” this longing for what surpasses the entire created order, for it accords with God’s design. It is he who created our nature, and our will, to move in this direction. “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in thee.”

So, the highest and ultimate meaning of life is to befriend God and receive from him the gift of an infinitely great good – unattainable by any other means.

May we all succeed in this effort and, by God’s grace and mercy, find the path to joyful and eternal life for ourselves and all who are dear to us. Amen.