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Introduction

Some time ago, a young female listener called into the popular Dr. Laura Show on the radio and spilled out her sordid domestic problem that is typical to the material covered on the program.  In the ensuing conversation over the air, psychologist Laura Schlessinger, who professes strongly her Jewish beliefs, asked the listener if she believed in God.  The young woman responded that she did not.  She elaborated that she had never seen God in any way and had no reason to believe that there is a God.  When asked by Schlessinger how she thought we all got here, the caller repeated the typical evolutionary line.

At that point, Dr. Schlessinger said, “Then let me just ask you one thing.  Do you believe your life is meaningless?”  There was a long silence.  Since no radio host can allow for “dead air,” Schlessinger continued in her usual brusque manner, “Does your life have meaning, or are you just some chemical phenomena?  If all you are is some random chemical process, no matter what stage of advancement you may have reached, your whole life doesn’t really have any significance.  And if that’s the case, there’s not really any point in your calling me with your problems, because it doesn’t really matter what happens to you anyway.”

The caller was slow to speak as she turned over in her mind what Dr. Schlessinger had just said.  There was a logic here that she had not previously faced.  She was unwilling to take the leap of professing a meaningless life.  By the end of the conversation, the young woman was claiming to have had an “epiphany” during her time on the air and to have seen that she had been wrong to discount the reality of God.  At this, the radio segment ended with “Dr. Laura” saying, “Now go out and do the right thing.”

The Question

The above interchange heard on a radio talk show raises the question:  Do we have an innate sense of meaning that speaks to the existence of God?  The subject matter in this paper will explore the factor of personal meaning and where it should logically lead us.  Within the scope of this paper, the terms meaning, purpose, significance and importance will be used as synonymous expressions.  In his recent bestseller The Purpose Driven Life, author and pastor Rick Warren has brought three of these terms together in saying, “Without God, life has no purpose, and without purpose, life has no meaning.  Without meaning, life has no significance or hope.”[1]  Warren has begun with God as necessary to life having purpose, meaning, and significance.  It is the intent of this paper to begin with purpose/meaning/significance, demonstrating it as evidence of and need for God.

The Assumption of Purpose

Human beings have a commonality in that they all have certain driving forces in their lives.  While by no means speaking from a Christian perspective, medical doctor and education guru William Glasser states that he has observed at least five powerful forces that drive everyone which come to us in terms of needs:  the need to survive and reproduce, the need to belong, the need for power, the need for freedom, and the need for fun.[2]  Glasser does not claim that these are all the innate human needs there are nor that individuals are unable to live in opposition to those needs.  His point is simply that there are certain driving forces that are common to man, these five being ones that he has observed.

The question must be asked:  Do the inner forces that drive us speak of, and indeed necessitate, the existence of a reality beyond ourselves?  The naturalist holds the position that there is nothing beyond our physical being within a physical environment.  We are all basically machines that simply flow with what nature has dealt us, inwardly and environmentally.  In defining the naturalist position, Douglas Groothuis writes:

Naturalistic science deconstructs the mind such that it becomes nothing more than biologically determined chemical processes.  Nature is mindless and purposeless, and nature is the only objective reality. . .  The conclusion is logical:  human ideas are determined entirely by the biological and cultural forces that shape us.[3]

Francis Schaeffer agrees with Groothuis’s assessment of the naturalist view of man, which Schaeffer terms as chemical and psychological determinism:

So whether it is chemical determinism or psychological determinism, man is no longer responsible for what he is or does, nor can he be active in making significant history.  Man is no more than part of a cosmic machine.[4]

Taking strict exception to this naturalist position, sociologist Peter Berger believes there are elements seen within human experience that he calls “signals of transcendence.”  Berger holds that there are “phenomena that are to be found within the domain of our ‘natural’ reality but that appear to point beyond that reality.”[5]  Among these phenomena Berger places man’s propensity for order, his orientation toward the future, and the attribute of his humor.  Berger calls these factors of human behavior and thinking part of an immense array of human projections which he contends are “indicators of a reality that is truly ‘other’ and that the religious imagination of man ultimately reflects.”[6]

C. S. Lewis concurs in arguing that an innate sentiment denotes a reality to which it relates.  Lewis writes:

A man’s physical hunger does not prove that that man will get any bread; he may die of starvation on a raft in the Atlantic.  But surely a man’s hunger does prove that he comes from a race which repairs its body by eating and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist.  In the same way, though I do not believe (I wish I did) that my desire for Paradise proves that I shall enjoy it, I think it a pretty good indication that such a thing exists and that some men will.  A man may love a woman and not win her; but it would be very odd if the phenomena called “falling in love” occurred in a sexless world.[7]

To follow Lewis’s line of reason that a consistent driving desire is indicative of the existence of something to satisfy it, one might ask what force was driving the writer of the biblical book of Ecclesiastes as he started his search with the words “’Meaningless!  Meaningless!’ says the Teacher.  ‘Utterly meaningless!  Everything is meaningless.’”[8]  There was a cry expressed there and through much of the book that has encompassed the human race throughout its history – a cry for meaning.  Berger expresses it thusly:

There is nothing very funny about finding oneself stranded, alone, in a remote corner of a universe bereft of human meaning – nor about the idea that this fate is the outcome of the mindless massacre that Darwin, rather euphemistically, called natural selection.[9]

Many have already well understood that for life to have purpose, to have meaning, there is the necessity of a Creator.  Atheist Bertrand Russell seemed to understand this well as he fatalistically observed, “Unless you assume a God, the question of life’s purpose is meaningless.”[10]  Perhaps this is why Charles Darwin (whose theory Berger calls a “mindless massacre”), despite his thesis that not every species was independently created, never proved able to throw God out of the picture altogether.  To do so would be to admit his own meaninglessness, which would have rendered the pointlessness of his years of study.  Though his theory may be ridden with scientific (not to mention theological) flaws, as Darwin defended his position he held to the idea of a Creator (though perhaps redefining Him in his own terms).  In rebuttal to the view that each species was independently created, he wrote:

It makes the works of God a mere mockery and deception:  I would almost as soon believe with the old and ignorant cosmogonists, that fossil shells had never lived, but had been created in stone so as to mock the shells now living on the seashore.[11] 

Darwin continued to defend his theories by asserting, “Have we any right to assume that the Creator works by intellectual powers like those of a man?”[12]  And again, he writes:

To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes.[13]

One wonders why the author of a work that has been the root of so much atheistic thought was unable to devoid himself of the concept of God.  Could it relate back to an innate insistence that man has purpose and what that necessarily entails?  Toward the end of his life, Darwin is reported as saying, “I cannot believe with my mind that all this was produced by chance.”[14]

From his observation of various philosophical systems, Francis Schaeffer writes, “No man, regardless of his theoretical system, is content to look at himself as a finally meaningless machine which can and will be discarded totally and forever.”[15]  There is a natural insistence that we all have some sort of significance.  One can ask of those who believe that life is meaningless such as Bertrand Russell quoted above:  Why would anyone who does not believe in man having meaning bother to express what he believes?  He obviously expects to be heard and taken seriously at his word, but why should anyone listen?  The idea that life is meaningless is self-defeating. 

Rick Warren writes, “We were made to have meaning.  This is why people try dubious methods, like astrology or psychics, to discover it.”[16]  Sociologists have concluded that one of the essential struggles of oppressed people is the search for dignity, meaning, and purpose.[17]  Within apologetic debate, what appears to be anathema in any type of argument would be to arrive at meaninglessness.  In proposing his presuppositional approach to apologetics, John M. Frame writes, “We need to show that God is the very presupposition of rational meaning and that reasoning without this presupposition leads to meaninglessness.”[18]  Whatever the means of getting there, any argument that leads to the conclusion that we are meaningless is automatically considered void.  Time and again, opposing arguments are defeated when it is shown that they lead to life without meaning, and arguments are upheld by showing that they imply purpose.  Nietzsche’s philosophy has been successfully argued against by showing that it leads to a denial of meaning and purpose.[19]  Frame proposes that the apologist use negative argumentation to show the unbeliever that his “unbelieving premises lead to a denial of meaning itself.”[20]  The idea that we are meaningless is unacceptable and is used as the basis for discarding an argument.

The Sense of Personal Significance as Common to All People

There are, to be sure, some who argue that life is indeed without purpose.  In her description of her encounters at Harvard University, Kelly Monroe tells of one professor who was addicted to drugs, committing adultery, and repeating to himself that “life has no meaning, life has no meaning.”[21]  Later that professor came to faith in Christ and abandoned that way of thinking.  Some, for whatever reason, do believe life to be meaningless.  However, it would be safe to say that people in general believe themselves to have significance.  Even those who say otherwise belie their stated position by the esteem they hold for themselves.  Before Nietzsche turned the Golden Rule on its head by telling us that we did not love ourselves sufficiently,[22] and before pop-psychology bought into the myth of our lack of self-esteem, it was generally understood that people (except for the insane) thought highly of themselves.  The Golden Rule as given by Christ would have been logically absurd were this not generally true.  Besides the words of Christ, psychological studies reveal the same.  Psychologist David G. Myers points out:

Jean-Paul Codol conducted twenty experiments with French people ranging from twelve-year-old school children to adult professionals.  Regardless of those involved and the experimental methods, the people’s self-perceived superiority was present consistently…

[American] students typically rate themselves in the top of the class….  Judging from their responses…  [to self-rating tests], it appears that America’s high school students are not racked with inferiority feelings.  In “leadership ability,” 70 percent rated themselves above average, two percent below average….  In “ability to get along with others,” zero percent of the 829,000 students who responded rated themselves below average, 60 percent rated themselves in the top 10 percent, and 25 percent saw themselves among the top 1 percent!…

Note how radically at odds this conclusion is with the popular wisdom that most of us suffer from low self-esteem….  Preachers who deliver ego-boosting pep talks to audiences who are supposedly plagued with miserable self-images are preaching to a problem that seldom exists.[23]

People in general see themselves as important.  Though a person may need to be persuaded of the truth of the Gospel, there is no effort required to persuade a person of his own significance.  He already believes it.  Therefore, this is a logical place to begin a discussion of God since, to turn Bertrand Russell’s phrase around, the question of life having purpose assumes a God.

The Purpose Defined

To assume purpose is to concede that man is more than an impersonal chemical phenomenon. There must be personality involved in the fact of his existence. Unthinking material cannot attribute meaning.  A personal Creator is required.  Francis Schaeffer writes:

The dilemma of modern man is simple:  he does not know why man has any meaning.  He is lost.  Man remains a zero.  This is the damnation of our generation, the heart of man’s problem.  But if we begin with a personal beginning and this is the origin of all else, then the personal does have meaning, and man and his aspirations are not meaningless.[24]

Having a personal beginning from a personal God calls for a personal relationship with that God.  Meaning is defined within that relationship.  In isolation, meaning is lost.  Therefore, to enter into relationship with God is to finally discover what our purpose is.  As John Calvin once said: “To know God is man’s chief end, and justifies his existence.”[25]  To quote Schaeffer once again:

Our calling is to enjoy God as well as glorify Him.  Real fulfillment relates to the purpose for which we were made, to be in reference to God, to be in personal relationship with Him, to be fulfilled by Him, and thus to have an affirmation of life.[26]

Christianity is the only religion that makes provision for an intimate personal relationship with God.  No other religion provides the possibility of entering into such a relationship.  Only through embracing the Person and work of Christ is this made possible.  Through Christ, the barrier of sin is overcome.  Through Christ, we are made able to draw near to God as we were created to be.  For this reason, Schaeffer accurately states that Christianity “is the only system which gives a final and sufficient meaning to man.”[27]  Only in relationship do we gain definition.  In isolation, all meaning is lost.

As one considers this personal relationship with the infinite-personal God, one would assume that this relationship would be of an eternal nature.  One of what Peter Berger calls the “signals of transcendence” is that “human existence is always oriented toward the future.”  He observes that “man exists by constantly extending his being into the future, both in his consciousness and in his activity.”[28]  It would seem that there is something within man that informs him that his full purpose will not be realized until some later time.  One cannot help but think of the words from Ecclesiastes 3:11, “He has also set eternity in the hearts of men.”  Rick Warren voices agreement as he considers man’s purpose:  “You weren’t put on earth to be remembered.  You were put here to prepare for eternity.”[29]  Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard seemed to hold similar sentiments:  “… the more one thinks oneself to be able, or hardens oneself to be able, to get along without the eternal, the more one feels the essential need of it.”[30]  The sense of purpose that is written in each man’s heart seems to be written in permanent ink.

Summary and Conclusion

There are certain innate ideas and subsequent activities that are common to human beings.  One of these ideas is that life has meaning.  Except for a few who wish to prove opposing philosophical positions, this is the general consensus of the race.  Even those who say otherwise fail to live up to their stated position as can be seen in the significance they attribute to their own opinions.

The concept that a person has purpose is incompatible with the naturalistic/deterministic view of human origin and activity.  The alternative is a personal Creator.  This in turn implies a relationship between the Creator and the created.  Such a relationship is only made possible in Christ and is eternal.

© 2007 David C. Carson. All rights reserved.