God & Persons (PHL 320W) instructors guide 1

Unit 10 The Meaning of Life

Unit 10 - The meaning of life

Learning objectives
1. To be able to articulate the three basic positions on the meaning of life.
2. To be able to articulate Nietzsche's expression of the nihilist position.
3. To be able to express Albert Camus's statement of the humanist position in
The Myth of Sisyphus.
4. To be able to discuss Haughts notions of kenosis, Gods humility, the
promise of the universe, and how these express a religious and metaphysical
position on the meaning of life.

General introduction
Most students entering their first course in philosophy expect that philosophy is all
about "the meaning of life," and they are somewhat surprised when the question never
seems to arise. Actually, it does arise all the time, but not under the guise of the phrase,
"meaning of life." Courses on ethics ask, "what is the good life?" This is about the
meaning of life. Political philosophy asks, "what is a good society and good
government?" These questions are indirectly about the meaning of life. Granted, there
are many other courses in philosophy, such as philosophy of science, metaphysics, logic,
which are not about the meaning of life. But the point is that often philosophy is about
this question without explicitly using the phrase, "the meaning of life."
The question, "what is the meaning of life?" asks about the ultimate purpose of life. Is
there any reason for the existence of humankind? If so, what is it? What is human
living for? I always come away from a Seinfeld show perplexed about how all of the
characters in the show can live so much in the small. Indeed, this seems to be one of
the main points of the television series, to create characters whose entire lives are
absorbed with trivia. Philosophy is at the opposite end of the spectrum; it is concerned
with really big questions, and perhaps the biggest of them all is "the meaning of life."
Philosophical discussions of this question fall into three positions: (1) pessimistic or
nihilistic, (2) secular or humanistic, and (3) metaphysical or religious. The pessimistic
or nihilistic view is that life has no meaning, or to use the language of many Existentialist

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Unit 10 The Meaning of Life
philosophers, life is absurd. We will read a brief selection from Friedrich Nietzsche as
an expression of this view. I emphasize expression, because he himself was not a
nihilist. But the famous passage which we will look at is a powerful statement of
nihilism.
The secular or humanistic view asserts that there is meaning to life, but the meaning is
created solely through human activities and goals. We (human persons) are the
creators of meaning. There is no larger meaning outside of ourselves. This might be
called an internalist view of human meaning; human meaning is made by us and there is
no larger or outside meaning. There is no overarching (beyond humankind) meaning
system. We will read selections from Albert Camus's "The Myth of Sisyphus" to explore
this position. But I will also refer to Camus's later novel, The Plague, as his more
complete expression of the humanist position on meaning.
Finally, the metaphysical or religious view is the position that there is meaning in the
universe outside of the bounds of human life, and that humans give meaning to their
lives by fitting into this larger meaning. This might be called an externalist view in the
sense that meaning for humans is attained by placing ourselves into some larger
framework outside of ourselves. All of the major world religions express this view on
meaning. The notion of grace in Christianity is that humans alone cannot achieve
salvation. Only through God's love is salvation possible. We will look at an essay by
John Haught as representative of the metaphysical or religious position. Note that this
position is labeled "metaphysical or religious" because it does not have to be
religious. In his version of the metaphysical and religion position, Haught combines
both of these.

Friedrich Nietzsche's expression of the pessimistic or nihilistic position

(selection from The Gay Science is available on Blueline as a PDF file)

Biographical note
Friedrich Nietzsche (1849-1900) was born in Prussia
and attended the Universities of Bonn and Liepzig
where he studied philology (history of words). He
then taught at the University of Basel (Switzerland)
from 1869 to 1879 when he retired because of
health. His early writings focused on concern for
the direction of contemporary culture. After
leaving Basel, he moved back and forth between
Switzerland and northern Italy. The Gay Science,
from which the selection which we will read is

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Unit 10 The Meaning of Life
taken, was published in 1882. In 1889, he suffered a physical and mental
breakdown. He never regained his health and died a decade later. Nietzsche has
often been connected with ideas of the National Socialist Party (Nazis) which
arose in the early 1930s. If Nietzsche ideas did have any influence on the Nazi
Party, it was very indirect and marginal.
In the very short passage from The Gay Science, Nietzsche talks about the death of God
and that we (humans) have killed him (57). He goes on to ask a series of very sharp,
rhetorical questions: "But how did we do this? . . . Who gave us the sponge to wipe
away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its
sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? . . . Are we not plunging
continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or
down? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing?" (57)
What is Nietzsche doing in this passage? First, the statement that "God is dead" is not a
metaphysical claim. What I mean by this is that Nietzsche is not making a statement
about atheism. He does not say that God does not exist, and he does not offer any
arguments against the existence of God. What, then, is all of this death of God talk
about? When Nietzsche says that "we have killed him," he suggests that God was once
living and is now dead. This gives us a clue to what Nietzsche is talking about. He is
arguing that Europeans no longer live their lives as if God exists. They no longer place
God and religion at the center of their lives. Thus Nietzsche is making a cultural
statement, a statement about the mood of the age. But we should qualify this a bit.
From a sociological point of view, Nietzsche, writing in 1882, was probably not reflecting
the mainstream position of western Europeans. He was probably expressing the views
of the intellectual elite of western Europe.
The series of rhetorical questions is Nietzsche's dramatic expression of consequences of
rejecting a worldview, God and Christianity, which gave meaning to the lives of western
Europeans for 2000 years. The consequences are horrific. The rejection of God results
in a complete disorientation. There is no longer a horizon to give one a sense of what is
right and wrong, true and false. Without the framework of God and religion, humans
are "straying as through an infinite nothing."
In sum, in this passage, Nietzsche offers a dramatic expression of the encounter with
nothingness, that is, with meaninglessness. In his own philosophy, Nietzsche was
probably not a nihilist because he thought that nihilism could be overcome by the force
of our wills. But this brief passage is perhaps the best expression of the nihilistic
position in western philosophy.

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Unit 10 The Meaning of Life

Albert Camus's on the secular or humanistic position (selections from

The Myth of Sisyphus are available on Blueline as a PDF file)

Biographical note
Albert Camus (1913-1960) was born in Algeria which at the time was a French
colony. His father was killed in World War I, and his mother raised Albert and
his brother by working as a charwoman (cleaning). Because of his intellectual
gifts, Albert received a scholarship to the local lyce (college preparatory school)
in Algiers (the largest city in Algeria). He then attended the University of Algiers,
where he wrote a senior thesis on how the early Christian Church in North Africa
appropriated Neo-Platonism. The thesis ends with a study of St. Augustine.
Camus suffered an attack of tuberculosis at the age of seventeen, and he
suffered from recurring bouts for the remainder of his life.
After graduation he spent several years as
a playwright and actor traveling with a
theatre company. He also joined the
Community Party, the fashionable thing to
do for young intellectuals at this time. He
left the Party after several years. Later in
his life he engaged in frequent exchanges
with Jean Paul Sartre over the value of
Marxism. Sartre defended Marx's ideas;
Camus rejected them. During these years,
Camus also married, but the marriage was
short-lived.
In 1938, Camus turned to journalism. He
first worked for Alger-Republicain, then later moved to Paris and worked for
Paris-Soir. With the outbreak of World War II, the newspaper moved to Lyons.
Here in 1940, Camus married Francine Faure.
In 1942, he published the novel, The Stranger, and the essay,
"The Myth of Sisyphus." This brought him sudden fame. In
the following year, he joined the underground movement
fighting the German occupation. He quickly became the
editor of the movement's newspaper, Combat. At the end of
the war, Camus gave up journalism and devoted his time to
his fictional and philosophical writing. His best novel, The
Plague, was published in 1947, and a collection of political
essay, The Rebel, was published in 1950. In 1957, he
received the Nobel Prize for literature. Camus was killed in

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Unit 10 The Meaning of Life
an automobile accident near Paris in 1960.

You may step through the opening pages of Camus' essay lightly. He describes a series
of experiences of what he calls the "absurd": going through the routine of life for
months and years and then suddenly asking why; waking up and realizing that you are
getting old; becoming aware of the limitations of our knowledge (72). On the latter, he
observes that we become aware of the gap between our opinions and what we really
know. One might reply that scientific knowledge is sound and it gives hope to the world.
But Camus responds that even scientific knowledge is just "hypothesis" (73). I don't
think Camus has much of an understanding and appreciation of science.
What Camus seems to mean by the "absurd" in these first six pages is the
meaninglessness of life. There does not seem to be any meaning to life; we simply go
on living according to our routines. And science cannot answer questions about
meaning.
At this point Camus turns to The Myth of Sisyphus (74). This is an ancient Greek myth,
of which there are several versions. But in all of the version, Sisyphus is a god who
disobeys the other gods and is given the punishment of rolling a rock to the top of a
mountain only to have it fall down. He is condemned to do this forever. This seems to
be the ultimate in absurdity. Sisyphus devotes his entire being to accomplishing
nothing. But what does Camus find in the myth? Camus says it is during Sisyphus's walk
down the mountain that interests him. During this pause, Sisyphus for a brief time is
not dominated by the rock; he is "superior to his fate" (75). "He is stronger than his
rock" (75).
Here is one way of interpreting what Camus means in his use of this myth. He proposes
that one can overcome the apparent meaninglessness of life by fighting against it. It is
the resistance itself to meaninglessness which gives some meaning to our lives. We
make our lives meaningful by fighting against, resisting, its apparent meaninglessness.
In his novel The Plague, Camus expands a bit on this. There he suggests that fighting
against absurdity (meaninglessness) -- in the novel, absurdity is symbolized by a plague
which sweeps over a city on the coast of North Africa -- is not enough. Resistance,
fighting against, is essential, but one can ask, resistance for what? There has to be some
meaningful goal of the resistance. And in The Plague, the goal is love for other persons,
care for one's community.
In sum, this is one example of a very French approach toward the question of the
meaning of life. It fits under the secular or humanistic position because Camus places all
of the burden of meaning on humans. He does not appeal to God. Humans make their
meaning through their choices.

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Unit 10 The Meaning of Life

John Haughts version of the metaphysical and religious approach toward

meaning (the essay Evolution, Tragedy, and Cosmic Purpose is available
on Blueline as a PDF file)

John Haught begins his essay with a paraphrase from the physicist Steven Weinberg: the
more comprehensive the universe has become to modern science, the more pointless it
all seems. Haught takes this to be the view of many scientists. It is close to the nihilist
view discussed above.
The first point that Haught makes about this tragic view of the universe is that it is not a
scientific view. When scientists make assertions of this sort, they are not talking as
scientists, but as philosophers (311). Science does not say anything about the meaning
or purpose of the universe and of human life.
One traditional religious approach to this science based, pessimistic view of the universe
is to escape into some form of dualism (312). Humans can look forward to immortal
survival into another realm of reality, a spiritual world (312). Without going into any
detail in this essay, Haught rejects this approach as contrary to the biblical worldview.
The biblical view is that the entire cosmos is stamped by the promises of God (312).
Haught then turns to the Christian conception of God as a God of love and promise
(313). In discussing the attribute of love, Haught proposes that Gods love is expressed
by a self-emptying into the creation of the cosmos. He uses the Greek word kenosis,
usually translated as emptying or self-emptying to express this. The idea here is that
God gives the universe a high degree of autonomy, independence (giving independence
is one way of expressing love) to find its own way in the evolutionary process. We
encountered this position in our earlier discussion of Haughts philosophy under the
problem of evil and issues in the relationship between science and religion. Genuine
love gives the other space to become something distinct, something other (316).
Haught also often refers Gods humility to express this conception of Gods action in
creating and sustaining the universe.
The other biblical attribute of God which Haught discusses is promise and consequent
hope. This is expressed in Christianity by resurrection and the second coming (318).
Here Haught connects Christian hope with what earlier in the course (Unit 2 The
existence of God) we referred to as the fine-tuning of the universe. The universe
seems to be directed from the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago to evolving toward the
existence of life and mind. Although the story of the evolution of the universe and of
life on earth is not linearly progressive, nonetheless it seems to display a general
direction toward increasingly complex forms of natural order (320). The
directionality is from simplicity to complexity and toward an increase in beauty
(320). Here Haught is using beauty in the Whiteheadian sense of variety and

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Unit 10 The Meaning of Life
complexity. In sum, the story of the universe, Haught proposes, displays that the
universe is full of promise rather than tragedy, hope rather than despair (319).
But Haughts interpretation of the evolution of the cosmos and of life and his proposed
way of connecting this to Christianity leaves unanswered the question: how does this
vision of the universe give meaning to my life. How does the meaning of our individual
lives fit into this grand vision of the universe?