Part IX: The Meaning of Life

Chapter 26

Study questions for Must God Exist For Your Life to be Meaningful?

  1. Supernaturalism differs from naturalism in that only the former contends that a spiritual realm is necessary for our lives to be meaningful. What do you think makes something spiritual as opposed to physical?
  2. What is your judgement of the case of Gauguin? Was his life meaningful? If so, what difference is there between his case and the one regarding using innocent people’s blood as paint?
  3. Consider some additional ways, besides being a great painter, by which a person’s life could arguably be meaningful apart from being moral, that is, meaningful in virtue of ‘non-moral’ considerations. (Notice the difference between doing something that is non-moral, i.e., neither morally blameworthy nor morally praiseworthy, and immoral, morally blameworthy.)
  4. Recall the objection that God’s commands cannot be what ground morality since God could command anything at all, including intuitively immoral behaviour such as torture. One promising reply is that God’s commands would be determined by God’s unchanging nature as loving. Would an essentially loving God be consistent with other features that God is often thought to exhibit, for example, punishing people for their guilt, perhaps even damning them eternally?
  5. Try to develop a plausible reply to the objection that meaning cannot consist in fulfilling God’s commands since it would be degrading of the dignity of human persons for God to command them.

Multiple Choice Questions

Weblinks for Must God exist for your life to be meaningful?

Craig, W. L. (1994). ‘The Absurdity of Life without God’, http://www.bethinking.org/is-there-meaning-to-life/the-absurdity-of-life-without-god. [An influential ‘apologist’ for Christianity, the author provides several reasons for thinking that life would be meaningless without God, including the idea that no universally binding moral rules would exist.]

Di Muzio, G. (2006). ‘Theism and the Meaning of Life’. Ars Disputandi 6, http://www.arsdisputandi.org/publish/articles/000241/article.pdf. [Focused on refuting several of William Lane Craig’s rationales for thinking that God’s existence is necessary for meaning in life.]

Introductory further reading for Must God exist for your life to be meaningful?

Cottingham, J. (2003). On the Meaning of Life. Routledge. [Written for a generally educated audience, this book, which is a pleasure to read, defends the idea that life would be meaningless without God, mainly because we could not achieve worthwhile goals on our own without His help.]

Kurtz, P. (2012). Meaning and Value in a Secular Age. Prometheus Books. [Several essays by an influential atheist about how life can be meaningful in the absence of a spiritual realm and belief in it.]

Martin, M. (2002). Atheism, Morality, and Meaning. Prometheus Books. [A vigorous defence of a naturalist approach to morality, in the first half of the book, and to meaning, in the second. Very critical of Christian approaches to both.]

Thomson, G. (2003). On the Meaning of Life. Wadsworth, esp. 15–67. [In this textbook for undergraduate philosophy majors, the author critically explores not only the       purpose theory of meaning in life, but also additional arguments for thinking that God or spirituality is essential.]

Walker, L. H. (1989). ‘Religion and the Meaning of Life and Death’. In L. Pojman (ed.), Philosophy: The Quest for Truth, Wadsworth Publishing, 167–71 Wadsworth. [Contends that concerns about autonomy and degradation are overrated, and that without God there would be nothing to ground a conception of morality according to which humans have an equal standing.]

Advanced further reading for Must God exist for your life to be meaningful?

Adams, R. (1999). Finite and Infinite Goods. Oxford University Press. [An intricate defence of a divine command theory of morality, developed and defended in the context of a comprehensive theistic account of value.]

Baier, K. (1957). ‘The Meaning of Life’, reprinted in E. D. Klemke and S. M. Cahn (eds), The Meaning of Life: A Reader, 3rd edn, 82–113. Oxford University Press, 2008. [A lecture that targets Christian accounts of what makes a life meaningful, and voices the concern that God would degrade us, and not help to make our lives meaningful, were He to command us.]

Hartshorne, C. (1984). ‘God and the Meaning of Life’. In L. S. Rouner (ed.), On Nature, 154–68. University of Notre Dame Press. [The famous process theologian contends that since we could be part of an everlasting unity only by constituting part of God’s mental life, particularly by being remembered by God, God is essential for meaning in our lives.]

Mawson, T. (2012). ‘Recent Work on the Meaning of Life and Philosophy of Religion’. Philosophy Compass 8: 1138–46. [A useful overview of the latest professional philosophical literature on God and the meaning of life.]

Metz, T. (2013). Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study.Oxford University Press. [Spends several chapters (see esp. pp. 77–160) exploring a wide array of arguments for supernaturalist conceptions of meaning in life, contending that they all ultimately rely on the claim that perfection is necessary for meaning, a claim he contends is implausible.]

Nozick, R. (1981). ‘Philosophy and the Meaning of Life’. In his Philosophical Explanations, 571–619. Harvard University Press. [Is sympathetic to the idea that God is necessary for ‘deep’ meaning in life, not because only God could ground moral rules, but rather because only God could be unlimited.]

Quinn, P. (2000). ‘How Christianity Secures Life’s Meanings’. In J. Runzo and N. Martin (eds), The Meaning of Life in the World Religions, 53–68. Oneworld Publications. [Although the author admits that some meaning would be available in a world without God, he advances the idea that obeying a Christian God would greatly enhance meaning in life.

Wielenberg, E. (2005). Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe. Cambridge University Press. [Defends the possibility of morality and meaning on the supposition that atheism is true.]