“The Question of Meaning: Source, Significance, Solution”

As a Chinese proverb goes, “if you want to know about what water is, don’t ask a fish”. It is rather true for us when it comes to the topic of “Meaning[1]”. Arguably, it is already a given[2] of our existence, because we are always in the endeavor of interpretation—we interpret our environment, the phenomena that beset us, and even the people that surround us. In short, all of our immediate reality. It is as if saying that we are immersed in “meaning”, either in the “making” or in “decoding”.

Why? Because we operate in and through “Language”. We access our reality through our sense perceptions and our minds, but we operate and express them through language. Language is almost inescapable, so to speak. This fact of existence upholds what the Bible says in John 1:1-3[3]:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.

It entails, therefore, that everything is expected to work accordingly, hence meaningfully if reality corresponds with idea; if the environment is parallel with the plan or blueprint.

Sad to say, it has not been always the case. Just recently[4], when I was sharing the Gospel to one of my students, she had no recourse but accept Jesus as her personal lord and savior when, for the first time, she said, she understood how far off we, humans, have been from the original design of God for this life and universe and from God Himself, who has always been pursuing us. She understood this personally, which in her emphatic words, “It all makes sense to me[5] now, sir!”. Her private personal sadness suddenly took a different platform in the light of the truth of the Gospel.

Needless to say, but the Gospel, once properly communicated to the hearer, will expose the despairing condition of man. This condition of despair apart from God’s truth, grace and love, is the reason why most of us find this life rather dry, frustrating and… meaningless. And contrary to what the Algerian Existentialist, Albert Camus, wanted to propose in his “Myth of Sisyphus”, meaning cannot arise from meaninglessness and absurdity, anymore as something can come out of nothing.

Given that we understand that we live in a fallen state of affairs of the created order, let me talk to you now the source of the question of meaning. Because we operate through language and it is through language that we correspond reality with idea, the question of meaning arises when there is a conceptual breakdown, which is often articulated in following terms: Contradiction (and the appearance thereof) and Breach between idea and practice.

In the most common level, any sort of contradiction—either a real or just a seeming contradiction[6]—will always bring us a momentary pause. This is because contradictions go against the natural or the logical flow of our thought. When we read the sentence, “This stone is hard”, we take the statement or the expression almost without thinking because “stones” are in reality, really “hard”. Hardness, as informed by our senses, is a property of almost any solid object, in this instance, a “stone”. If it is not “hard”, chances are it is not a stone. But when we read this assertion: “No sentences have five words.”, we automatically pause and try to inspect it with suspicion. We see that there is a contradiction with what the statement ASSERTS and what the statement IS. What kind of pause, to the brink of vexation will we even more have when we observe this picture: https://scontent.fmnl4-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t34.0 12/16790485_160645834440535_382953343_n.jpg?oh=10c801dc779d49c007d6998afaeecc7a&oe=58A75F47!?

In raising the level of annoyance, what more if you get caught in a situation where standing for what is true and righteous makes you the wrong guy?! I suppose this makes the scenario a lot clearer now.

The other source of questions of meaning, I say, is when there is a breach or a gap between the idea/theory/claim and the real/practice/substance. People, by default, get frustrated and suspect the presence of meaning when the “promise” is meant to be “broken”. Without mincing words, though with due respect, the immediate culprits for such a breach are the Christians themselves. Christ said, “I came that you may have life and live life to the full[7]”. Thus, the worldview, Christianity, that springs out from such a statement, promises a “life lived to the full”. Though it does not necessarily mean a life without suffering or hardship (for such was never promised by Jesus[8]), Christians “ought to” be manifesting this “life lived to the full”[9] whatever that is. Sadly, the opposite is often observed. Many a time, it is the Christian who is often labelled as ‘hypocrites’, ‘insensitive’, or ‘dismissive’, at worst… ‘unforgiving’. Not that they have to conform to such and such expectations, but it seems to me that Christians are not “bearing the fruit to last[10]”. There seems to be a gap between what they preach and what they live out. Sure, there are circumstances that everyone undergoes, but it never takes away the fact that they are to live up and “press on toward the […] upward call[11]” to persevere--- the calling they (we) received from Jesus, nonetheless. And this can only be done by His grace.

The running principle is this: If the Gospel proclaims life transformation, why aren’t we observing more and more transformed lives? There is the need to bridge the gap between the idea of Christianity and practice of Christianity, if we want to see the Gospel advancing, and people responding to our invitation. This is true to all of us, yes, including me.

As if the situation was not yet worse, let me paint another hard to swallow scenario: it is when the Christian him/herself who experiences the breach: s/he does not experience the promise of the “full life”. He/she undergoes lack of breakthroughs, despite constant service; there are unanswered prayers, despite continuous devotion; there is lingering pain, despite the absence of sufficient reason. It is as if the situations are really ‘contriving’ against the Christian to the point that s/he almost echoes the Israelites in their clamor:

“And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness […] ‘Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full …[12]’”(emphasis added).

At this point, I can almost hear your minds asking: WHY? What’s the point of it all? The feeling is analogous to picking up the fragments of a broken jar that you dearly treasured: it is an act of desperation to collect the pieces, which the hope of restoration resides only in the memory of what it was a while back―Christianity promises me paradise, but now that I am sold out to Christ, my life seems to crumble and fall apart… the center cannot hold.

With lachrymal eyes and quivering lip (at times with a raised clenched fist before God’s face), we ask: Why is this so, Lord? Where is the plan you said you know you have for me? That plan not to harm me, but to prosper me? Why do I seem to not have hope and a future anymore? The tension further increases when you realize that going back to the world is far fatal, but staying in God’s presence means lingering pain (see John 6:68). Odysseus of the great Greek Epic calls the situation being “in between the devil and the deep blue sea”, only that here, the ‘devil’ is not the adversary.

Insisting on the meaning of life despite contradictions and absurdity should remain, however. It is where the significance of becoming more and more aware of the question of meaning makes us a broad canvas of God’s masterful artwork of Sanctification. When we listen back to the aforementioned questions, certainly they are not at all different from those that had been asked by Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Nehemiah, and Habakkuk, as confirmed by Zechariah. Not to the point of trivializing the question for a unified meaning, but the response we give to our ‘boiling pot’ condition simply affirms the supremacy of the rationality we hope we maximally had.

In other words, we always had the expectation of how things are supposed to be were we to have the absolute sovereignty. No other learned man comes to mind than Viktor Frankl[13] when it comes to how one should really respond to this part of the climax. With a huge grain of salt, he said:

“We need to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.

These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment”[14].

Rephrased, these words are a sobering reminder that we live in a fallen world, after all. We concede, though without losing hope, that none of us really have the certainty of the earthly life. What it only proves is that, we are not to walk this world without going through the sieve of suffering and absurdity and what remains of us in our faithful crying out for grace to receive strength is that which stands eternity. After all, as George Macdonald purports: “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You just have a body”. The same is heard in the words of C.S. Lewis to this effect: If Christianity is true, then we are to live forever and all that remained in our souls, we shall carry ever eternally.

Therefore, in the current situation you have where meaning seems scarce, in truth, is not scarcity of meaning at all, but a filter… a grid to which you are privileged to emerge bright as God’s glory like that shadow-less brilliance of the sun at the height of day. The search for meaning is only meaningful if God is the focal point of our vision, because it is on the cross when love, justice, forgiveness, freedom, and mercy and all other virtues we want to have in this lifetime as our essence converge into one singularity: Jesus, who for the joy set before Him endured the ultimate meaninglessness of human injustice so that you and I can freely access what these virtues truly mean from the here-and-now to the there-and-beyond sub specie æternitatis.

Because the truth of the matter is this: that every time we demand meaning, we insist what we believe is our righteous place and accomplishment in the universe, which without, God means nothing at all. That every time we demand meaning, we actually demand an explanation, ultimately to the God who owe nothing to us; for whatever we think we ought to receive, we do not really deserve, if not for Christ’s grace and mercy. The Apostle Paul could not pen it any lesser:

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For this sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead (Philippians 3:7-11).

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ… it is enough that we have the Why to live for, by Whom we can bear almost any how (Cf. Friedrich Nietzsche). So what is the Meaning of life? This Christian Life? Jesus Christ. How? It is for me to know and for YOU to find out.[15]

[1] I wrote and read this article as a manuscript in an Apologetics lecture/discussion on the said topic with the TWM Bible Study Ministry, Feb. 16, 2017, at Jollibee Commerce, Alabang Muntinlupa City.

[2] As opposed to the secular West, where relativism is observed, as if a pure autonomy without impunity, the question of Meaning in our context somehow still strides between achieving our chief ends in life, in our relationships, in our workplaces and in our socio-political interactions.

[3] Quoted Bible verses are from the ESV unless otherwise noted.

[4] The reference is February 15, 2017

[5] Additional emphasis added.

[6] Rhetorically speaking, there are what we call appearance of contradiction in certain levels of expression: Phrase level, i.e. Oxymoron, Sentence level, i.e. Paradox, Experience level, i.e. Irony. These just “appear” to be contradictions, because they are used to express something beyond what they state. In other words, they are only “apparent contradictions”, because there is truth to be communicated through them, whereas real contradiction does not only lack truth, but it opposes truthfulness (Cf. Law of Non-Contradiction).

[7] John 10:9b

[8]See John 15:18-19, 16:33

[9] See John 6:35, 13:34-35, 14:12-13

[10] See John 15:16 (NIV)

[11] See Philippians 3:14

[12] Exodus 16:3

[13] Viktor Frankl was a renowned psychiatrist, who practiced Logotherapy. He survived the concentration camps in Auschwitz, Poland during the Nazi regime.

[14] Frank, Viktor. (1984). Ed. Man’s Search for Meaning. p. 98. Pocket Books

[15] Prepared and Presented by:

Alvin Servaña Túgbo

Chapter Director, Ratio Christi Campus Apologetics Alliance (Philippines)