Choosing to Think Big

What gives meaning to life? That is the philosophical and spiritual question that has been asked for thousands of years. As a follower of Jesus, I have assumed that all others who follow Him would answer this in the same way: it is God. Through His son, Jesus, “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), He has brought all reality together. The purpose of life is found in Him.

But I have learned that though there are many who claim to believe in God and would nod in agreement with these words, not all live their lives as if this is true.

Universal Meaning?

I recently read a quote from the diary of an author from the early 20th Century. Though I do not know anything about her faith, her ideas easily represent how many people approach and resolve this question of what gives life meaning. She says:

“What makes people despair is that they try to find a universal meaning to the whole of life, and then end up by saying it is absurd, illogical, and empty of meaning. There is not one big, cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life, and individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person. To seek a total unity is wrong” (The Diary of Anais Nin Volume 1).

Her approach to minimizing the anguish most people feel as they try to figure out life’s purpose is don’t think too big. Seeking meaning that fits universally for all of existence never ends well, according to this author. Keep it small so you can manage it all by yourself. And I have no doubt that many today agree with her. What was interesting (as usual) were the comments on this post. Most sang the praises of this philosophical take on how to view life. One said, “Meaning in life is only found when I focus on the individual, particularly me. If it’s not going to make me happy then I’m going to have nothing to do with it.”

The Old Way: Universal Ideals

In ancient and Medieval philosophy, the reality of universal truths was pretty much assumed. When I say “universals,” I’m speaking of qualities or forms of reality that show up in our world as ideas, principles or purposes that hold true for everyone. When people talked about “justice,” it wasn’t something that was individualized and unique for each person and situation. It was something that was REAL, with an existence of its own, meant to be tapped into so that all could learn from and live by it. It was the same for the idea of “goodness.” It wasn’t merely a name for a personal value, that is, whatever felt good for an individual. There was the common belief that goodness was a universal ideal meant to provide structure to individual lives and societies as a whole in what they ought to be. Christians, of course, believed that the universal understanding of these ideals were in God Himself.

But then something called “nominalism” came along.

Philosophers in the late Middle Ages began to question universals. More and more it was in vogue to say that concepts like justice and goodness and beauty were mere names or labels given to individual experiences and perceptions. This doubt in universals grew through the centuries. The Enlightenment and development of scientific observation provided fuel for greater skepticism. Nothing could be known as objectively real beyond what can be experienced empirically through the five senses. And some even doubted that.

Thus today, the dominant belief underpinning Western culture is that “truth and goodness are whatever works for the individual within his or her cultural context,” and “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

Conflicting and Confusing Ideas

Even for Christians and believers in God, this denial of universals has infected how we see and understand the way the Almighty works in the world. Rather than accepting truth as a living ideal from which all people measure reality, God’s commands and words are simply that, sound waves that often feel disjointed and hollow. It’s easy then to either pick and choose which of His instructions or laws are meaningful to me personally and ignore the rest, or to disregard all that His word says as just an ancient perspective and nothing more.

It is becoming easier for me to see that the philosophical and theological break from universals has left an unfortunate legacy. The exaltation of secularism, the worship of individualism, and the ever-growing commitment to relativism can all be traced back to nominalism, “it’s just a name.” If every ideal, such as beauty, goodness, truth, love, and honor (to name a few), is merely a word, then it is up to the individual to give each their meaning. God is not needed, nor desired, as the One who defines these concepts. The result, of course, is chaos.

Thus we have a myriad of conflicting definitions. Besides having no common understanding of what goodness, or what love is, we’re not even sure what marriage is anymore. Nor do we have anything to tell us what makes someone a male or female. It all depends on the shifting feelings and personal interpretation of the individual or a loud group. One of the many casualties of nominalism is objectivity. Everything has become subjective because there is nothing that is universally true for everyone anymore.

A Universal Answer

As a follower of Jesus, I have come to believe that He is my universal. He is not just a name that I can give whatever meaning or significance that works best for me. I also believe that all humans can find salvation in Him, the steadfast Keeper of all that is universally true. Yes, we all have our personal opinions of what certain ideals should mean or what we would prefer them to mean. There will always be those, like the writer Anais Nin, who declare that “there is not one big cosmic meaning for all.” But ultimately everyone is going to have to bow to something bigger and more universal than themselves – sooner or later.

May God give us the grace to step back and think in terms of the BIG picture. And may we each realize that we are but small strands woven into a grand tapestry. It is not ours to weave it, but it is ours to find and give ourselves to the role our individual strands were meant to contribute to it. He is the Weaver and the only one who can direct us to what is universally true. From there, we can make sense of the world and our place in it.

For, He is God and we are not.

Response:

• Where do I find meaning for the concepts of truth, goodness, and beauty? How much of them are rooted in what God has revealed and how much is rooted in my personal feelings?
• What is so attractive about believing I can individually provide the definition and meaning behind the big concepts of life? What might be some of the unattractive or harmful features of that?
• If there are universal definitions for concepts such as beauty, goodness, and truth, how does that affect me and how I should live my life?
• Jesus, what does it mean to believe that you are the way, the truth, and the life? And is this universally true for everyone?

(Edited and reposted from June 26, 2023 “Choosing a Bigger Picture”)