What is life all about?

By Robert G. Coleman

Even in our fast-paced 21st century lives, it is still wise to pause and ponder on this question. “Although we agree in calling life a burden, … very few of us are willing to lay it down. The thought of impending death causes us all alarm,” wrote John Wesley, one of the founding fathers of Methodism. The irony is quite clear, isn’t it? Many of us go about complaining and philosophizing on how difficult and pointless life is. “Life is a waste of time”, one might remark as if to suggest that time is more valuable than life. Yet at the slightest hint of death we hurriedly seek ways to protect our lives. If life is indeed pointless then why protect it or keep it? Why do we get scared at the thought of impending death?

We may entertain the belief that life has no ultimate purpose but it is when death comes closest that we are forced to re-evaluate our commitment to this belief. One time Cambridge University Professor and Christian thinker, C. S. Lewis put it aptly: “You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.” The general human reluctance to die and leave this life is a real clue that we are here for a purpose beyond ourselves. The Christian scriptures teach that man is created by God, in God’s image and for God. If you accept this teaching then life must be deemed sacred. If you reject this teaching then you are left to your own autonomy since you trace your existence to no supreme being. In this case, you subject your decisions ultimately only to the dictates of your own desires; you decide what is right or wrong. In essence you are the standard for your life – you are your own god. For many who believe this way, personal happiness then becomes the prime goal of life. “I’m in this life to meet my needs and longings and just make myself happy,” goes the thinking.

“Trying to meet our real needs without God is like trying to satisfy our thirst with salty water: the more we drink, the thirstier we become. This is a sure path to various sorts of addictions,” observes J. M. Njoroge, a Christian Apologist. I agree. You see, in our human nature are found various deep longings – the longing to belong or for fellowship, the longing for respect and significance, the longing for affection, the longing to give and receive love, the longing for intellectual satisfaction. All these longings find their complete satisfaction in the Being (whom some don’t want to assume) that caused our existence. Religious folks call this being God. Outside of God, we will require so many different things to feed these various longings (which never go away; they only seem to change positions and increase in intensity from time to time) and it gets frustrating. The Bible says that “human desires are like the world of the dead – there is always room for more” Proverbs 27:20 GNB.

The Search of Answers

Some people experiment with many things – religion, money, sex, alcohol, relationships or family life, work, a fast paced life, academics and the list goes on ad infinitum – in their quest to find that special thing that will quench the thirst in their deepest being. In their book “Happiness Is a Choice,” Psychologists, Frank Minirth and Paul Meier came to the conclusion that a lot of people choose happiness as an aim in life but are unable to attain it simply because they seek for this inner peace and joy in the wrong places. Many people pursue happiness in materialism but do not find it. Joy that is sought in sexual adventures culminates in fleeting pleasures and bitter long-term disappointments. People seek for inner fulfillment by obtaining powerful positions in corporations, in government, and other social groups yet all these leave them unfulfilled.

Although many of us who have failed in our attempts to attain inner fulfillment would not readily admit it openly, Israel’s King Solomon, however, is one of the few who has done so. In the book of Ecclesiastes he said:

“I decided to enjoy myself and find out what happiness is. … Driven on by my desire for wisdom, I decided to cheer myself up with wine and have a good time. I thought that this might be the best way people can spend their short lives on earth. I accomplished great things. I built myself houses and planted vineyards. I planted gardens and orchards, with all kinds of fruit trees in them; I dug ponds to irrigate them. I bought many slaves, and there were slaves born in my household. I owned more livestock than anyone else who had ever lived in Jerusalem. I also piled up silver and gold from the royal treasuries of the lands I ruled. Men and women sang to entertain me, and I had all the women a man could want…. Anything I wanted, I got. I did not deny myself any pleasure. I was proud of everything I had worked for, and all this was my reward. Then I thought about all that I had done and how hard I had worked doing it, and I realized that it didn’t mean a thing. It was like chasing the wind—of no use at all.” [Ecclesiastes 2:1-11GNB]

Just think about the last line, “It was like chasing the wind—of no use at all.” It sounds like a rather disappointing end, doesn’t it? Yet these are the words of one who denied himself no pleasure. Christian philosopher, Dr. Ravi Zacharias has noted that the loneliest time in life is when you have just achieved what you thought would deliver the ultimate and it has let you down. Isn’t it true? Nothing is so depressing than climbing to the top only to find that there is nothing there. Elvis Presley, of whom ‘The New York Times’ newspaper, on the day of his death, described as “once the object of such adulation that teen-age girls screamed and fainted at the sight of him” was asked the following question by an interviewer six weeks before his death: “Elvis, when you started out in music, you said you wanted to be rich; you wanted to be famous; and you wanted to be happy. You sure are rich, and you're very, very famous. Are you happy, Elvis?” To this the Rock and Roll icon replied, "No, I'm not happy. I'm as lonely as hell.” I think it was the English writer, G. K. Chesterton, who once said that meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain but it rather comes from being weary of pleasure. I am persuaded that the deep hunger of the soul cannot be satisfied with this world’s offerings. Ultimately we need something that transcends this world of space and time.

The Afterlife And The Thirst For Meaning

Anything that is composed of parts can be decomposed into its parts. For instance a person can be decomposed into body and soul, a body into organs and organs into cells. The soul however is not composed of parts. Unlike the body it has no countable parts and therefore cannot be decomposed. So while the body can be destroyed through decomposition, the soul cannot. Therefore the soul does not die – it lives on. This is why deep within us we want to live forever. The soul is presently in our time and space bound body and we are not satisfied with this whole world of time and mortality. The soul was not made for time but for eternity. (The Christian Bible teaches that the original intent of God was for human life to go on and on but sin interrupted this plan.) C. S. Lewis has insightful pointed out that our repeated exclamations like “How he's grown!” and “How time flies!” actually go to show how little reconciled we are to time. He notes that our astonishment is as strange as the case would be if we found a fish that was repeatedly surprised at the wetness of water. Such a fish would be strange indeed unless that fish was destined to become a land animal one day. Even our human experience and logic suggest that the afterlife is a possibility rather than an impossibility. Even if you are not certain of whether or not an afterlife exists, wisdom dictates that you prepare for the possibility since you are not certain of its impossibility. The Bible (a trusted source of history, moral and spiritual teachings) tells us that there is life after death and how we live in this present life determines where and how we spend eternity – either with God in a heavenly city or separated from God in hell. “Everyone must die once, and after that be judged by God,” says Hebrews 9:27 GNB

There are those who resist this idea of an afterlife (perhaps because of the judgment and heaven/ hell connotations), and insist that all there is is life in the present world. What is interesting is that you also hear these same people conclude that since there is no afterlife they will have to make the most of this present life. Notice the subtle disappointment here: Unless a person has a sense of a dashed opportunity he would not feel an imperative to make the best of his present situation. Such fatalistic comments only betray a deeply felt struggle. By disallowing the possibility of eternity, they inevitably feel the constriction of space and time. Their refusal to recognize or admit the real possibility of the afterlife forces them to look for ultimate meaning in the few “three score years and ten” and unfortunately this meaning is elusive. If there is no afterlife then this present life has no ultimate meaning and love and justice become, at best, mere sentimental niceties and at the worst, a mockery.

Is God Really The Answer?

We are free to say that there is no God but if our experience with this universe is anything to go by then it is clear that we require more faith to hold on to any atheistic tendencies we may have than it does to yield to the belief that there is designer - that there is a God. Think of the seasons of the weather and how each knows when to take its turn. Think of the planets held in their orbits and consistently circling the sun. Think of the billions to trillions of stars in their positions in the numerous galaxies, not crushing into the planets and wreaking havoc on the natural order. Think about how the human body knows when to break the voice, when to broaden the shoulders or widen the hips and when to grow pubic hair. The design is obvious and only people determined to look away from the evidence would try to dispute this. These phenomena cannot be the doing of an accidental event millions or even billions of years ago. Think of the sense of moral right and wrong in the conscience – even if it was invented by a human being (which it was not), what accounted for the intelligence in that human to even think of inventing such a thing that brings order?

There is too much intelligence in the universe to be accounted for by the explosion of an expanding helium gas. For the DNA of a single strand of human hair is known today to contain hundreds of thousands of pages of information. Whatever caused our existence must be very intelligent - more intelligent and more powerful than we are or will ever be. And when religious people call this causal agent God, I think they are on point. Most people who claim there is no God ironically often think themselves to be intelligent. And it is often the case that such people are brilliant mathematicians, scientists, philosophers etc. But clearly even the fact that these people have some intelligence indicates that there is intelligence in this universe and particularly in the very first cause, which religious folks like me call God. St. Aquinas once observed that what is introduced into the soul of a student by the teacher is contained in the knowledge of the teacher. If we have intelligence it shows that whatever caused our human existence has intelligence.

The Bible teaches that God made this world and he has not left this world orphaned, as those who point to evil and suffering usually think. God designed this world in such a way that it is only in union with himself that we can find ultimate meaning and fulfillment in our lives. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian, once observed that happiness and peace depend so little on circumstances; they depend really on what happens inside a person. King Solomon, after pursuing several vanities of life finally gave this verdict in Ecclesiastes 12:13-14: “After all this, there is only one thing to say: Have reverence for God, and obey his commands, because this is all that we were created for. God is going to judge everything we do, whether good or bad, even things done in secret.” GNB

The Bible says that everyone has sinned and is far away from God’s saving presence (Romans 3:23). The word sin has the idea of “missing the mark.” And the prophet Isaiah captures this idea when he says, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; …” (Isaiah 53:6 GNB). Sin disconnects the core of our being from its life-giving source – God, who is our creator. But the reality is that there is some degree of pleasure in sin, or at least most sins. The feeling of autonomy can seem liberating. It is deception to think that sin is not enjoyable. Sin gives pleasure! This is why a liar, a cheat, an adulterer or a serial killer might say of his actions: “it felt so good” or “It feels so right.” However, a sin-generated pleasure is not lasting; soon it turns sour and empty and one will need increased stimuli to repeat the last pleasurable experience. Thus a cheat will cheat more and an immoral person will engage in more immoral acts. But man was made to have fellowship with God and a sinful life eventually brings a sense of restlessness and often a general loss of meaning in life because the divinely intended fellowship has been broken by sin.

A person may look quite lovely and happy in appearance but something can be missing deep down in the heart. There is, as one might say, a kind of God-shaped void in everyone. St. Augustine was spot-on when he prayed saying, “…for Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.” God made us as finite creatures yet placed in us a longing for the infinite. God, the only Infinite Being, is the one who can infinitely meet our deepest need. No finite substitute will do. Indeed, not only can God meet our deepest needs but he actually wants to. A good reading of the Bible shows that God yearns to give Himself and to satisfy our souls with the richness of his goodness. He has taken the first step of extending a hand of forgiveness to us even though we have not sought it: “For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 GNB). Jesus Christ is this Son who was crucified for our sins and if only you will believe in him today as your Saviour, all your sins will be forgiven by God and you can make a fresh start with God.

Robert G. Coleman is the president of SimplyChrist Ministries, an evangelism and Christian Apologetics organization.(www.scmin.org; Author’s e-mail: info@scmin.org)