In the ancient world, primitive cultures, for the most part, experienced the world as having a predictable order, with occasional episodes of chaos – this led them to believe that such order must be maintained by some greater power, in the same way, their rulers maintained control over them. And in the same way that their rulers could be dangerously capricious in their dictates, these gods of the natural world must anthropomorphically share in the very same type of narcissistic arrogance their human rulers demonstrated. So seeking to appease and pay tribute to these gods of nature, must have seemed like the most obvious way of surviving such a harsh and primitive existence. Within this paradigm – the meaning of life is forced through the lens of survival pragmatism.
For the modern man, this all is the type of nonsensical pish posh, one would expect that our ignorantly superstitious primordial ancestors would come up with such a preposterous ontological framework. Clearly, the natural world is completely explainable, without having to invent mythical gods. O sure, the reason why anything exists at all, is still an open question. And the universe does seem to be pitilessly indifferent to our existence. And sure, our current existence is nothing more than the latest iteration of a survival of the fittest . . . of which we may or may not survive. But at least we’re not stupid enough to fall for crazy unscientific explanations. So ironically, this paradigm also perceives the meaning of life as being forced through the lens of survival pragmatism.
It only makes sense that the value that we place above all other values would be for us our summum bonum (highest good). So when survival becomes our highest value – it only follows that our perception of meaning and purpose would be pursued by placing the significance of our own existence as preeminent to all else. This is how what we ontologically presuppose to be true becomes the epicenter of meaning for our lives – thereby dictating the hierarchy of values that inform our moral judgment. Therefore, if we begin with our own welfare as our ontological summum bonum, then invariably we build alters to worship the gods of our own making . . . including the god of scientism.
The idea that finite beings existing contingent to a preexisting context could somehow self-reference accurately their own ontological significance is absurd. Which is to say, if the only purpose for our existence – is our existence . . . then there is ultimately no meaning to our existence – making our sense of meaning nothing more than a mercurial illusion. This is why the presupposition of meaning we accept as true must have a transcendently sourced ontology – an ontology that invites us to remember the reason why we exist.
Adam and Eve desired the self-existence of God and ended up biting off more than they could chew, and ever since we’ve been at odds with our own existence – ever tempted to solipsistically place ourselves center stage while feigning objectivity. This is why “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom . . .” Psalm 111:10 – otherwise we’d be lost in a self-reference feedback loop of our own egocentric perception. Because when we humbly confess that God is God and we are not – we are set free to live within the transcendence of God’s presence . . . the source of all meaning.
So we do well to remember this is our Father’s world.
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