54. "The meaning of life"

"Don't say 'the meaning of life.' Say 'the purpose of life.' 'Meaning' is ambiguous. Sometimes it means 'signification' and sometimes it means 'purpose.' Applied to life it nearly always means 'purpose' but the other meaning creeps in and confuses things. There's enough confusion in discussions of the purpose of life without your adding to it."

My grandfather wasn't confused, and he talked about the "meaning of life" and he made very clear that it meant "urpose of life." He said it was to do God's will. Discussions with him were very short.

"And he could explain very clearly — maybe because he had a lot of help. Anybody who was in doubt about God's will could turn to the Bible, or the Catechism, or great poets like Dante and Milton."

I'm not in doubt about God's will; I'm in doubt about God. Take him away and you take his will out of the discussion. Yet thoughtful people keep talking and I want to listen to them. I hear the philosopher Philip Kitcher talk about a 'life without meaning' and the literary theorist Bruce Robbins talk about 'the malaise of meaninglessness' (both in the recent Joy of Secularism, Princeton UP) and I say, 'Yes, that's my life.' I need some help with it and they speak my language."

"I can see that, and I hope you'll forgive me for saying this harsh thing about it: it's the language of adolescence. In it the ambiguous word 'meaning' is used carelessly and the response to the removal of God is immature."

The carelessness I can see. Kitcher (or, more precisely, the people he's referring to) can't mean that life is without meaning. Not with reference to my life, or that of all the God-forsaken people I know. Dark clouds still mean rain, two fingers still mean a curve ball, a raised eyebrow from my spouse still means I'm talking too much. My life is full of that kind of meaning. He should have said what he meant: 'life without purpose." There's nothing in it to do what service to God did. But how is the response immature?

"It's emotional and unreasoned, as early responses to shock tend to be. Here it's the shock of God-loss. The mature response to that is not malaise but acceptance. The acceptance can be sad but it can't be indignant, as Camus was (Post #7), or complaining, as Shelley was. That’s childish and unrealistic. The adult looks at the astronomer's universe, or the geologist's earth, or the biologist's cell — all the things that are supposed to take away meaning — and says, "This is the way it is. I can't deny it." The teacher encouraging adulthood says, "Get used to it." The well-taught student says, "OK, we're 0-1 on their clean-up hitter and I'm signaling a high, inside fastball from a rookie pitcher. This next pitch is going to have a lot of meaning."

And you think that that is about all the meaning students can handle.

"No, I think that that is about all the meaning I can help them with in a discussion, or listening to one. For me ballpark meanings are enough; for others, maybe not."