Reflecting on Life Purpose (First Draft)

On Sunday mornings I lead an edgy (or at least wanna be edgy) worship service at our local church. At some point during these gatherings we have a small group discussion time where individuals have the opportunity for greater community development and relational interaction. One particular Sunday a few weeks back I asked a question about “life purpose”. As part of this intro I asserted that individuals who have no connection to God have no life purpose.

As a result of this statement I seemed to stir the minds of the group and what is more interesting I seemed to touch the emotions, nerve, and intrude upon the opinion of several individuals. When this happened I had the attention of the individuals who were stepped upon as well as the rest of the group who felt the energy exuding from those individuals. Their claims were that people live lives of purpose every day with out knowing God. They said that people use work, children, passion, study and a variety of other things to fill their lives with purpose every day.

I would agree with this statement but would call this an example of a life filled with obligation and duty but lacking purpose and meaning. The term purpose in its truest sense implies fulfilling the design for which something was made. For an individual to find purpose the individual must first understand why they are here. This is a question that is raised by all people at various stages of their life. An individual can have things to do in life and even have direction in their life but this does not mean that they are fulfilling their life purpose. Ultimately life purpose can never be derived from “self” as the center. It is your task to discover why you are here but it is never your task to assign purpose to yourself.

Purpose comes from the outside.

When it comes to the design of a tool a designer never says, “hmm, hey look at this THING it would be great as a shovel or a hammer or a hair brush" (Not that these things are synonymous). The designer never starts with the tool and assigns purpose after it has been created; he starts with the idea of a need or a purpose for the tool and then creates a design that will best suit the purpose. Once the plan has been laid and the tool has been created it has a reason for being, not as a thing but as a tool. The tool can never say to “itself I would like to be this or that” or “I am this or that”. The tool can only be what it was made to be. A hammer would never do as a screw driver just as a screw driver would make an awful hammer. Now you may say, “I have used a screw driver as a hammer” but you will never claim that it worked great nor clam that it was better than a hammer. The designed purpose for the tool is always the best fit.

Humans are not mindless tools but we often try to do things that we were never intended to do. Or rather do things that are outside of our purpose. Also, like tools we can not assign our own purpose or give our own life meaning. Purpose comes from outside of us and is assigned according to a plan. If we try to assign our own purpose we realize that life ultimately has no meaning and no ultimate fulfillment. If we assign our own purpose we learn that we are the centre of life and the beginning of our life and that Death end. This is exactly the path and philosophy which naturalism has caused our world to believe. Naturalism in its essence claims that there is only the physical universe and that there is nothing outside of it.

Origin and Eternity

We come to an understanding of our purpose by asking and answering three questions, which are as follows: 1.Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going? It is imperative that we understand the first and the last question to understand the middle question “Why am I here?”

The first place an individual looks when trying to derive meaning or make since of life is “origin” The idea of origin manifests itself in the first question, “Where did I come from?” If this question is answered accurately then an individual should be able to move on the destiny question which is “Where am I going?” If the origin question is answered with an understanding of purpose and design the individual will be able to understand the purpose and design of destiny and eternity. But if the origin question is answered with randomness, chance, and chaos then the destiny question will be answered with the same conclusion. Embedded within these two answers is the answer to the purpose question. If we are to understand life as having purpose then we must understand purpose in the first cause or origin. Like wise in understanding that there is eternity rather than death we ca understand that there is no end.

For a long time in the Western context, naturalism has dictated the understanding of reality. What I mean by this is that if naturalism is the ruler by which we measure reality, we understand or view the universe as defined by the parameters and rules that govern naturalistic philosophy. Naturalism says that the origin of the universe was chance. Therefore by this parameter we have to then say that all life is chance. If all life is chance then human life is chance and as chance it has no design or purpose.

With an origin based on chance, humanity can not answer the question of purpose. However, if he tries he has to come to the conclusion that the only role he has to play in life is the role that he chooses for himself. Once again I might add that purpose can not be assigned to self it is something that is derived from a design or plan. So even in a human attempt to infuse purpose into his life the reality is that at best life is random combination of often contradictory objectives which have no unity or coherency for the individual. With that said asking the question “what am I here for?” is futile. Naturalism give humanity has no reason for being. If the end of all things is only death and chaos then we can draw no meaning from the ends or the question of destiny.