What They Say

Confucian scholar Tu Wei-Ming said: "The ultimate meaning of life is found in our ordinary, human existence." According to this view, humans would continue to be born, struggle for existence, and die. There is little hope in such an outlook. And is it even true?

Elie Wiesel, a survivor of the Nazi death camps in World War II, observed: "Why are we here? is the most important question a human being has to face.... I believe that life has meaning in spite of the meaningless death I have seen. " But he could not say what the meaning of life was.

Editor Vermont Royster stated: "In the contemplation of man himself...of his place in the universe, we are little further along than when time began. We are still left with questions of who we are and why we are and where we are going."

Evolutionary scientist Stephen Jay Gould noted: " We may yearn for a 'higher answer - but none exists." For such evolutionists, life is a struggle for survival of the fittest, death ending it all. There is no hope in that view either. And, again, is it true?

Many religious leaders say that the purpose of life is to lead a good existence so that at death a person's soul can go to heaven and spend eternity there. The alternative offered for bad people is eternal torment in hellfire. Yet, according to this belief, on earth there would continue to be more of the same unsatisfactory existence that has prevailed throughout history. But if God's purpose was to have people live in heaven like angels, why did he not just create them that way to begin with, as he did the angels?

Even clergymen have difficulty with such views. Dr. W.R. Inge, a former dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, once said: " All my life I have struggled to find the purpose of living. I have tried to answer three problems which always seemed to me to be fundamental: The problem of eternity; the problem of human personality; and the problem of evil. I have failed. I have solved none of them."



Continued- Next time: The Effect