Who are we and why are we here?

 

Part of being human is about knowing ourselves, even why we are here. The beloved Jewish philosopher and theologian, Abraham Heschel, asserted this very thing:

• It’s not enough for me to be able to say ‘I am’; I want to know who I am and in relation to whom I live. It is not enough for me to ask questions; I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face: What am I here for?

Life is filled with suffering and injustice. The innocent become victims in what seems to be a senseless flow of snickering events. These force us to re-ask Heschel’s question – “What am I here for.”

Solomon’s life had been devoted to answering this question:

• I thought to myself, "Look, I have grown and increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge. "Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind. For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief. (Ecclesiastes 1:16-18)

As hard as Solomon tried, he was unable to grasp life’s meaning. It was like trying to grasp “the wind.” Instead, his wisdom-quest produced “much sorrow” and “grief.” Why? Normally, he extolled the value of wisdom. However, when it came to grasping ultimate meaning, he was frustrated. He needed to know about the afterlife. Only this knowledge could give him the understanding for which he searched. However, his intellect was unable to pass through the curtain separating this life from the next. From the perspective of his limited wisdom-quest, it appeared that there was no meaning to life:

• For the wise man, like the fool, will not be long remembered; in days to come both will be forgotten. Like the fool, the wise man too must die!  So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. (Ecclesiastes 2:16-21)

Without the confident knowledge of life’s meaning, which requires the big picture, Solomon hated life. However, he wasn’t alone. Even secularists have expressed our utter need for life to having meaning.  Psychologist Arthur Deikman writes:

• Human beings need meaning. Without it they suffer… Western Psychotherapy is hard put to meet human beings’ need for meaning, for it attempts to understand clinical phenomena in a framework based on scientific materialism in which meaning is arbitrary and purpose nonexistent.

According to Deikman, meaning could not merely be subjectively created. For “Western Psychotherapy… purpose [is] nonexistent,” and we are not able to create what is “nonexistent.”  Even the atheist and Christianity-despiser, Frederick Nietzsche, wrote that “He who has a ‘why’ to live for can bear almost any ‘how!’” However, once we reject the afterlife, that “why” becomes unattainable.

Despite all that he possessed, Solomon could not bear life without answering this “why.” This is why the Christian is so blessed! Alluding to Solomon’s perplexity, the Apostle Paul wrote:

• If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. (1 Corinthians 15:19)

• If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." (1 Corinthians 15:32) 

Without heaven, life has no more meaning beyond a mad rush to fulfill ourselves. However, self-fulfillment will not satisfy, even in this life. Suffering is inevitable! How do we deal with it? Paul declared that we can only remain joyous in the hand of suffering as we look beyond it:

• I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18)

It is only the fragrance of our confidence in the next life that will enable us to look beyond the suffering. Why then are we here? It is eternity’s boot-camp!

The Question of God and why it Matters

A refusal to contemplate the existence of God is also a refusal to examine life. It is to live the unexamined life! This is because the question of God is foundational to the most important aspects of life. Here are a few examples that will illustrate the significance of this question:

1.     MORALITY: Without God, we can only base our moral beliefs on what is changing – feelings, thoughts/decisions, and culture. Without unchanging and universal moral law, which can only come from God, morality also becomes arbitrary and is unable to sustain our convictions and judgments. We are left living a schizoid life – our feelings telling us that injustice and genocide are absolutely wrong while our minds tells us that there is nothing absolutely wrong.

2.     MEANING/PURPOSE: Without God and His unchanging, universal moral law, we are left to create our own purpose for living. When our feelings are stable, this seems to be adequate, but when they aren’t, our lives become like the waves of the ocean.

3.     PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING: We need to be decisively forgiven from our guilt and shame. Without God, this may not be possible. Besides, we all crave to be valued and significant. If there is no God to fulfill these needs, then we must find another source to fulfill them – success, popularity, money, recognition. When life seems to be going well, it feels that these God-substitutes are adequate, albeit unstable.

4.     RELATIONSHIPS: Our relationships are affected by all of the above. If we do not have our basic existential needs met by God, we may place too many expectations and pressures on our relationships to meet them. Also, without any moral law (unchanging objective moral principles) to which to appeal, conflicts might prove unresolvable.

5.     AFTER-LIFE/ULTIMATE JUSTICE: The question of God is intimately connected this. Without an intelligent Being to weigh and mediate justice, there is no reason to expect that justice will be done. The knowledge that God will judge can free us to love and others and not seek revenge. It also makes it easier to forgive since we know that whatever harm has been done to us, an eternity of bliss awaits.

This is only a skeletal list at best. I hope it illustrates that if we believe in the God of the Bible, we are building our lives on a sound foundation. At the least, it is the only foundation that can support our houses.