Re-reading Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” (Simon and Schuster, A Clarion Book, 1959, 145 pp.) has been a really interesting experience for me. The book is challenging me to reflect on how important I believe meaning to be in my life and in the life of others. I have come up with an imaginary example that I think may help to illustrate the crucial role that meaning should play in everyone’s life.
Imagine two people, one who believes deeply in God’s love for all people and one who is certain that there is no God and that we are the chance products of evolution. In my imagined example, we must picture the two people as holding their view of reality and human life deeply.
If each incorporates into his life the vision of reality each proclaims, the two lives will be radically different. The person who believes deeply in God’s infinite, unconditional love should be able to live with confidence and hope and be ready to unselfishly reach out to help others.
The person who believes deeply that there is no God, if faithful to incorporating that belief into his daily life, will have difficulty finding some motive to live unselfishly. If human existence has no purpose, if there is no wonderful meaning to our lives, why bother continuing to live?
Some atheists in trying to find some reason to help others suggest that such unselfish actions will make the world a better place and will be helping future generations of people.
I suggest that when we reflect on the truth that every person in the future will die, that what is facing future generations of people is death, that death is the inevitable and final word about human persons, I do not find such a view as either beautiful or motivating. I think that if death is the final truth about human beings, then the necessary conclusion is that human existence is absurd.
What causes confusion I believe in my imagined example is that not all people who identify themselves as Christians seem to believe deeply and try to incorporate Christian faith into their lives.
Also many people who identify themselves as atheists may not be deeply committed to atheism and so do not try to incorporate their atheism into their daily lives.
In other words, some who identify themselves as Christian may live like secular atheists and some atheists may live as though they believe in God and that human life is not absurd.
Frankl writes the following:
“Man’s search for meaning is a primary force in his life and not a ‘secondary rationalization’ of instinctual desires. This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone; only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning.
“There are some authors who contend that meanings and values are ‘nothing but defense mechanisms, reaction formation, and sublimations.’ But as for myself, I would not be willing to live merely for the sake of my ‘defense mechanisms,’ nor would I be ready to die merely for the sake of my ‘reaction formations.’
“Man, however, is able to live and even to die for the sake of his ideals and values! … Man is never driven to moral behavior; in each instance, he decides to behave morally. … Man does not behave morally for the sake of having a good conscience but for the sake of a cause to which he commits himself, or for a person whom he loves, or the sake of his God” (p. 99-100).
I cannot judge what meanings motivate other people and should not try to make such judgments. Only God is God. However I can and should regularly examine what meanings are important in my life and I should always be ready to deepen those meanings.
In order to deepen those meanings, some of the questions I might reflect on are the following: “What is the meaning of God for me? Is the meaning of God for me the same as the meaning of God that Jesus presents in the Gospels? Why or why not? Is my prayer life helping me to grow closer to God? Why or why not? What am I reading that might help me grow closer to God? How do I spend my leisure time? Do my friends help me to grow? Do I help others to grow? What is my experience of the Eucharist? How might that experience improve?”
There are many other questions I might reflect on and each reflection may lead me fruitfully into the future.
Are the meanings in our life important? What could be more important? I think it is important to recall that we are not only searching for meaning, especially the meaning of God, but God is also searching for us.
Father Lauder is a philosophy professor at St. John’s University, Jamaica. He presents two 15-minute talks from his lecture series on the Catholic Novel, 10:30 a.m. Monday through Friday on NET-TV.