Book Review in brief:
In her book, Susan Wolf seeks to tread the line between subjective and objective value.
For her, it is important to have regard for an object (thing or person) which is ‘worthy of’ love and, thus:
A meaningful life is a life that a.) the subject finds fulfilling, and b.) contributes to or connects positively with something the value of which has its source outside the subject.[1]
The great strength of her position is that it moves beyond the merely subjective towards a hybrid of subjective and objective valuation.
However, where Wolf fails is in her account of the objective. This is not her fault as a philosopher — but rather, because, without recourse to an Ultimate Authority or Arbiter (God), she must fall back on something precarious like the endoxic method championed by Aristotle. Aristotle did not seem to believe in ultimate, or universal values (in antithesis to his teacher, Plato), and thus, many early Christians found themselves drawn more to the latter.
In her Response to the four critical essays at the end of her book, Wolf admits that,
A person’s liking something or thinking it to be valuable doesn’t make it so (nor does her disliking something or thinking it not to be valuable make that so). Further, as it seems to me, a whole society’s liking something or believing it to be valuable, doesn’t make it so, all by itself.[2]
Yet, this does nothing to solve the problem if Wolf insists on the need for an objective element which comes to mean (it seems) regarded as such by someone-other-than-the-agent-pursuing-it.
She runs into further difficulty when she appeals to the notion that, ‘as Nietzsche has shown us, belief in a deity is not necessary in order for it to seem plausible that some values are independent of and in potential conflict with moral values.’[3] For it was Nietzsche who proposed in The AntiChrist that:
What is good? Whatever augments the feeling of power…
The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle of our charity. And one should help them to it.[4]
Although this is, arguably, a mere thought experiment, Wolf cannot account for a society (be it parallel or future) in which all sense of morality is topsy-turvy, and kindness, love, and honesty are deplored. Thus, her (doubtless well-intentioned, and optimistic) belief that we can ‘pool our information’[5] to arrive at a clearer sense of objective meaning is precarious — for, indeed, we ought to fear her hope that ‘new forms of value will evolve,’[6] since they may well be of the Nietzschean type.
Towards a christian response
The Christian is able to overcome these philosophical difficulties: since God is Judge, the Christian need not worry about the opinion of human beings on the worthiness of an object (where that object is a thing. The doctrine of the imago dei is sufficient to demonstrate that all actions which are other-regarding — inasmuch as they recognise the sacredness of another human by virtue of being made in God’s image as the basis for their action — as inherently worthy.)
However, in recognition of the fallibility of human judgment, to say nothing of moral corruption, it may well be the case that errors are made in moral judgments (such as Fletcher’s Situation Ethics).
Wolf wants to separate morality from value, and Nomy Arpaly feels that Wolf is in danger(?) of erecting a hierarchy of values against her previous work. Citing Wolf’s seeming caveat that one should pursue a love for art, ‘unless it entails extreme immorality’[7] highlights the difficulty one runs into when, as a (self-confessed) ‘bourgeois American’[8] one has certain moral values but is unwilling (or unable) to chalk them up to a genuinely objective Arbiter (God). Thus, at the same time, Wolf will (presumably) want to decry acts of random violence, and yet is not able to account for why such acts are not meaningful from an objective view, since she also wants to separate meaning and questions of value from questions of morality. Frankly, this is a fudge.
Again, the Christian makes no such mess because she has embraced a hierarchical structure which is, simultaneously, balanced. This is because, for the Christian —taking the Thomist insight that ‘He is one in reality, and yet multiple in idea’[9] — God’s moral judgements and aesthetic values are not actually separate.
The difficulty arises out of our human ignorance, of course — and, thus, we might be forced into a sort of apophatic speech around how we ensure that we do not fritter away our time on unworthy objects, rather than try to define what a ‘worthy’ object is.
There is good biblical precedent for this: in his letter to the Philippians, Paul adjures his readers thus:
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. [10]
Paul implies that much has intrinsic worth.
The difficulty comes, perhaps, in aesthetics. I find the work of Tracy Emin banal at best, vulgar at worst. I have a very particular definition of art (which requires explicating elsewhere, though in brief, I will say that for something to be classed as art it must be a work of intentional sub-creation, requiring a certain specialised effort and skill, which, in turn, points us towards (God’s) Truth and Beauty. Writing the names of “Everyone I have Ever Slept With” inside a tent fails on both counts).
However, this is merely directed at the enjoyment of objects which are (or are not) praise-worthy — and I wish, now, to draw a distinction (which Wolf hints at but does not, I think, properly demarcate) between the Feeling of a ‘life of meaning’, and the actuality of a life of meaning. I would also add to this, the attitude and knowledge of the meaningfulness of life.
To deal with simple matters first:
The gospel proclaims that human life is meaningful because it is valued by its Creator, God — who made humankind in His own image.
Further than this, despite humans’ self-destructive tendencies, and wilful disregard of God and His good laws, God poured out grace upon grace, ultimately showing His love for us on the cross. Thus, all human life is meaningful because the Son of God was prepared to die for it.
(We will say more about Jesus in a minute).
Once this fact is recognised, the cognisance of this truth alone is a sufficient condition to feel life is (objectively) meaningful. Thus, as a Christian, I find I do not ask the question, ‘Is my life meaningful’? i.e. is it valuable? Because Christ paid the ultimate price for it.
However, the secondary question, ‘Am I living out my life in a meaningful way?’ is more complex because, although it may also be answered objectively, it includes a psychological dimension in the recognition — hence, How can I know I am living out my life in a meaningful way?
To quote Gandalf, ‘All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us’.[11]
Success or failure?
One of the better parts of the Wolf’s lectures was her contribution to the extended thought experiments on Sisyphus — in which she discusses Richard Taylor’s thought experiment in which Sisyphus, having been condemned to an eternity of stone-rolling, is chemically (or, perhaps psychologically) transformed into someone who loves his task. However, Wolf points out that in this ‘Sisyphus Fulfilled’ case:
‘Sisyphus’s task is no longer boring—no longer boring to Sisyphus, that is. But it remains futile. There is no value to his efforts; nothing ever comes of them’[12]
Within the diegesis, it is difficult not to concur with Wolf’s assessment that the futility of Sisyphus’ actions render them meaningless. Yet, what if Sisyphus were an abolitionist? In the Cloud Atlas, one of the narrators, intent on dedicating his life to the abolitionist cause, is remonstrated by his father-in-law, who scoffs that, on his deathbed, he shall understand that ‘”your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean.”’ The narrator’s response (and closing line of the novel) is: ‘Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?’[13]
Success is not a good criterion for assessing worth because a human may very well not have control over the success of a project. Taking a lead from Kant — that the only consistently good thing is a good will — we might say that the intention to pursue a worthy cause makes it a meaningful use of time.
It is unfortunate that, in his critique of Wolf, Adams appeals to Jesus as the ‘archetypal case of such meaning-laden failure, in our cultural tradition, is the projects of Jesus that failed in his crucifixion.’[14] For in this, Adams reveals his ignorance of Christianity: the crucifixion was not a defeat but a triumph. Throughout the gospels, Jesus makes it clear that His purpose in being made flesh was to “give His life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45); that it was the Father’s will that Jesus go to the cross and that Jesus did not have His life taken from Him but that He laid it down willingly (John 10:18). Thus, the cross — far from a defeat — was the triumphant culmination of a life of meaning. Though ‘none of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.’[15]
Adams’ discussion of Claus von Stauffenberg’s failed attempt to assassinate Hitler is pertinent in that it is unclear what his motivations were. A meaningful use of time is not, for us, one that is done from a sense of moral duty — fun is important. But, as we shall see below, it cannot be one which is performed contrary tomoral duty. If Hitler’s life was valuable because he was a human being, it might be wrong to plot to kill him. Without delving into the ethics of this particular scenario (and noting, parenthetically, that the great Christian theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer did not, ultimately, regard his participation in a plot to assassinate Hitler as immoral) the point I wish to make is that, in contrast to Wolf, we do hold the moral (or, more precisely) immoral nature of an object to be significant in determining whether it contributes to a meaningful use of life. However, because we value non-moral activities (such as those which are ‘fun’), we cannot hold it as a necessary or sufficient condition of an activity that it be ‘moral’ to be meaningful.
Rather, we will hold it to be a sufficient condition that an activity be immoral or sinful to be regarded as an un-meaningful use of life.
Thus, a murderer cannot be said to making a meaningful use of life in his murdering. Yet this is essentially one and the same thing as saying, ‘sin is sin’, and, ‘sin is not meaningful,’ since it stands outside of God’s purposes for humanity.
This link between purposefulness and meaningfulness has been sorely lacking from Wolf’s discussion. Perhaps because it is too obvious. Yet, even on her thesis, we see that a life whose purpose is to ‘actively engag[e] in projects of worth’[16] (such as the professional philosopher) is simply another way of putting it. The difficulty is knowing what one’s purpose is — hence the feelings of frustration which might accompany the secondary school drama teacher who really wanted to be a playwright; the football coach who wanted to play for the premier league; the stay-at-home-mother who wanted to be an accountant. These feelings of frustration which lead to a sense of not-living-a-meaningful-life are due, mostly, to not understanding the distinction between one’s particular vocation (purpose) and general human purpose. The Christian, knowing the latter, may uncover the former through a life of prayer. ‘Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him.’ [17]
This does not mean that one should merely ‘accept one’s lot’. For example, it does not mean that God has called people to be in relationships in which they suffer domestic abuse, or to be perpetually unemployed. What it does mean is that, within the situation they find themselves, they can retain full knowledge of their intrinsic value, and give to God the actions they perform at the time, as meaningful uses of life. In the above examples, the person who is suffering at the hands of a cruel partner should seek out appropriate authorities, but should not despair in thinking their life is ‘meaningless’ because it has been deemed value-less by another human being. The unemployed person should apply for jobs, seeking God’s wisdom. They might have to accept a job they do not want for the time being — but they are bound to find a purpose in that if they adopt the proper attitude as described in this essay.
In short, there is no life experience, whether ecstatic, mundane, or hellish, where the Christian — fully cognisant of the objectivity of the meaningfulness of their life — can think of their life in any other terms than one full of meaning.
In this, we boil down to the philosophical-theological tenets which underpin our position:
reconstructing the question
A Christian response to question of whether life has meaning may be thus divided into the following constituent parts:
The Fact of Meaningfulness
Whether human life has meaning (value). Yes — thanks to the doctrines of creation and reconciliation. Our lives matter in virtue of having been created by God and redeemed by Jesus Christ. This is entirely objective, since it has nothing to do with whether one acknowledges the fact.
The ‘Feeling’ of meaningfulness:
This can only, ultimately, be Felt by the cognisance of the above. In fact, that is all it entails. Schleiermacher spoke about the Feeling of Absolute Dependence[18], and Rudolf Otto, the notion of ‘creature-feeling.’ These can be too negative. Rather, I posit that the person who knows themselves to have been ‘bought with a price’[19] can never really ask the question, ‘is my life meaningful?’ Although there may be times in his life when the Christian does not feel this — when buffeted by trials, tribulations, boredom, or depression — he cannot unknow that his life has meaning because Jesus Christ deemed it a worthy thing to go to the cross for him.
The attitude of meaningfulness.
This is the response which is required of the Christian towards her life and the only attitude proper, if one is truly cognisant of the Fact of Meaningfulness. It means that the Christian (perhaps, uniquely), is able to derive a sense that their employment (i.e. how they use their time) has meaning (as long as it is not directed to sin).
This relates to:
The Meaningful Use of Life (time).
One of the difficulties we saw with Wolf’s position is that she wasn’t really able to account for the need for fun and the line that should be drawn between the pursuit of pleasure, moral actions, and those done out of ‘love’ for some thing (or person). In particular, Wolf found a life completing sudoku puzzles to be meaningless but, whilst she wanted to leave room for fun, her account lacked a way to delineate “too much fun” (i.e. when fun becomes a life of hedonism and thus, not meaningful according to her criteria).
Our thesis is more holistic, in that, from Genesis 1 we learn that humans are designed for work as well as rest. Therefore, rather than prescribe the sorts of activities we should regard as a ‘meaningful use of human life’, we will simply say that any action which is not sinful can be a meaningful use of human life. Since sloth is regarded as a sin, to squander an entire human lifespan watching Netflix, would not be an example of a meaningful use of life. 2 Thessalonians 3:10 tells us that those who refuse to work should not eat. Yet someone who has a ‘staycation’ to binge some TV is not sinning. There is, then, much freedom to be had.
One of the further benefits of our definition is that, instead of insisting that one ought to direct one’s time towards ‘projects of ‘worth’ — and struggling to define the criterion or criteria by which such a project can be judged — we deem all things which are not sinful to be ‘worthy’. This further eliminates the tendency Wolf has towards elitism.
For example, a single parent, cleaning floors for a living on minimum wage; an oncologist saving lives; and a priest preaching to her congregation; are all engaged in activities to which — in that moment — they are called. They are all, then, examples of meaningful uses of life/time.
This is where Paul’s encouragement to the Colossians is helpful: ‘And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.’[20]
For any Christian who feels “stuck in a ‘dead-end job’”, they should adopt an attitude of meaningfulness by doing the job as if for the Lord Jesus. Cleaning a toilet Jesus might sit on seems more meaningful than cleaning the school loos. Yet, since Jesus encouraged us to think that whatever we do for the least of our brothers and sisters, we do for Him,[21] and since, as we have shown above, all human life has intrinsic worth, it is simply a matter of seeing things as they are — adopting God’s view, rather than how humans measure them.
This does not preclude someone from seeking a different employment, or of trying to “better themselves” in the world’s eyes. All it means is that, as long as the activity one is engaging in is not sinful, it is not devoid of meaning, and the proper attitude towards it should be to recognise (and celebrate) its meaning.
Putting this (almost) syllogistically:
P1 God is the ultimate source and arbiter of meaning
P2 God has valued my life to be meaningful in having
1) created and 2) redeemed me
C I should agree with God’s valuation that my life is intrinsically meaningful
The strength of this is that it is genuinely objective:
The meaningfulness of human life is not anthropologically contingent. Neither is it contingent on what I do. Hitler’s life had no less meaning than Anne Frank’s. Jesus Christ died for them both. That Hitler failed to regard this as a fact, that he, further, squandered his life in the pursuit of sin, meant that he did not live life meaningfully.
Thus, all things which I do, objects of my pursuit, and people I spend my time with, which are not unworthy (sinful), may be understood as contributing to a life spent meaningfully, especially if I do them ‘to the lord’ i.e. with an attitude of meaning.
God has gifted me with certain spiritual gifts which, if I use, are especially meaningful. Christ’s parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) is apt, here. Notice that the master does not commend the servant for the success of his investment, but for his good husbandry i.e. the fact that he put what he was entrusted with to good use. This is because success, as a servant of God, is measured not by outcomes but by the attitude of the heart as it is orientated towards obedient service.
This is the final aspect under which we should consider life to have its meaning — and it is most obviously manifest in Jesus Christ:
Jesus as the Example
Unsurprisingly, the Christian turns, ultimately, to Jesus, in order to find meaning in life:
Firstly, and foremostly as saviour, whence the objective meaning is derived (as above, that we were counted the pearl of great price; that, ‘while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’[22]
Secondly, in His example: for Jesus lived a life of service. “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.”[23] For all Wolf’s talk of ‘objects of love’, she stops short of speaking about service. This is not synonymous with slavery, or being a “doormat.” Rather, it is living a life in full recognition not merely of one’s own position before God, but of everyone else’s: Because all human beings are loved, and valued by God, all human life is meaningful and thus the role one plays within the human drama has meaning — most especially when serving others. Whether as a barista or barrister, author or orthodontist, full-time parent or part-time P.A. — when we serve others (whether or not we are paid for it) our time is always meaningfully spent. So, too, when we relax, and enjoy the creativity of others, and of the Creator – watching Star Trek or Shakespeare; playing piano or pickleball; walking around the Louvre or Lake District.
Hamlet
Talking of Shakespeare, a relevant passage for our discussion comes from Act IV.iv of Hamlet, where the eponymous hero, on his way back to the court of Elisnore, encounters a band of soldiers set on fighting over a worthless plot of land. At war twixt will and will not as he is, over whether to kill his uncle in vengeance of his murdered father, Hamlet muses:
What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more. Sure, he that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and god-like reason To fust in us unused.[1]
From this we see that pleasures — whilst not inherently unworthy — may become so when they are the 'chief market of [our] time,' for humans have been endowed with reason by God, to look to the past and to the future, and it behoves us to use it. This does not make non-human creatures worthless, (although an argument might be made that they are worth less than humanity, who alone is created in God's image) but, rather, that it would be sinful to squander those resources of nature which God has given us. (Ironically, the soldiers in question, whom Hamlet foresees 'go[ing] to their graves like beds' are, arguably, guilty of such a sinless waste. Certainly if we agree with Wilfred Owen that war amounts to ‘human squander’[2] wherein are committed ‘multitudinous murders’, then questions might be raised about the worthiness of a life of soldiering (but that is for another time)). Nevertheless, the conclusion it seems Shakespeare (or Hamlet) wants us to draw is that human beings have a responsibility to use their time meaningfully because we are made higher than non-human creatures.
That the end of this soliloquy seems to spur Hamlet on to his revent ('from this time for / My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!’) is, actually, the epitome of his tragic flaw: he has a little reason but not enough. In fact, I would go so far as to argue it is at this precise point that he goes mad because vengeance is not rational. His murderous uncle was, indeed, correct, when he observed in Act I.ii that the ‘common theme’ of nature and reason is ‘death of fathers.’ The end of Act IV is thus the peripetia which sets its hero on his inevitable, tragic trajectory — all from a misuse of his reason and, thus, a meaningless use of his time. That he, his mother, girlfriend, girlfriend’s father (and brother) are slain (to say nothing of his two university friends) in his quest to kill his wicked uncle is surely a lesson to us all: vengeance is not a meaningful use of life.
Yet this is so counter-intuitive it takes the only truly rational Man to tell us: ‘love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’[3]
Perhaps the reason Wolf and others have struggled to identity an objective basis for value is simply because they cannot countenance the values of the kingdom of God, in which the only One who is worthy calls us to Himself, regardless of, in spite of and, indeed because of our rebellion — which is to say, our sin (i.e. our life of meaninglessness) — in order to transform our lives into one full of meaning. Such a kingdom cannot be fathomed by secular philosophers because the cross remains a foolishness to them — for the wisdom of the world looks to reward the deserving. Only when we realise our propensity to live lives as if they had no meaning, and treat others as if they meant nothing, do we begin to see that we are unworthy. Yet, because the Worthy One was slain for us, we are counted as worthy and thus the only proper response must be gratitude and love of others. It so comes about, then, that to love God with our whole hearts and minds, and to love others as He has loved us is not only to recognise the fact of the meaningfulness of life, and to adopt the proper attitude, but to begin to live life meaningfully.
[1] Susan R. Wolf et al., Meaning in Life and Why It Matters, 1. paperback printing, The University Center for Human Values Series (Princeton Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2012), 18.
[2] Wolf et al., 131.
[3] Wolf et al., 35.
[4] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist, trans. Alfred Knopf (New York: Pocketbook, 1931), 42–43.
[5] Wolf et al., Meaning in Life and Why It Matters, 40.
[6] Wolf et al., 40.
[7] Wolf et al., 91.
[8] Wolf et al., 39.
[9] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, vol. 1.13.4
[10] Philippians 4:8 (ESV)
[11] JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, 67
[12] Wolf et al., Meaning in Life and Why It Matters, 18.
[13] David Mitchell Cloud Atlas, 448.
[14] Wolf et al., Meaning in Life and Why It Matters, 81.
[15] 1 Corinthians 2:8
[16] Wolf et al., Meaning in Life and Why It Matters, 26.
[17] 1 Corwinthians 6:20; 7:17
[18] Schleiermacher, F. (2016) The Christian Faith. 2nd edn. T&T Clark. §4
[19] 1 Corinthians 7:23;
[20] Colossians 3:17
[21] Matthew 25:31-46
[22] Romans 5:8
[23] Mark 10:45
Comments