Up to now, a very large majority of work in the religious philosophy of life’s meaning has presumed a conception of God that is Abrahamic. In contrast, in this essay I critically discuss some of the desirable and undesirable facets of Traditional African Religion’s salient conceptions of God as they bear on meaning in life. Given an interest in a maximally meaningful life, and supposing meaning would come from fulfiling God’s purpose for us, would it be reasonable to prefer God (...) as characteristically conceived by African philosophers of religion to exist instead of the Abrahamic conception of God? At this stage of enquiry, I answer that, in respect of the range of people to whom God’s purpose would apply, a more African view of God would plausibly offer a greater meaning, but that, concerning what the content of God’s purpose would be, the Abrahamic view appears to offer a greater one. I conclude by reflecting on this mixed verdict and by suggesting respects in which non-purposive facets of the African and Abrahamic conceptions of God could also have implications for life’s meaning. (shrink)

In this critical notice of Guy Bennett-Hunter’s book _Ineffability and Religious Experience_, I focus on claims he makes about what makes a life meaningful. According to Bennett-Hunter, for human life to be meaningful it must obtain its meaning from what is beyond the human and is ineffable, which constitutes an ultimate kind of meaning. I spell out Bennett-Hunter’s rationale for making this claim, raise some objections to it, and in their wake articulate an alternative conception of ultimate meaning.

We raise various puzzles about the relationship between God and the meaning of life. These difficulties suggest that, even if we assume that God exists, and even if God’s existence would entail that our lives have meaning, God is not and could not be the source of the meaning of life. We conclude by discussing implications of our arguments: these claims can be used in a novel argument for atheism; these claims undermine an extant argument for God’s existence; and they (...) suggest that atheism is consistent with our lives having meaning. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Thaddeus Metz’s new book ‘God, Soul and the Meaning of Life’ presents a brief analysis of supernaturalist views about the meaning of life – my specific concern being the Divine purpose theory. While the view locates meaning in the fulfilment of some divine mandate, I show that this theory is, at best, unattractive. In this essay, I challenge the view that a belief in God is not necessary for the Divine purpose theory to be viable. I show that if (...) we were to agree that a belief in God is inconceivable, then a theory built on such a belief is, at best, wishful thinking. Arguing from a subjectivist perspective, I make clear the fact that any recourse to a godly mandate as what makes life meaningful inadvertently assumes an extrinsic and instrumental character, which makes such a pursuit an unattractive form of meaningfulness. Finally, I show that the God purpose theory is much too narrow as it fails to capture other paths to meaningfulness that do not involve a recourse to God, and also that any assigned purpose is unnecessary (and, therefore, unattractive), if God is all-knowing, all-powerful, etc. (shrink)

In one of the most widely read texts on what makes a life meaningful, composed more than 50 years ago, Kurt Baier presents an intriguing argument against the view that meaning in life would come by fulfilling a purpose God has assigned us. Baier contends that God could not avoid degrading us were He to assign us a purpose, which would mean that God, as a morally ideal being by definition, would not do so. Defenders of God-centred accounts of meaning (...) in life, and even many of its detractors such as myself, have by and large argued that Baier is incorrect on this point. However, using my reply to Baier as a foil, Sagid Salles has recently breathed new life into Baier’s old rationale, providing fresh grounds to believe that God could not avoid degrading us if He gave us a purpose to fulfil. Specifically, Salles argues that God would face a dilemma: either He could give us all the same purpose, which would be unfair since some of us would be in a better position to achieve it than others, or He could give us each a different purpose that we would be equally able to fulfil, which would also be disrespectful since God would have limited our lives so as to make other ends out of reach. In this article, I argue that God could avoid the dilemma Salles poses and hence could assign us a purpose without treating us disrespectfully. (shrink)

A lengthy reply to 13 critical discussions of _Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study_ collected in an e-book and reprinted from the _Journal of Philosophy of Life_. The contributors are from a variety of philosophical traditions, including the Anglo-American, Continental and East Asian (especially Buddhist and Japanese) ones.

The question “What is the meaning of life?” is longstanding and important, but has been shunned by philosophers for decades. Instead, contemporary philosophers have focused on other questions, such as “What gives meaning to the life of a person?” According to James Tartaglia, this research on “meaning in life” is shallow and pointless. He urges philosophers to redirect their attention back to the fundamental question about “meaning of life.” Tartaglia argues that humanity was not created for a purpose and, therefore, (...) is meaningless. He assumes that humanity could not be meaningful unless we were created for a purpose. I will outline a different way that humanity could become meaningful. In addition, I will explain how the research on “meaning in life” is important for understanding how humanity could become meaningful. (shrink)