Without God there is no Purpose

 If God gives people purpose and meaning why does a Christian have to write about what purpose and meaning means and how it applies?

This seems like a evidence that Christians don't feel that religion gives them the purpose and meaning they claim they receive - especially since the book has been flying off the shelves.

A few questions nag at me about this - why does it take someone to rationalize purpose and meaning from religious texts? Where is the Holy Spirit and why is He not defining, giving meaning, or somehow showing purpose to Christians?    

Perhaps what Christians mean is that unless God is sanctioning actions of the believer then they have no merit or significance attached to them. Does that mean that Hindus cannot find meaning and purpose in their lives? What about Muslims? Does this mean that purpose and meaning that non-Christians find is only false purpose and meaning? Or maybe a non-Christians purpose and meaning is "valid" but not "real" purpose and meaning like a Christians?

This means that one must obtain those things which are relevant to one's life and which sustain it. The process of obtaining values gives life purpose and meaning.  

It seems that all persons are motivated toward attaining happiness (or what Aristotle calls eudaimondia). Human nature, it appears, is motivated toward happiness as its true end, and the process of life is simply the process of trying to reach this end. Now it is my opinion (as a Christian) that Christianity is the religion which offers the best means of attaining this goal--both in the here and in the hereafter, and it is my opinion (as a Catholic Christian) that the Catholic Church provides the best spiritual and sacramental milieu for giving one the opportunity to attain this goal. I would think that many Christians believe something similar.

I struggle with the Nietzschean tone of these statements. To say that the purpose of life is mere value attainment is just to say, in my opinion, that the purpose of life is mere license to act in whatever way one sees fit. Do you not see a danger here? Do you not see a certain belittling of man to the status of animal?

 

Ahh - but man IS an animal, just one which has capacity to making his/her own purpose in life, and which recognises that humans, like all other living organisms, have their specific nature, and that it is following to that nature which legitimately gives the purpose, not the straw-dog of licensiousness.....

I struggle with the Nietzschean tone of these statements. To say that the purpose of life is mere value attainment is just to say, in my opinion, that the purpose of life is mere license to act in whatever way one sees fit. Do you not see a danger here? Do you not see a certain belittling of man to the status of animal?

Not at all, for as Rand observes, "Man cannot survive, like an animal, by acting on the range of the moment." (Virtue of Selfishness, p. 24)

there is no "being" behind doing, effecting, becoming; "the doer" is merely a fiction added to the deed—the deed is everything. (On the Genealogy of Morals). 

...separate necessary events from chance ones, to think causally, to see and anticipate what is distant as if it were present, to set out what is ends and what is means, in general to be able to reckon and calculate... (On the Genealogy of Morals).

But aren't you contradicting yourself? On the one hand, you say that "all persons are motivated toward attaining happiness" and that "the process of life is simply the process of trying to reach this end." On the other hand, you say that if "the purpose of life is mere value attainment," then it is a "mere license to act in whatever way one sees fit."

Isn't the pursuit of happiness the pursuit of value attainment?

then how does this imply a mere license to act in whatever way one sees fit -- as if whatever action one chooses will lead to happiness?

As for the Catholic Church providing the best milieu for attaining happiness, I'd respectfully disagree, and cite as evidence Rand's essay "Of Living Death" in The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought.

You said: "Perhaps because people constitute a medium through which God's purpose(s) is (are) revealed."

To whom is God's purpose being revealed? To God? To us?

Even if there were a personal God, why should we care what his purposes might be?

If God were to condemn us to hell for finding our own purpose in life through observation, introspection, and reason, after providing us no means to divine his purpose other than faith in either a priesthood or a text, why should we respect him or his wishes? That kind of God is called a demon in my book. Better to smile in hell than to frown in Heaven.

BTW, You sure got a down-smacking in Matthew Stewart's The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World. Hope you're not aching too badly. :)

What "Amadeus" did for Salieri, Stewart's book does for Leibniz. If Spinoza and Leibniz were in the midst of a bitter divorce, this is precisely the sort of book Spinoza's attorney would come up with.

Man doesn't "create" his ultimate purpose, because his ultimate purpose or ultimate goal in life is simply what is supremely valuable to him, which is determined by his nature as a particular kind of living organism.

What is supremely valuable to him -- namely, the achievement of his own happiness -- is set by his nature.

It is not ordained by a supernatural being, for whom there is no credible scientific evidence.

When you said "license" to act in whatever way one sees fit, I took you to mean "moral justification." But by "license," you evidently meant the "right" or "freedom" to act in whatever way one sees fit.

Fair enough, but wouldn't that be true for any moral end or goal, secular or religious? Suppose one values obedience to God as one's ultimate end or goal. Wouldn't that also imply a "license" to act in whatever way one sees fit, insofar as "the action one deems fit to execute" is that which one believes will satisfy God's wishes?

It appears that by "license" you're simply referring to the right or freedom to act on one's judgment, which would apply just as much to the practice of a religious morality as it does to the practice of a secular one.

But I have indeed forced myself through that most unpleasant chore of slogging through the Monadology. It didn't leave me eager to attack any of the other works.

Congrats on the Calculus though.

In both cases, the assumption is that the any plans or purposes must come from outside the individual actor -- either from God or from the State. In both cases, the individual is simply a pawn of some greater power whose dictates he or she must obey. Not a very enobling picture, is it?!

What is supremely valuable to man is not determined by his choice, but by his nature. He has no choice about whether or not he will value pleasure or disvalue pain -- value happiness or disvalue suffering. These values and disvalues are determined by his nature as a sentient organism. His only choice is over how to gain and/or keep his ultimate values -- i.e., what means he must take to achieve his ends.

His valuing pleasure and happiness and disvaluing pain and suffering is inherent in his nature. It is not something he chooses.

Let me cut to the chase by rephrasing my statement: "It is not ordained by a supernatural being, for whom there is no rational evidence."

Gottfried, my good man, you're being disingenuous -- engaging in a bate-and-switch tactic.

Once again, what you're saying about religious ends could just as well be said about the pursuit of happiness. Just because one deems a particular action as leading to happiness does not mean that it does in fact lead to happiness.

The rational application of the doctrine of egoism would incontrovertibly demonstrate that an action (like drug use) that turns out to be harmful could not possibly fulfill one's self-interest, even if one thought that it would.

Hence, it is not true that all religious goals provide one with personal license to act in whatever way one sees fit, under pretense that what one sees fit is in compliance with what God wishes.

Here you are using "personal license to act in whatever way one sees fit" in an entirely different sense.

Taking your latest meaning, it would then be true that, by the same token, neither does an ethics of egoism provide one with personal license to act in whatever way one sees fit, under pretense that what one sees fit is (necessarily) in compliance with the requirements of one's own happiness.

It appears that by "license" you're simply referring to the right or freedom to act on one's judgment, which would apply just as much to the practice of a religious morality as it does to the practice of a secular one.

For reasons just given, it wouldn't.

Not true, since you switched your meaning. Given your original meaning, it would.

But by "license," you evidently meant the "right" or "freedom" to act in whatever way one sees fit. Fair enough, but wouldn't that be true for any moral end or goal, secular or religious?

Huh? I thought that God's intentions or purposes were the basis of your morality. What do you mean -- you're not obligated to follow them?

First, can you even prove there is a God?

If no, then why worry about its revelation(s) to us because you can't prove it has a purpose for us by that lack of verification.

For all we know, if you claim God wants us to be happy, it could be a false statement and has to be taken on faith, to which my response would be, "horse puckey!"

Why would an Almighty God really care about you or anything that is its subordinate?

By "nature," I simply mean the kind of person one is. Thus, a person's nature can be static in some respects but dynamic in others. For example, a person will always be a human being, but he or she may change from an engineer to an architect. Or, a person will always be of a certain race, but his or her priorities may change in response to education.

Gottfried, what is supremely valuable to a person (meaning what will actually make him or her happy) is determined by his or her nature, as an individual.

One must obey God because union with, and love of, God is the final end of man.

Not true. The final end of man is the achievement of his own happiness, which is realized through the satisfaction of his survival requirements.

To be united with God in love is to be truly happy, and God's intentions and purposes are designed to draw us toward this union. Hence, one must obey God in order to achieve this union. The refusal to love God amounts to the relinquishment of man's final end and true happiness. Men punish themselves by freely choosing to reject the love of God, since it is only in the love of God that man can attain true happiness.

You might as well argue that men punish themselves by refusing to obey a dictator. Bear in mind that God controls all of this. He sets the terms, by telling us to obey him or else. There is no difference between God's dictates and those of an authoritarian ruler.

Even assuming that what you say is true, I have no idea what relevance etymology has in this context. Rand is certainly not trampling on the actual meaning of the word. Webster defines "commandment" as "something that is commanded," and "command" as "to order," "to exercise a dominating influence over," or "to demand as one's due." Continuing with the Rand quote, "The moral is the chosen, not the forced...

The moral is the chosen, not the forced, because morality pertains to actions that are chosen; a forced action is neither moral nor immoral, because the actor is not responsible for it.

You're ignoring the context. "Obey" in this context means to follow another agent's orders or commands; it doesn't mean to follow one's own judgment as to what is rational.

The moral is the rational, yes. Reason accepts no commandments, agreed: since God is Infinite Reason, his commands are eo ipso the commands of reason.

I don't follow you. First, you agree that reason accepts no commandments; then you say that God's commands are the commands of reason. Aren't you contradicting yourself?

Regardless of whether or not you think they are rational, they are still commands. They still amount to an order, "Do this, or I'll see to it that you're punished."

?

So, the title of your post should read, "Without God, there is no Ideal Purpose."

I had thought that in previous posts, you agreed with me that a person's own happiness is his or her final end, ultimate value, or highest moral purpose

[...] That assumes that man's purposes are consistent with his nature.

Man's ultimate goal -- namely, the valuation of his own happiness -- is set by his nature, as are the conditions of its achievement. If he wants to achieve happiness, then he must act in ways that are required by his nature as a rational animal. It is these rational values and goals to which I was referring in the above statement.

But it's not man's nature to reach fulfillment in the love of God; he reaches fulfillment by living a life that is consonant with his survival requirements qua man.

In any case, you're assuming in all of this that there is a God.

You realize, of course, that since I don't believe in God, there is no reason for me to buy into what you are saying.

In a previous post, you referred me to Richard Swinburne's The Existence of God. Rather than my reading the entire book, why don't you present what you consider to be his most persuasive arguments.