Worldview Wednesday: Existentialism: Can you create your own meaning?

If you were keeping up with the Truth Talks this year, you may remember that naturalism is the belief that the natural world is all there is; there’s no supernatural deity who gives the world rationality or meaning. In other words, if you’re the product of matter and chance, what’s the point…of anything?

The naturalist can’t explain morality or meaning in life, but that doesn’t mean he can’t try. The Frenchman John Paul Sartre popularized a way called existentialism, a view that accepts that one doesn’t have any meaning, but that a person must, and should, create one’s own meaning.

Existentialism now saturates our culture, and Christians are not unaffected. For the existentialist, the important thing isn’t the goal or the outcome, but the simple act of choosing. If you use your will to choose your own way, rather than having it imposed on you by the others or fate, then you have created your own meaning. How many of these modern morals are you familiar with?

Be yourself.

Follow your heart.

You be you.

Find your passion.

Make your own choices. 

Reject expectations.

Your voice matters.

Like all worldviews, there is some truth to existentialism. We shouldn’t sit back and watch the world go by; we need to get going stewarding the earth and fulfilling the Great Commission. But the core of existentialism is at direct odds with the Christian truth. Existentialism says to make your own meaning and to do whatever you want to do. The truth is that we have meaning because we are made in God’s image, and we don’t have to create it ourselves. Because we’re sinful, the great struggle in life is to deny ourselves and follow God’s will, submitting to God and putting others above ourselves.

We love flattery, so we like to be told to be ourselves and to follow our hearts, but when we look at it truthfully, we see a big cesspool of self-centeredness and folly. Mankind was never made to be the center of the universe, and we can’t supply meaning for ourselves. Christianity does supply meaning and a fulfilling vision for life. It gives us a clear code of right and wrong and a way to free ourselves from destructive selfishness. 

Since our culture is permeated with existentialism, it’s good to be aware of it and to know how to counter it with truth. Here are two good talks about existentialism. The first is a short video by Rachel Jankovic, author of Who You? Why You Matter and How To Deal With It. The second is a longer video from Summit Ministries.

Knowing about people’s search for meaning can give you great opportunities to give the truth of the Christian worldview, which does have a basis for meaning. Finding ourselves, caring for ourselves, or practicing mindfulness won’t fix our sin problem; only the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ can reconcile us back to God and bring our dead selves back to life. After we are reconciled to God, we can find deep meaning in our status as God’s children and fulfillment in doing his will for our lives and accepting his providential givens. Creating our own meaning only leads to disappointment and despair.

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2