In Lev Tolstoy’s seminal work, A Confession, published in 1882, he begins his exploration of the biggest dilemma of human existence with a story. It starts with a traveler who is on a long journey venturing through forests and farmlands. On this journey, the traveler attracts the attention of a terrible beast. Tired and afraid, he jumps into a dried-up well only to discover another beast – a dragon – at the bottom of the well with its jaws wide open, waiting to devour him. The unhappy man faces a dilemma, he can move neither up nor down; if he climbed out of the well the wild beast would kill him, but if he jumps to the bottom of the well, he would be devoured by the dragon.
Cadmus, the first Greek hero, fights a dragon.
His life dangles hopelessly between two negative forces. To survive, he desperately grabs hold of a branch growing through the cracks in the stone of the well. His arms grow weak, and he feels soon he must fall prey to the death that awaits him. Yet still he holds on, and while he is clinging to the branch two mice emerge – one black and one white – and begin gnawing on the branch. It seems just a matter of time before the branch will give way, and him fall into the jaws of the dragon. The traveler sees this and knows he will surely die. With death a likely outcome of this adventure, the traveler begins to wonder, “What will become of my life? Why are we here?”
While he is still hanging on, he sees drips of honey on the leaves of the branch, and he stretches out his tongue and tastes it. But what he finds is that honey is no longer sweet, he now felt nothing from what had once filled him with joy. The threat of the dragon below had robbed him of any chance of joy. Realizing his former ignorance, he says,
…the former delusion of the happiness of life that had concealed from me the horror of the dragon no longer deceives me. No matter how much I tell myself that I cannot understand the meaning of life, that I should live without thinking about it, I cannot…
In the story, the traveler on the journey represents Tolstoy on the journey of life. The terrible beast and the dragon waiting to devour the traveler represent inevitable death. The black and white mice gnawing away the branch he is desperately clinging to represent night and day and the relentless march of time. The drops of honey the traveler is able to taste, while he clings to the branch, represent Tolstoy’s two loves: his family and his writing. Because death is inevitable, these are no longer adequate grounds for ultimate life meaning. Tolstoy tells this story because it represents a dilemma he faced later in life. Despite a successful writing career and having fourteen children, the inevitability of death made life seem futile. Life would come to a halt and he would not know how to live or what to do. Over time, the questions began to come up more and more often, and their demand to be answered more and more urgent. Eventually he realized that these were not accidental ailments pestering him, but something very serious, and that he would eventually have to answer them. They weren’t childish, foolish, simple questions as he had earlier dismissed them as. They were the most vital, profound questions in life. Before he could resolve family affairs or continue writing books, he needed to know why he was doing those things.
Like the traveler hanging by a crumbling branch between two beasts and inevitable end, Tolstoy had an overwhelming realization that what he had been standing on his whole life had collapsed, nothing was left under his feet. What he had built his life on no longer existed. He came to this great dilemma, the “simplest question, lying in the soul of every man from the foolish child to the wisest elder”. A question, without an answer to which one cannot live. “What will come of what I am doing today or shall do tomorrow? What will come of my life? Why should I live, why wish for anything, or do anything? Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy?”
In his attempts to answer this profound question of meaning and purpose, Tolstoy turned to science. In science, rather than identifying and answering the question, science avoided it and instead asked its own questions.
One who sincerely inquires how he is to live cannot be satisfied with the reply — ‘Study in endless space the mutations, infinite in time and in complexity, of innumerable atoms, and then you will understand your life’ — so also a sincere man cannot be satisfied with the reply: ‘Study the whole life of humanity of which we cannot know either the beginning or the end, of which we do not even know a small part, and then you will understand your own life.’
In philosophy too, he was equally disillusioned, unable to derive the answer.
Philosophy not merely does not reply, but is itself only asking that question. And if it is real philosophy all its labor lies merely in trying to put that question clearly.
But in this quest for meaning, can’t we just make up our own meaning? If our lives have lasting meaning, that meaning has to be grounded in something transcendent. If our lives are meaningless to begin with, how could any of our choices be meaningful? How could meaningful choices arise out of a meaningless life? We can’t insert transcendent meaning by simply choosing that our choices are significant. What can be more futile?
For many people, this question of meaning remains unanswered. Tolstoy called it a question that without an answer to which one cannot live, many have come to the conclusion that there isn’t any true purpose or significance in life.
Richard Dawkins expressed this view: “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference” (River Out of Eden).
William Provine summarized his views this way: “There are no gods, no purposes, and no goal-directed forces of any kind… There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans, either” (“Darwinism: Science or Naturalistic Philosophy?” Origins Research 16:1).
Alex Rosenberg expressed similar views: “What is the purpose of the universe? There is none. What is the meaning of life? Ditto. Does history have any meaning or purpose? It’s full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” (The Atheist’s Guide to Reality).
Bertrand Russell wrote that the universe as he understood it is “purposeless”, “void of meaning”, and the whole sum of human endeavors is “destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system” (A Free Man’s Worship).
As it happens, he is right that we are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system. The further you look down the timeline of the universe, the less happy it becomes. Our world is in decline. Our race faces overpopulation, worldwide oppression, poverty, injustice, pollution, disease, and an unsustainable rate of consumption of natural resources. Humanity is lost in darkness, estranged from itself, depraved and hubristic. Even if it was possible for us to solve the problems we face, according to the second law of thermodynamics, even the universe faces inevitable extinction. Given enough time, all the energy in the universe will run out and the universe will essentially come into a state of equilibrium. Nothing but darkness and silence.
If this is all true, and there isn’t anything else, then basically life is hard and then you die, and that’s it… period. Nothing you do ultimately matters. “Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow” as the Psalmist said (Ps. 144:4). Our lives are like a mist that vanishes after a short time (James 4:14).
In the book of Ecclesiastes, there are a couple main things that the author says renders life meaningless. The first is death. You grow old and then you die. “The dust returned to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God, who gave it” (Ecc. 12:7). Wisdom and knowledge may have value for a short time, but death makes even that meaningless. Both the foolish and the wise die. Both are forgotten. The second thing in Ecclesiastes that makes life meaningless is evil. Even if you are a good person, if you live a virtuous life, there isn’t always a reward for that in this world. The author of Ecclesiastes says he’s seen a “righteous person perishing in his righteousness, and… a wicked person living long in his evil” (Ecc. 7:15).
When Tolstoy saw the meaninglessness of human life, he felt that what he had been standing on had collapsed, that he had nothing left under his feet. What he had lived on no longer existed, and what he had lived for actually didn’t matter. Suddenly he saw life as nothing more than a sick joke.
Involuntarily it appeared to me that there, somewhere, was someone who amused himself by watching how I lived for thirty or forty years: learning, developing, maturing in body and mind, and how, having with matured mental powers reached the summit of life from which it all lay before me, I stood on that summit — like an arch-fool — seeing clearly that there is nothing in life, and that there has been and will be nothing. And he was amused… But whether that “someone” laughing at me existed or not, I was none the better off. I could give no reasonable meaning to any single action or to my whole life. I was only surprised that I could have avoided understanding this from the very beginning — it has been so long known to all. Today or tomorrow sickness and death will come (they had come already) to those I love or to me; nothing will remain but stench and worms. Sooner or later my affairs, whatever they may be, will be forgotten, and I shall not exist. Then why go on making any effort?… How can man fail to see this? And how go on living? That is what is surprising! One can only live while one is intoxicated with life; as soon as one is sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere fraud and a stupid fraud! That is precisely what it is: there is nothing either amusing or witty about it, it is simply cruel and stupid.
He felt that seeing things clearly revealed life is just pointless, cruel and absurd. When people experience this, there’s a kind of existential despair that takes root. This happened to Tolstoy. In his despair, he saw four responses for managing this dilemma.
The first one is ignorance. It consists in not knowing, not understanding that life is an evil and an absurdity. From these sort of people, he says “I had nothing to learn”. They just continue living their lives in existential ignorance.
The second way out is epicureanism, or hedonism. While knowing the hopelessness of life, they make use of the pleasures of life one has in the meantime. It consists of disregarding the dragon at the bottom of the well and the mice chewing at the branch holding you, and licking the honey on the branches the best you can. This is the way the majority of people make life possible. Of these people, Tolstoy says:
Their circumstances furnish them with more of welfare than of hardship, and their moral dullness makes it possible for them to forget that the advantage of their position is accidental… The dullness of these people’s imagination enables them to forget the things that gave Buddha no peace — the inevitability of sickness, old age, and death, which today or tomorrow will destroy all these [their] pleasures.
The third escape is that of strength. This is for the few who are exceptionally strong and consistent. It consists in destroying life once one has understood that life is an evil and an absurdity. They understand the stupidity of life, the joke that has been played on them, and they understand that it’s better to be dead than to be alive, that it’s best not to exist at all. So they act appropriately and swiftly to end this stupid joke.
…having understood that it is better to be dead than to be alive, and that it is best of all not to exist, they act accordingly and promptly end this stupid joke, since there are means: a rope round one’s neck, water, a knife to stick into one’s heart, or the trains on the railways; and the number of those of our circle who act in this way becomes greater and greater…
The fourth way out is that of weakness. It consists in seeing the truth of the situation and yet clinging to life anyway, even though they know in advance that nothing will ultimately come of their life. These people know death is better than life, but they lack the strength to act rationally, which would be to end the deception quickly and simply kill themselves. This is the escape of weakness because they know what is best, it’s within their power, but they lack the strength to carry it out. Knowing that life is a stupid joke, they go on living. Tolstoy found this escape repulsive and tormenting, but ironically also found himself living this way.
Here is where I’d like to suggest a fifth option, an alternative to Tolstoy’s four. When grappling with death, evil, and the fleeting nature of life – I’d like to offer an alternative narrative.
The universe exists, and is contingent on an outside force for its existence. That uncaused causal agent is God (see more on cosmology and contingency). Us humans have ideas that certain things are objectively right and wrong, we have concepts that people are objectively valuable, and notions that our lives are meant to have meaning (see more on morality). This is actually because certain things are objectively right and wrong, people are objectively valuable, and we as human beings do exist for a purpose.
If there was no transcendent personal Creator to ground meaning to our existence, there would be no transcendent meaning for our lives. But a transcendent personal Creator exists, he made us – and the universe we live in – for the most spectacular purpose: his glory and the joy of his people.
The Westminster Assembly summed it up well, that “man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.” Our lives have significance being a part of God’s sovereign plan for his creation. We are creatures made in the image of God, designed to live in community with God and with each other. If we live this way, our lives have tremendous value.
My concern isn’t just that you’re mistaken if you think you have a meaningless life, or that you’re mistaken if you think that you have a meaningful life. But that you don’t realize just how meaningful of a life you have. My concern is that you may be squandering it for things that pale in comparison to your ultimate purpose, and until your soul awakens to that purpose, to glorify God and enjoy him forever, you will never be happy. You will be forever restless, and at the end of the road you will find only despair. Not all the wealth of men, not the tallest ivory tower, nor indulging in your darkest desires, will ever make you whole. Not the respect and approval of people you value, not the intimacy of a spouse, nor the contentment of raising a happy family, will ever satisfy your soul. Not even living a life devoted to helping others, or a life spent fighting injustice, will ever be enough. Nothing under the sun is enough, it will never be enough.
God is the One who formed and made you, the One from whom and for whom all things exist, the source of abundant life and complete joy, who freely offers life to you in all its fullness. Augustine once said, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” I hope you are wrestling with life’s big question. And if you are, if you are restless, see the God who formed and made you, who created you for a purpose, and find rest from the despair of living a meaningless life.
The Cappadocian Church Father Gregory of Nyssa who lived in the 4th century was an opponent of the human slavery of his day. He grounded human beings’ inherent value, in his fourth homily on the book of Ecclesiastes, like this: