The Meaning To And Of Life

[BrckBrln]

I guess this is the right place to put this. I think we can make a distinction between the meaning to life and the meaning of life. The former being objective and the latter subjective. Does anybody agree with me?

The objective meaning to life would be God and Immortality as William Lane Craig proposes (at least that's where I first heard it from). If there were no God then everything is permitted and nothing has any meaning. And if there were no immortality then when you do eventually go into the nothingness then it would be like nothing ever happened since you won't remember anything. I used to believe in conditional immortality but in light of this, I'm not so sure now.

The subjective meaning of life could be many things like love, movies, music, sports, etc. Basically you have to find your own 'meaning' based on what talents and interests God has given you. And some people choose to have no meaning of life.

So am I right or completely wrong again? :)

[petepet]

I guess this is the right place to put this. I think we can make a distinction between the meaning to life and the meaning of life. The former being objective and the latter subjective. Does anybody agree with me?

The objective meaning to life would be God and Immortality as William Lane Craig proposes (at least that's where I first heard it from). If there were no God then everything is permitted and nothing has any meaning. And if there were no immortality then when you do eventually go into the nothingness then it would be like nothing ever happened since you won't remember anything. I used to believe in conditional immortality but in light of this, I'm not so sure now.

The subjective meaning of life could be many things like love, movies, music, sports, etc. Basically you have to find your own 'meaning' based on what talents and interests God has given you. And some people choose to have no meaning of life.

So am I right or completely wrong again? :)

To some extent the question is one of grammar and grammatical interpretation, but certainly the meaning of life relates to God (otherwise it has no absolute meaning), and meaning to life can indeed be a subjective thing (depending on what we mean by it).

I am not so sure that immortality is necessary for there to be a 'meaning of life'. That is more to do with man's way of considering it. There might be more truth in saying that the meaning of life was to do with the triumph of goodness and love. Immortality would, however, ensure OUR permenent place in it, so it would certainly be valuable to us.

I do not see how it affects whether immortality is conditional or unconditional. Indeed it appears to me that absolute unconditional immortality for anyone but God is impossible. To speak of absolute unconditional immortality would signify that God could not do anything about it. And we really cannot postulate that. Whatever God creates He can destroy. We can of course speak of 'unconditonal immortality within God's purpose', seeing the purpose of God as making it unconditional within that purpose. But it cannot be absolutely unconditional, otherwise we limit God.

But that the triumph of goodness and love is of paramount importance to God is demonstrated by His redemptive purpose and the whole of salvation history.

My personal view is that while God had a purpose of us having unconditional immortality, He has determined that some will lose it as the final judgment on their sin. But that is another question.