Yes, I'm very familiar with Christian natural theology, though I tend to prefer the Patristic and medieval periods. I do like Leibniz, though.
Human beings evolved, and we owe our existence to the natural history of life on this planet. Had events played out differently and mammals not managed to prosper, we would not be here. Though I suspect that a different intelligent species would have evolved instead, sooner or later.
My thoughts on purpose and meaning are much more difficult (and dark, given my existentialist background), so I can't really address that topic without jumping forward to the issue of destiny. I am personally agnostic on the question of the immortality of the soul--I see the individual self as a process rather than a discrete substance, and given the ephemerality of processes, I have some difficulty seeing the self as an individual surviving death. I think there are ways of conceiving of it that work, but I am far from convinced.
This shoves me straight into Absurdist waters, however, since I view meaning as an inherently teleological concept, and it is unclear to me what purpose a finite life could possibly have. Even on some sort of pantheistic ontology, where we could say that we are playing a role in the universe knowing or expressing itself, that seems of little interest to us if we are interchangeable and our roles end with our lives. I'm left agreeing with Albert Camus that the only important question in philosophy is suicide, though I would answer it differently than he did. If life is a farce, I see no compelling reason to play along with it. It's the rejection a meaningless and indifferent reality that ultimately strikes me as the most powerful statement of autonomy.
My answer is to accept a Pascalian Wager on the immortality of the soul. If my decidedly dark philosophy here is right, I gain nothing because there's nothing to be gained, but if it is wrong, I am into rebellion territory in the theological sense. Which is clearly bad. At the end of the day, I think meaning can only exist by standing in the presence of the Absolute, recognizing that you are ultimately powerless, trusting that reality is actually valuable in a meaningful sense, and then living your life as authentically as possible. I do not think losing yourself in your work, in other people, or whatever else is a suitable replacement for the type of meaning that we crave.
Like I said, I am pretty Christianity-lite. Or Christianity-dark-dark-dark, as the case may be this time around. I think it's one of the things that keeps me from slipping off into the waters of Vedic idealism.
