The Purpose Driven Life

[BelovedSonofRock]

I read The Purpose Driven Life and the question I have is...

Why must life have a purpose?

 

[Eudaimonist]

I haven't read this book. Would you explain what the book has to say about purpose in life so that we may better understand your question?

 

[FordPrefect]

I have read that book as well, and I can't see a reason that life should have an objective purpose. Finding meaning for one's own life as sentient beings is, in my opinion, one of the more important tasks we should take upon ourselves, but only because I don't think we should waste what precious existence we have.

 

[FSTDT]

Why must life have a purpose?

Presumably because dying as a completely nameless, faceless, expendable human being with nothing to show for is of great disvalue (perhaps even morally so).

I suppose the question "why must life have a purpose" is something incredibly personal rather than an intrinsic feature of the universe. That is, if someone is really indifferent to being an expendable lump of flesh good for them, but if a meaningful fulfilling life is something of admirable to another person than good for them as well. (Personally, I would put myself in the second group of people)

 

[gwenmead]

I haven't read the book mentioned in the OP, so I can't respond with it in mind. What follows are just some personal thoughts.

I don't know. Maybe humans feel driven to find purpose in our lives because we need to in order to preserve our sanity. Maybe the possibility that we are alone in a godless, empty universe is just too much for many minds to bear. (Although a lot of atheists seem to do fine with it.)

Or maybe as a species we're arrogant, and think that there's something so amazingly special and unique about humanity that we must have some purpose in life, in some big, cosmic sense - something that the rest of the animal world doesn't have, or has in relation to us. (As in, what purpose does my dog have in life? To bring me pleasure and companionship.)

Or I don't know. Maybe life doesn't have to have a purpose, maybe life just is. It's just here, and we all just make the most of it, whatever that means.

 

[BelovedSonofRock]

I haven't read this book. Would you explain what the book has to say about purpose in life so that we may better understand your question?

What the book specifically says is not that important. In fact, I would need to go back into my notes to recall the specifics about the book. The book simply states that life has a purpose. But it doesn't state why there has to be a purpose.

 

[Orontes]

Why must life have a purpose?

I think you need to qualify your terms. Purpose is typically taken as synonymous with meaning. Does life necessarily have to have meaning? From the Classical Tradition the answer would be yes as meaning is tied up with the essence of man. This same Tradition argued that meaning was in coming to know the Good and the True.

 

[Eudaimonist]

What the book specifically says is not that important. In fact, I would need to go back into my notes to recall the specifics about the book. The book simply states that life has a purpose. But it doesn't state why there has to be a purpose.

I have no idea what the book means by purpose, though. There are many different concepts of purpose. I guess I'll just have to substitute my own concept of purpose in my reply.

My view is that we as human beings have a natural function and a naturally appropriate purpose, which is to flourish as individual human beings. I say "naturally appropriate purpose" instead of simply "natural purpose" because all purposes are chosen. There is no such thing as an unchosen purpose. Flourishing is forced as a goal on no one.

However, our nature as human beings implies certain potentials that the self-directed actualization of which matters to us. That's a fancy way of saying that we have human needs for growth and development that we have to consciously and purposely act to fulfill. It is because fulfilling our needs matters to us in a positive way -- i.e. is good for us as biological beings -- that I say this fulfillment is appropriate to us. It is in harmony with our personal natures. There are non-arbitrary reasons way we ought to prefer certain purposes over others.

So, instead of simply replying in the negative to that book that "there are no cosmic purposes imposed on us" (which is what I guess the author was arguing for), I will say that there are many purposes that can be chosen in life, and they may be relatively good and choiceworthy for one, and relatively bad and unchoiceworthy, according to a natural standard based on our nature, in particular our needs, and individual human beings. I won't say that human life is purposeless, since we can choose good purposes. This is the purpose that we should seek.

 

[miyako_1984]

Ok.. I'll bite...

As someone mentioned before 'The Purpose Driven Life' doesn't argue that life _should_ have a purpose but that it very simply does. Christians believe, as you know, that we are here in order to have a relationship with God - and fellow man- serving him and others. Equally, life is a gift from God which I guess, should be enjoyed as he intended. The book itself is actually a tool for fellowship and discipleship that is designed to help people take this perspective and importantly, apply it to their lives and the things that they do once they have.

Otherwise I am with Eudaimonist. What you do with your life is something that you determine- and although I believe that life was concieved for a relationship with God, you can choose to use it anyhow you want and take on any purpose you like- noble or otherwise. Some people live to make one other person happy, others determine to make steps ridding the world of land mines, others just to be as rich as possible, or do as much as they can. These are simply goals though. Christians have goals too despite believing that there is an underlying and profound reason, other than purely chance, that life exists. The two are not incompatible.

Christians do not believe that there is a 'cosmic purposes imposed' on anyone either but as you do, that you have free will to choose your own direction.

cheers
miyako_1984

 

[Madcoil]

If death has a purpose, I don't see why life wouldn't.

 

[KCDAD]

I read The Purpose Driven Life and the question I have is...

Why must life have a purpose?

To put it in JudeoChristian terms: Why did God create us? What could God have possibly been thinking?

 

[elman]

I haven't read the book mentioned in the OP, so I can't respond with it in mind. What follows are just some personal thoughts.

I don't know. Maybe humans feel driven to find purpose in our lives because we need to in order to preserve our sanity. Maybe the possibility that we are alone in a godless, empty universe is just too much for many minds to bear. (Although a lot of atheists seem to do fine with it.)

Or maybe as a species we're arrogant, and think that there's something so amazingly special and unique about humanity that we must have some purpose in life, in some big, cosmic sense - something that the rest of the animal world doesn't have, or has in relation to us. (As in, what purpose does my dog have in life? To bring me pleasure and companionship.)

Or I don't know. Maybe life doesn't have to have a purpose, maybe life just is. It's just here, and we all just make the most of it, whatever that means.

I don't think it is arrogance to hope we have more reason to exist than a bug. I would also think I could fulfil a higher purpose than my dog. If we are merely another animal and there is not reason for our existence then we like our dog simply eat, sleep and die. I think that is selling ourselves short and I don't thing thinking that is arrogant.

 

[psychedelicist]

I feel the same way. In fact, I'd rather not have a purpose. Hakim Bey's "ontological anarchy" is a much better read (I think you can find it online somewhere). A bit hard to read, and long, all just to say that having purpose and goals essentially sucks. I think I like it just because I was never very goal oriented or motivated, and it's a good justification for it.

Of course, I'm not sure if a completely purposeless life can exist. As long as you devote yourself to any goal, however temporary, be it eating, sleeping, or watching TV, or anything else, that is your purpose. I guess it could be considered a contradiction just like saying "there are no absolutes".

 

[Eudaimonist]

Hakim Bey's "ontological anarchy" is a much better read (I think you can find it online somewhere). A bit hard to read, and long, all just to say that having purpose and goals essentially sucks.

This book sounds like terrible advice, but I'm curious enough to ask... what is its basic argument? Can you explain it in one or two short paragraphs?

 

[NothingButTheBlood]

The book is about our purpose as a child of God. Our role in our faith. I don't care all that much for the book. It is vague and lacks scripture.

 

[Lifesaver]

Everybody lives their life with a purpose. But the fact is that most people are not aware of this purpose, even though they never cease to pursue it (often quite ineffectively).
Even more impressively, everyone has the same exact purpose in life; that is, all the voluntary (thought out, considered) actions of all men have the same ultimate end: happiness.

I'm not talking here of the delight associated with good moments, a momentary joy, but that state of existence in which nothing can be made better; all men aim at this, even though many may think such a state is unachievable.

Once one realizes this fact, though it is not in itself very informative as to what one should seek in order to attain happiness, they may be led to question the actions that characterize their own life are actually leading them to this end. And it turns out that most people realize that many of their actions, which they performed without much thought, and many of the goals they sought after as if instinctively, are actually empty, incapable of bringing happiness, and only pursued in the past because of a false notion more or less accepted uncritically by societal pressure.

 

[psychedelicist]

This book sounds like terrible advice, but I'm curious enough to ask... what is its basic argument? Can you explain it in one or two short paragraphs?

Probably not, just cause I'm not good at summarizing stuff. But it was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, influence for discordianism. Usually you can pretty easily interchange "ontological anarchist" and "discordian", they're more or less the same thing. you can read hakim's summary of his thoughts at http://deoxy.org/hakim/ontologicalanarchy.htm

Or, if you'd rather not go through the effort of clicking the link, here's a small excerpt from the link-

In effect, chaos is life. All mess, all riot of color, all protoplasmic urgency, all movement—is chaos. From this point of view, Order appears as death, cessation, crystallization, alien science.
Anarchists have been claiming for years that "anarchy is not chaos." Even anarchism seems to want a natural law, an inner and innate morality in matter, an entelechy or purpose-of-being. (No better than Christians in this respect, or so Nietzsche believed—radical only in the depth of their resentment.) Anarchism says that "the state should be abolished" only to institute a new more radical form of order in its place. Ontological Anarchy however replies that no "state" can "exist" in chaos, that all ontological claims are spurious except the claim of chaos (which however is undetermined) and therefore that governance of any sort is impossible. "Chaos never died." Any form of "order" which we have not imagined and produced directly and spontaneously in sheer "existential freedom" for our own celebratory purposes—is an illusion.

Also, I might have phrased that a bit wrong. It is more a preaching against order than against having goals. Although not having much long term goals and living for the moment was what he liked more (which is why I said goals suck), the basic idea of ontological anarchy is "Don't have rules. Or do. It doesn't matter" (rules can be semi interchangeable with goals, because to achieve a goal you have to set rules). It's also most anarchists' basis of thought as well, as opposed to most people seeing us as people who just don't want laws so we can lie, steal and kill and not be punished, we're actually just discordians, more or less (but then that might not be much of an improvement in most people's eyes )

 

[TeddyKGB]

Everybody lives their life with a purpose. But the fact is that most people are not aware of this purpose, even though they never cease to pursue it (often quite ineffectively).
Even more impressively, everyone has the same exact purpose in life; that is, all the voluntary (thought out, considered) actions of all men have the same ultimate end: happiness.

I'm not talking here of the delight associated with good moments, a momentary joy, but that state of existence in which nothing can be made better; all men aim at this, even though many may think such a state is unachievable.

Once one realizes this fact, though it is not in itself very informative as to what one should seek in order to attain happiness, they may be led to question the actions that characterize their own life are actually leading them to this end. And it turns out that most people realize that many of their actions, which they performed without much thought, and many of the goals they sought after as if instinctively, are actually empty, incapable of bringing happiness, and only pursued in the past because of a false notion more or less accepted uncritically by societal pressure.

In other words, happiness is not necessarily the attainment of things that make you happy, but acting in ways that someone else assures you will make you happy at some point in the future?

 

[Eudaimonist]

Probably not, just cause I'm not good at summarizing stuff. But it was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, influence for discordianism.

Gah, say no more. Discordianism makes a great joke religion, but it's a joke as wisdom.

 

[Valiant]

BelovedSonofRock:

I read The Purpose Driven Life and the question I have is... Why must life have a purpose?

I'd say that one reason for the idea of life having a purpose [to life] comes from the law of causality (or cause and effect relationship). This law states that "one cause can have many effects, but no effect can be quantitatively greater or qualitatively superior to its cause." Observed effects are assumed to have causes because of this law, and are not treated as purely random or chance occurrences.

I'm personally of the belief that everything that has a beginning has a cause (I am referring to the efficient cause, or the chief agent causing something to be made or happen), or a reason why and so on. This in turn gives rise to meaning.

I guess, since life [generally speaking - all life] had a beginning and there are effects of life, then there must an efficient cause to which the effect does not supersede it.

At least, that may be one of the reasons why Christians believe that life has a purpose. One of the other reasons I would say is based on the question, "Why did God create....?" However, this presupposes that God exists.

I should state that this is in my opinion.

Resource:
In Six Days: Why Fifty Scientists Choose To Believe In Creation by Jeremy Walter.