One of the special gifts we can give ourselves is to take the time to read the writings of someone much smarter than we are so that we can be challenged to think and ponder life at a depth we may not have previously plumbed. A couple of years ago I gave myself such a gift when I read Gregory Koukl’s book The Story of Reality: How the World Began, How It Ends, and Everything Important That Happens in Between. His book challenged me to put together an important understanding of a question which life seemingly compels us to ask and answer, variously phrased as: Why am I here? Why do I exist? What is my purpose in life?
Until I read Koukl’s book, I had concluded that anybody, whether they believed in God or not, was on solid ground in asking those questions. Until then I had never thought about the fact that when you ask one of those questions, the assumption behind them is that there is an intelligent and personal God who created all that exists. And not only did He create it, He did so for a purpose and included mankind in the fulfillment of that purpose. Koukl helped me see that by contrast, if there is no God, if the universe as we know it is simply the result of an impersonal evolutionary process, then life in general—and humans in particular—have no meaning and purpose beyond survival of the fittest, and eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow—or someday down the road—we will die. Therefore, for the one who does not believe in a Creator God to ask why I am here has no validity.
It is interesting that one of the world’s most renowned atheists understood that truth very well. In his book The Purpose Driven Life, author Rick Warren quotes Bertrand Russell—British philosopher, historian, and winner of the 1950 Nobel Prize in Literature. Considering Russell’s unbelief in the existence of God, it is interesting that he once said, “Unless you assume a God, the question of life’s purpose is meaningless.”1 Put another way, unless you believe there is a God who created the world for a purpose, then to bother oneself attempting to answer the question of life’s purpose is an empty exercise.
For the sake of discussion, let’s assume for a moment that everything that exists—the universe, the earth, and all who dwell on it—was created by a loving, personal, gracious, merciful, kind, holy, and righteous God who had a reason for doing so. What do you suppose that reason would be? Would His intent simply be to get His creation up and running, and then move on to other things and leave life as we know it to chance? Or does it make more sense that His purpose in creating man on earth, in the midst of an incredibly vast and phenomenal universe, would be so that man could dwell in an environment where he would be drawn into an intimately personal relationship with God—worshiping Him throughout eternity? The Bible reveals that it’s the latter.
Why am I here? Why do I exist? What is my purpose? Jesus, who was God-in-flesh, gave us the most succinct answer to those questions one day when a man asked Him, “What is the greatest commandment?” Jesus answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind…and the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Now that’s real purpose.
1The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren, 2012, p.21.
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