What Does It All Mean?

Mitch Stokes in his book, How to be an Atheist, wraps up things by pressing the consequences of naturalism even further; that is, if naturalism is true, it not only means that moral nihilism is true (there are no objective, human independent standards of right and wrong), but nihilism is true. Nihilism would imply that there's nothing objectively valuable about our lives, nothing independent of us. Our lives have no objective worth or meaning. As Richard Dawkins himself says, "The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference." So, nothing matters. But is that so bad? Philosopher Thomas Nagel asks, "Does it matter that it doesn't matter?" His thought is why not adopt the following attitude:
"It's enough that it matters whether I get to the station before my train leaves, or whether I've remembered to feed the cat. I don't need more than that to keep going....[but, he cautions it] only works if you really can avoid setting your sights higher, and asking what the point of the whole thing is."
And so, I guess, we all make our own meaning...or not. Life doesn't have to have meaning if you don't want it to. Stokes sums up this approach to meaning:

If meaning is really grounded in a valuer, then we'll never find meaning outside of persons. There is, then, no meaning from the universe's point of view; universes aren't the kinds of things that can have points of views. Or values. So, in one sense the bar is set very low; if you find something meaningful, then it is meaningful. If you value something, then it is valuable. To you. Your values are not my values, just as your feelings are not my feelings, nor are your beliefs my beliefs, strictly speaking. Of course, you and I can value the same kinds of things. That is, we might both find meaning in the same cause, for example. We might both value communism or education or world peace or gardening.

So when we think about meaning and God, how is finding meaning in God any different than finding meaning in gardening, painting, cocaine, pornography, or communism? Is God just one choice among many? On one hand God is very different from these other things: he is holy and set apart, not part of the world; according to Christianity, the world and everything in it are his; he is the ultimate authority regardless of what we think. Moreover, God has designed us to only function properly when we love the things he loves and hate the things he hates. We flourish when our preferences align with his. And because this is God's show, the things he finds meaningful are as objective as things get, in that they're human independent (but not person independent). They are in a very real sense, eternal values.

On the other hand, we can in a sense choose God from among other things. This is clear as we often don't value what God values. If we were to argue that his values are objective, universal values, they certainly do not dictate our every action...believer or non-believer. So, it's not a forgone conclusion that we'll value what God values, or find meaning where he does. We can apparently choose to align with or against God. Stokes concludes:

But the point is this. The cosmos is profoundly personal. It's a place where the highest value turns out to be place of relationships. God calls us to a relationship of mutual love. In fact, God himself is a relationship among divine persons....It is only in the proper relation to these persons that we find value and meaning that are ultimately satisfying.

For me, moral obligation to God leads us to be what humans were meant to be; obedience and commitment to God make us fully human. Moral nihilism raises humans to be no higher than being a collection of atoms banging together who only aspire to getting to the train on time and calling it a day. In this sense, in order to be fully human, the ground of moral obligation cannot be human, but something or rather someone who knows what we ought to become. Trapped in our human bubble, we cannot see outside of ourselves to determine that standard or agree to what it should be. So, we muddle along until we are shown what we can and should be.

As the old hymn puts it - and as Stokes ends his book - "This is my Father's world."