Q&A With Fr. Sebastian Athappilly
Q: As a child, did your parents or teachers or priests or anyone else speak to you about the purpose of life?
A: I do not remember anyone speaking to me then on the purpose of life. However, I remember what I learnt in my religion class as a boy of seven years. As the answer to the question for what purpose God had created us, it was taught that God created us in order that we love Him and obey His precepts.
Q: Growing up, no one ever talked to me about the purpose of life—not my parents, nor my friends, nor any of my teachers. Do you think this is a fairly widespread phenomenon? If so, do you think it is a relatively recent development?
A: Not talking (verbally) about the purpose of life can be a widespread phenomenon everywhere. At the same time, all of us are indirectly expressing, through our actions and lifestyles, a lot about what we regard as the purpose of life. The question is whether this message corresponds to the truth as envisaged by our Creator.
If God is our Creator, it should be for some purpose. If Chance is the source of the world and our life, then we cannot speak of a purpose of life. God does not need to create in order to gain something for Him, but to share His love and life with His creatures. God created out of His abundance. We have to distinguish between the Agent’s (Creator’s) intention and the purpose or the inherent goal of the created being. The purpose of the created beings—the purpose inherent in them—is attaining God and sharing in His life. This will bring a creature to the fullness of life and love and joy precisely because it reaches its final goal towards which it has been created.
The phenomenon that you refer to—of not talking about our ultimate purpose—can be the result of the purely secularistic concerns. Earning wealth and enjoying a materialistic life are regarded as of ultimate value by some people. Such people tend to forget the ultimate truths about human life—such as questions like why we are here, from where we came and where we are going.
Q: I can’t recall talking about such issues in school and college or with colleagues in the places where I worked. I don’t know if we ever once referred to these existential questions. This shows how pervasive this sort of thinking is, how many of us, perhaps inadvertently, want to remain silent on such matters.
While the purpose of life may not be explicitly talked about, many (perhaps most) of us are constantly faced with the implicit message that a fundamental purpose of life is to become materially prosperous and to ‘enjoy’, to the maximum possible extent, the stimulation of the senses. So, the purpose of life comes to be seen in terms of sense gratification—as getting a ‘good’ job, a big house, having as much ‘fun’ as possible, and so on. This message is relentlessly conveyed to us through all sorts of channels, including the(mis-)education system and the media, and even in our homes through our families. Through this subtle but pervasive propaganda people come to define the purpose of life in essentially materialistic terms, in terms of sense gratification.
Do you agree? If so, and if you think that this is not really what the purpose of life is, how do you think we could become more aware, and also help make others more aware, of the true purpose of life?
A: It is true, as you have observed, that the prevalent view in society in terms of the implicit lived message is that the purpose of life is securing a materially well-off situation in terms of wealth, health, job, position, power, etc. But although these are good values, they are not the ultimate values. We can help ourselves and others by reminding ourselves and them that all material things are perishable and that our own death will make an end to our possession of them. We should not be then at the loser’s side when death takes away all what we have amassed. To survive and overcome this loss at the hands of death, we need something that transcends death itself. The assurance that God has prepared an indestructible state of affairs for those who live according to His will shall not make us desperate in the face of our sure death. We have to store up, as the Bible tells us, “treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal”(Matthew 6:20).
Q: If someone were to say “There is no purpose of life as such. It is up to each one of us to construct our own purpose”, how do you think you might respond?
A: My response would be as follows: As a creature of a wise and loving God Who does not work arbitrarily, I believe that my life has a good purpose. On the contrary, if it were that I came to exist by sheer chance, there would not have been any purpose for my life. In that case, I would have had to construct the purpose of my life myself. If life is simply a result of mere impersonal chance, as some atheists say, there is no question of purpose. Everything would then be purposeless, meaningless and senseless! Some seek the future in astrology or in the stars. If I am simply a product of chance, my life has no ultimate purpose. If I am a mere by-product of chance or evolution, the very talk of purpose is irrelevant and absurd, for chance recognises no purpose, and sheer and impersonal evolution (evolution taking place without a Person behind it) has no aim. It is un-teleological, a movement without goal and purpose (telos).
The very fact that we speak of the purpose of life is precisely because we are guided by God, who is personal and is in relation with us and possesses intellect and will. Only where there is intelligence is there purpose. If you are intelligent enough to speak and reflect on the purpose of life, your intelligence cannot be the outcome of a non-intelligent entity—chance or the stars or whatever. And if you are a being of “heart” who can love, you must have received the ability to love only from the Source of love—God. Chance and stars are not such entities. Mere materiality cannot account for spiritual considerations.
Q: With regard to the purpose of life, there is the vertical dimension of religion, our relationship with God. What about the important horizontal dimension of religion—our relationship with the co-creation, including fellow human beings, animals, birds and plants, as well as the natural environment? What role do you think our relationships at this horizontal dimension have in fulfilling the purpose of life?
A: The horizontal dimension of religion concerns our fellow human beings and the rest of our world (other living beings and also the natural environment—the co-creation). I would include this in the task of our life rather than the purpose of life. We are given the mandate and task to love one another (our duty and task regarding our fellow creatures) and to keep and protect this earth and its environment. This is made clear in the Bible, for instance, in the book of Genesis in the Bible, where God asks Cain: “Where is your brother Abel?” (Gen. 4:9), and in the mandate to till and fill the earth (Gen 1:28). The duty of love of other human beings is emphasised in the teachings of Jesus, where he makes the love of neighbour nearly equal in importance to the commandment to love God (Matthew 22:39), and even decisive for the final salvation (in the discourse on the Last Judgment in Matthew 25:31-46). The whole creation is regarded as the addressee and recipient of salvation, as is shown in the Bible in Mark 16:15: “proclaim the good news to the whole creation”, and in Romans 8:22: “The whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now”.
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