Q&A With Fr. Sebastian Athappilly
Q: One of the most basic questions we could ask ourselves is “Why am I here in this world?” What do you personally see as the fundamental purpose of human life?
A: It depends on the meaning of the term ‘fundamental’. The term ordinarily means ‘basic’, in the sense of being the basis or fundament. In this sense, the fundamental purpose of human life is the same as its final or ultimate purpose, namely, to reach God, to give glory and praise to Him. Just as the moon reflects the light (“glory”) of the sun, the creatures reflect the glory of the Creator. While the sub-rational creatures reflect the glory of God automatically, spiritual creatures can and ought to reflect the glory of God deliberately, with intellect and will, by knowing, loving, thanking and praising God. This glory of God is at the same time the highest bliss for spiritual creatures in that they become one in God in ecstatic love in a kind of mystical marriage.
Q: What does your faith tradition say was God’s purpose in creating the world and human beings?
A: According to my Christian (Catholic) faith tradition, God’s purpose in creating the world and human beings was to share His love. It was not to increase His happiness, nor to acquire more perfection, but to share His goodness that He freely created this world. It is a kind of overflow of abundance of His love, for the nature of love is to share. This happens, however, in full freedom from the part of God and from the part of the creatures, in the case of rational creatures. God wants that the creatures in their own way attain to Him, for He Himself is their end. God does this in purest generosity. In other words, God’s free self-communication (communication of His own self) is the ultimate end of creation. This self-communication is under two modalities, namely, with the possibility of being accepted or rejected. Yet, it is a standing invitation.
Q: You’ve talked about the why of human life—the purpose of our life. There are some other existential questions that we could ask of ourselves, such as ‘What am I?’ and ‘Where will I go from here?’ Could you please share your reflections on these questions?
A: What am I? I am a living being in the species of humans. Further, I am a rational spiritual being with the ability to know and decide.
Who am I?
I am a creature and child of God, called to attain Him as my salvation and fulfilment and to remain forever with Him in love.
Where will I go from here?
I can choose the state in which I want to be, because God has set before me the two possibilities, either eternal life and light or eternal death and darkness. This is not a place, but a state of affairs: either in union with God, or ending up in a situation away from God. It is not as though I could absolutely decide my fate depending on my deeds. God in His mercy and love has ordered or factually arranged it so in such a way that each one can say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to God and attain Him or not. It depends on what I decide. If I have opted for God while in this world, then I go to Him after I die. In case I have decided against Him while I was here in this world, I face a situation in which I cannot accept God any further, a situation of self-centredness. In popular language, the former is called Heaven, and the latter, Hell. There can be a state of purification before I reach God depending on my relationship with Him in my life. If while I was in this world I had totally decided against Him, there is the possibility of totally losing Him, which is called the eternal damnation of Hell.
Just as a sentence has a full stop in order to be a meaningful statement, so, too, our life has to have a full stop, which happens in death. The fundamental option that one has finally made in one’s life remains so forever with death. This decision cannot be again revoked. Therefore, death is a very existentially important moment.
Q: Despite their differences at the level of dogma and ritual, all religions believe in the Hereafter and insist that life does not end with the death of the body—because they agree that human beings are not their bodies. This is in sharp contrast to all materialistic ideologies that, despite their differences, claim that everything ceases with the death of the body.
How do you think this basic distinction between religions, on the one hand, and materialistic ideologies, on the other, is reflected in how they see the purpose of human life?
A: The religions in general envisage the purpose of life in terms of a blissful situation beyond the material level and hence beyond the limits of physical death. This happy state of perfection is described in various terms, such as union with God, seeing God (the beatific vision), merging with God, sharing in the glory of God, liberation of the soul from material bondage, eternal life, Heavenly bliss, etc..
On the other hand, materialistic ideologies see the purpose of life exclusively in terms of a happy life in this world. This may include justice, welfare, peace, wealth, health, job, power, position, enjoyment and all kinds of pleasures. All these are, however, only for the time until death. After death, for the materialist, nothing is to be expected any more. Such a vision has nothing to offer to those who have only misery in this world and to those who die at a very young age.
Similarly, materialistic ideologies have no provision for any kind of sanction, positive or negative, for deeds of selfless love and service, or malice and cruelty, as the case might be. With death, saint and sinner, victim and oppressor, all become alike, without any difference at all—because they are believed to remain no more. The only possible sanction would be that which can be meted out here on earth, by the state or the society. But this is realistically not guaranteed on in this realm.
Materialistic ideologies do not also know forgiveness and reconciliation: their vocabulary is filled with violence, retaliation, revenge, punishment, bloody revolution, despair, disappointment and suicide. At the same time, since they envisage creating a ‘paradise’ on earth, they are under a big burden of stress and strain in attempting to realise this by human efforts alone.
Q: What difference do you think belief in the Creator God can make in our understanding of the purpose of life?
A: Faith in the Creator God implies that God is the Lord of nature as well as of history. If God has created this universe and us human beings, He has a good plan behind it. The ultimate purpose of human life cannot be exhausted in living a few years here on earth, since the soul, being spiritual, cannot be dissolved in matter.
The ability of human beings to make universal ideas by abstracting their essence from concrete particular things is evidence of the spiritual faculty or power of the human being, and with it also of the presence of a spiritual entity, which is called the ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’. Although the material body will get corrupted and dissolve, the soul, being spiritual, survives death and craves for a higher end. The presence of love indicates that the purpose of life is attained only in the highest form of the realisation of this love. So, too, the thirst for life deposited in humans can be satisfied only in eternal life. This has to be a life with and in God, which God wants to offer us in love. Where there is no faith in God there cannot be any such hope for a meaning of life as a gift of God’s love.
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