Are the Big Questions Dead?
“Am I living it right?”
- John Mayer
"My purpose is whatever I make it”, "What does it matter if God is there?" "Haven't we moved beyond these old questions?"
As quickly as these sentiments have seeped into the modern psyche, it's worth noting that “the big questions” about meaning, God, and reality are still, well… big. There’s (still) a lot at stake.
It's not that everyone has always agreed on answers to huge topics like purpose and the existence of God. On these, men and women have come to all kinds of conclusions. But ever since Socrates reminded us that “the unexamined life is not worth living” thoughtful people have joined in common chorus around one big idea: the meaning of your life and nature of reality are worth figuring out.
And yet, most of us live without asking big questions. We go to church or mosque or skip religion altogether without asking “why?”. We believe what our parents asserted or we just drift with whatever our culture is pushing at the time.
It’s tempting to pass topics like meaning and God off as “esoteric”, but the reality is that these questions lie inches below the surface of our daily decisions, experiences, and longings.
Stumbling into Depth
Underneath “What should my major be?” or “Should I have kids?” lie whole root systems of assumptions which can only be probed with deeper questions.
“What is a job for?” “Why should I (or anyone) go through the risk and pain of having kids?”
Now we’re getting somewhere. Brave souls can dig one level deeper.
What is the purpose of my life?
Is there some objective meaning to my life? Or do I make it up myself?
But where would objective meaning come from? There is one candidate…
…Does God exist? What is he like? What might he want from my life?
For some of us, this just got real uncomfortable real fast. Like any good Minnesotan, I too sought to push aside “the big questions” - or at least keep them to myself.
Eventually, my Scandinavian heritage would yield to my inner engineer. In trying to be intentional with my life before I lived it, asking big questions became necessary.
I’m not trying to convince you of an answer. My contention is simply that big questions are not dead. They are worth asking.
Here are a few reasons why.
Ask Big Questions to Clarify Your Purpose
“Begin with the end in mind.” Stephen Covey's second immortal habit is as obvious as it is rare. Covey argues that no project, business, or relationship should be launched without first asking what end are we are trying to achieve, because the steps we take will follow from our purpose.
The same goes for life.
And yet, most of us spend more time planning our vacations than planning our lives. Maybe that’s because to plan our lives, we need to decide what life is - and this can be difficult and scary.
Our present culture tells us that "life is whatever we want it to be". This might be true. Or it might be a accidental byproduct of the "expressive individualism" that rules our tiny, privileged time and place.
To find out we have to ask.
2. Ask Big Questions So You Don’t Miss Out
I’ve noticed a funny theme in my bible reading lately. I’d call it “The Life within life”. It’s all over the book, but let’s just look at a couple passages that become weird when you stop to think about them.
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
-Jesus, Matthew 4
Isn't life more than food and clothing?
-Jesus, Matthew 6
Wait, what? We all know people who seem to get by just fine on “bread alone”, without a care for “every word that comes from the mouth of God”. We know people who are very much “alive” with mere “food and clothing” and a full 401k, etc. These are people whose primary concern is their physical needs now and in the future. That’s normal. It’s common. It might be you.
Jesus is saying that you can be alive while at the same time missing out on Life. He’s claiming there is a deeper dimension to what life can be.
Is he right? Or is he full of it?
To find out we have to ask.
3. Ask Big Questions to Understand your Foundations
We all believe in things like free will, morality, and human rights. We can't help it. But for these features of reality to make any sense, we need God.
We’ll all take moral stances in our lifetime, both big ("Putin has no right to invade Ukraine") and small ("She has no right to treat me like this"). We'll assume people matter. We'll act like decisions are real.
Are we standing on solid ground when we do this? Or are we just being illogical robots living in cognitive dissonance?
To find out we’ll have to ask.
4. Ask Big Questions While You Can
Voyager’s iconic picture of Saturn’s rings (750 million miles away)
I just read a fascinating story about the Voyager space mission. The project stemmed from a crucial discovery by Gary Flandro in 1964. Flandro found that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune align once every 176 years, making a long-range mission possible. Also - the next alignment was in just thirteen years. NASA frantically built Voyager and launched it just in time. Any later and we’d have missed the window.
We want to believe that timing doesn't matter. That life will wait around for us and that we'll always have the opportunity.
The Voyager story teaches us that windows of discovery don’t last forever.
And that's exactly how the Bible talks about life.
The picture that emerges from the ancient book is that now is the time to figure out what life is about (e.g. here, here, here). There are consequences for the answers, both now and later. Is that right? Or a bunch of religious nonsense?
To find out we’ll have to ask.
Conclusion
Friend, I don't know where you're at on this journey. Maybe you've already reached conclusions on the big questions of God and meaning or maybe you're asking them right now. Perhaps you have asked the questions but you’ve drifted away from the answers you know to be true.
Or maybe you've lived your whole life climbing the ladder in front of you without asking if it was the right one.
Big questions can be scary. I can't say where you might end up. But you never know - until you ask.