Human Existence: Life, Death, Meaning, and Religion
Distinguishing Between Problem and Mystery
A problem is a situation where there is something unknown that we must ascertain, and difficulty is involved. Typically, a problem, once raised, can be solved if the proper technique is applied.
A mystery is a situation that affects and involves us deeply. It is not a barrier but opens perspectives and gives dimensions to existence. You cannot solve a mystery; there is no solution, so it accompanies us throughout life. Before the mystery, there are several possible answers depending on the person and circumstances.
Three Basic Responses to the Question of Meaning
- There is no meaning. Existence and the world are absurd. You cannot give life meaning, and the question makes no sense. This attitude is taken by authors such as Monod or Cioran.
- There is an inherent meaning. Existence has a purpose, but understanding that death is a limit, meaning for humankind can only be in human existence itself.
- There is a transcendent meaning which transcends death. This is the position of religions. I call it “salvation.” Transcendence means that this life is meaningless by itself but has a relation of continuity with another life full of happiness.
Religion and the Search for Meaning
Although the differences between religions are vast, they are all about finding and providing a meaning for life. This can last from understanding the three meanings of the term “sense” (no sense, there is an immanent sense, and there is a transcendent sense). Many religions understand that everything that happens is going towards a final goal, which is God.
Religion as Religation
The philosopher Xavier Zubiri sees the basic characteristic of the religious phenomenon in an etymological interpretation of the word “religion.” The term comes from the Latin word religio, related to the verb religare, which means to relink or to bind. Religious experience is that human beings have a linkage concerning things, the world, and God as the ultimate foundation. Thus, humans discover that they must be reconnected.
Religion as an Encounter and Response
Religion is also a relationship between man and a higher-order reality considered divine. It may have a personal or cosmic force. In all cases, the divine is a sacred reality, separate and distinct from man and the world; it is transcendent and supernatural. It is a mystery that is attractive and fascinating but also tremendous and awesome. In this sense, we can distinguish between two dimensions of religion:
- The dimension of the encounter: The divine goes to meet the person throughout their life. It is presented as meaning, giving purpose, meaning, or value to certain phenomena or life events.
- The response dimension: The encounter with the divine drives the human being to transform their life in some way. Most religions express the response through beliefs and rites.
The Biological Concept of Life
There is no general agreement about what can be understood biologically as “life.” Probably, this is because it is a complex phenomenon that cannot be covered in a single definition. Jacques Monod, a biologist who has reflected on contemporary modern biology from a philosophical perspective, has defined living beings as “objects endowed with a project,” that is, equipped with teleonomy. But in addition, living things are characterized by their ability to build or develop themselves without the intervention of external actors (autonomous morphogenesis) and, finally, to transmit unchanged the information they possess (reproductive invariance).
The Philosophical Concept of Life
The ancient Greek thinkers already used the concept of “life” in a way that goes far beyond mere physical activities, understanding that, in addition to plant and animal life, there is a kind of life that is the human way of being, that is, life or morality. But from the nineteenth century, a line of thought developed that emphasizes the importance of life as a study of philosophy. Ortega y Gasset was one of those who developed the philosophy of life. For him, life is found in the world, being in a circumstance. Human life is not a thing among things in the world; it is known to live humanly. Life is the most basic element found in humans: it is the primary reality. Life has a nature, a being already done and finished, but consists in activity, in this becoming itself permanent and continuous. Ortega insists that life is a choice, to build itself, to realize itself as its own program.
Existentialism and Understanding Death
Existentialism is a philosophical trend that says that the peculiar and characteristic of the human is not to be sought by investigating its essence but rather by reflecting on its existence. In the case of humans, and only for them, the essence is to exist. This means that first, we exist, and only after do we acquire a certain way of being. For the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, death reveals that human existence is radically affected by the finite. That we are finite beings means we have no power over everything; we are limited, particularly concerning time: we are historical beings. But for him, death is not simply the end of the time of existence but must be understood as a peculiar property of the human way of being. For Heidegger, man is a “being-for-death.”
In contrast, the French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre separates death from finitude. He thinks that although humans were immortal, we would remain finite. For him, obvious freedom is the radical finitude of human existence. We are finite; we are always in any circumstances in which we are making a choice. So, Sartre claims that “to be means to be chosen” because “the human being is freedom.”