class: center, middle, inverse, title-slide .title[ # Supernaturalism 1 ] .date[ ### PHIL 2350 The Meaning of Life - FS23 ] --- # Agenda for this week 1. Video Lecture 1: Supernaturalism 1: The purpose-based 2. Video Lecture 2: Supernaturalism 2: The afterlife-based account 3. Video Lecture 3: Commentary to the readings: Tolstoy / Quinn / Fackenheim 4. Quiz ### For next week 1. Two readings only. 2. Commentary to *one* reading. 3. Reply to *one* commentary. - Reading 1: Christopher W. Gowans: The Buddha’s Message (p. 27-34) - Reading 2: Henry Rosemont, Jr.: The Confucian Way (pp. 35-40) --- class: middle, center, inverse # Supernaturalism Supernatural conditions are necessary for life to have meaning. --- # Assumptions For this discussion, we will assume that God/Divinity exists, that God created humans, and that God has given humans a purpose. Our focus is to try to understand __how God/Divinity could possibly confer meaning to life__. --- # Supernaturalism .shadow[ .emphasis[ __Supernaturalism__: Supernatural conditions are necessary for life to have meaning. ] ] Equivalent formulations: - If life has meaning, then some supernatural conditions are satisfied. - Life has meaning only if some supernatural conditions are the case. - More colloquially: life is meaningful only if some condition related to God is satisfied. But how exactly a supernatural condition could confer meaning to life? --- # Two arguments But how exactly a supernatural condition could confer meaning to life? - __Purpose-based account__: God’s purposes for life confer meaning to life. - __Afterlife account__: Some kind of life after bodily death is crucial for life to have meaning. --- class: medium-font # Purpose-based account Main thesis of the purpose-based account: One’s life is meaningful if and only if one’s life fulfills God’s purpose for life. Argument: 1. One’s life is meaningful if and only if one’s life is about doing what is maximally important/valuable. 2. One’s life is about doing what is maximally important/valuable if and only if one fulfills God’s purposes for life. 3. Therefore, one’s life is meaningful if and only if one fulfills God’s purposes for life. --- ### Human life's purposes (intended by God) What is the purpose of life (given by God)? - __Love / Glorify God__: Participate in a relationship with divinity. - __Behave morally__: Do good, respect others, promote justice, improve oneself and the lives of others (flourishment), etc. --- class: medium-font # Purpose-based account 1. One’s life is meaningful if and only if one’s life is about doing what is maximally important/valuable. 2. One’s life is about doing what is maximally important/valuable if and only if one fulfills God’s purposes for life. 3. Therefore, one’s life is meaningful if and only if one fulfills God’s purposes for life. According to this argument, fulfilling God's purposes is __necessary__ and __sufficient__ for a meaningful life. - Necessary: For your life to be meaningful, you _must_ fulfill God's purpose. - Sufficient: If you fulfill God's purpose, _you don't have to do anything else_ for your life to have meaning. --- # Objection: against sufficiency Sufficiency claim: If you fulfill God's purpose, _you don't have to do anything else_ for your life to have meaning. Thought experiment (based on Nagel 1979): > In the distant cosmos, an advanced alien race engineered humans, identical to us in every way, as their primary source of sustenance. The aliens created these humans for the explicit goal of providing food to their community. So, the purpose of these human beings is to be food for aliens. A human life's purpose is fulfilled anytime an alien eats that human. - Intuitively, being eaten by aliens does not confer meaning to the lives of these human beings. - It is not sufficient to fulfill God's purposes. It's also required that God has the _right_ purposes. --- ## Reply to the objection Objection: - Intuitively, being eaten by aliens does not confer meaning to the lives of these human beings. - It is not sufficient to fulfill God's purposes. It's also required that God has the _right_ purposes. Reply: _God established the right purposes for us_, because God is _all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful_ (infinitely benevolent, powerful, and omniscient). So, God cannot possibly have had the wrong purposes when he created us. --- class: medium-font # Objection: against necessity Necessity claim: For your life to be meaningful, you _must_ fulfill God's purpose. Thought experiment: > Imagine a universe in which God exists and created humans, giving them the purpose of behaving in morally good ways. In this universe, there is an elderly woman who has dedicated her entire life to helping those in need. She has established shelters and food programs for the homeless, tirelessly advocated for improved health and housing initiatives, and demonstrated boundless kindness and generosity to all she encounters. Now imagine a parallel universe, exactly like the first one, but without God. Humans exist but they were not created by God nor have any intentional purpose. In this universe, there is an elderly woman (identical to the one in the other universe) who has also dedicated her entire life to helping those in need - Intuitively, the lives of both elderly women should be meaningful to the same extent. - What matters _is the content of life’s purpose_, not that such purposes were intended by God. --- ## Reply to the objection - Intuitively, the lives of both elderly women should be meaningful to the same extent. - What matters _is the content of life’s purpose_, not that such purposes were intended by God. Reply: For both lives to have equal meaning, _God must be the source of the value of behaving morally_. Behaving morally has maximal importance/value only because such value comes from God’s infinite benevolence. --- ## Conclusion - __Supernaturalism__ is the view that God is necessary for life to have meaning. - We will _assume_ for the discussion that God/Divinity exists. Even assumming this, it's not clear how exactly God gives meaning to life. - The __purpose-based account__ says that the meaning of life is attained by (and only by) _fulfilling God's purposes_. - But intuitively: - Fulfilling God's purposes is __not sufficient__, we also must have the _right_ purposes. - Fulfilling God's purposes is __not necesssary__, behaving morally would do. - Surmounting these objections involve believing __further religious claims__: - Idea of God as all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing. - Idea that God is the source of the value of morality.