class: center, middle, inverse, title-slide .title[ # Supernaturalism 2 ] .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 --- # Supernaturalism Supernatural conditions are necessary for life to have meaning. But how? - __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. --- # The afterlife account Main thesis of the afterlife account: For life to have meaning, humans must have a soul and there must exist an afterlife. - What is the afterlife? Idea that life can countinue infinitely after bodily death. It involves a realm that transcends material life, and possibly the same realm/dimension in which God itself exists. - What is a soul? A constitutive part of one’s identity as a person that survives bodily death. How an afterlife can confer meaning to life? --- ## The afterlife account: argument 1. If there’s no afterlife, then life’s value/importance would be finite, and thus severely limited. 2. If life’s value/importance is finite and thus severely limited, then life is not meaningful. 3. If there’s no afterlife, then life is not meaningful. 4. Therefore, a life is meaningful only if there’s an afterlife. Premise 1: Part of what robs meaning to life is its finitude. Premise 2: For life to be meaningful, then life should be capable to achieve some significant relation with infinity/perfection/unlimitless. --- class: medium-font # Limited value of finite life 1. If there’s no afterlife, then life’s value/importance would be finite, and thus severely limited. 2. If life’s value/importance is finite and thus severely limited, then life is not meaningful. 3. If there’s no afterlife, then life is not meaningful. 4. Therefore, a life is meaningful only if there’s an afterlife. In support of 1: - _Finite value_: All things that end have limited value (example: mortal vs. eternal happiness). Thus, if life could ever aspire to have maximal value/importance, life must not come to an end in death. - _Justice_: If there’s no afterlife, then morally good and bad lives face the same fate (all lives would end in death). - _Suffering_: A mortal life can be filled with suffering. For it to have meaning, then death must not be the end of it. --- class: medium-font # Meaningful life is of unlimited value 1. If there’s no afterlife, then life’s value/importance would be finite, and thus severely limited. 2. If life’s value/importance is finite and thus severely limited, then life is not meaningful. 3. If there’s no afterlife, then life is not meaningful. 4. Therefore, a life is meaningful only if there’s an afterlife. In support of 2: - _Maximal value of life:_ Life’s meaning is attached to things that have maximal importance/value. Nothing that is not maximally important/valuable can confer meaning to life. For life to have meaning, we need to appeal to some sort of maximal importance/value. --- ## Objection Claim: A life is meaningful only if there’s an afterlife. From _The Absurd_ by Thomas Nagel (1971) > What we say to convey the absurdity of our lives often has to do with space or time: we are tiny specks in the infinite vastness of the universe; our lives are mere instants even on a geological time scale, let alone a cosmic one; we will all be dead any minute. But of course none of these evident facts can be what makes life absurd, if it is absurd. For suppose we lived forever; would not a life that is absurd if it lasts seventy years be infinitely absurd if it lasted through eternity? And if our lives are absurd given our present size, why would they be any less absurd if we filled the universe (either because we were larger or because the universe was smaller)? Reflection on our minuteness and brevity appears to be intimately connected with the sense that life is meaningless; but it is not clear what the connection is. --- ## Objection and reply Objection: Life's finitude is at best only a part of what makes life meaningless. What matters most is what is what happens in afterlife. Reply: - The afterlife account _only states a necessary condition for a meaningful life_: a life is meaningful only if there’s an afterlife. For life to be meaningful, an afterlife is required, but the account doesn't say that it is enough. - Something substantial needs to occur in afterlife - Infinite happiness - Meeting/Communion with God --- ## Conclusion - The afterlife account says that __an afterlife is necessary for life to have meaning__. - Main reasons supporting the account: - _Finite value of mortal life_ - _Considerations of justice_ - _Possibility of suffering_ - _Maximal value of life_ - Objection - Afterlife (infinite life) is _not sufficient_. - Response - A more substantial condition should be satisfied in the afterlife. - Surmounting this objection involve believing __further religious claims__: - Idea of meeting/communion with God in eternity.