Meaning and Purpose

In my last blog (My Dinner With Andres - posted 9/18/08), I described how an existentialist does not believe the universe has any objective meaning or purpose, but then moves on to create a subjective meaning and purpose, usually out of a life changing experience where one awakens from a dreamlike state - sometimes called a self-actualized life. The life-changing experience can come in many ways, including mysticism, philosophy, drugs, even a religious experience, it doesn't matter, as long as it changes your life and gives you meaning and purpose.

A Christian doesn't face this problem. For a Christian who believes in the Bible, God gives meaning and purpose to life as well as in their life - and to the universe for that matter. That hardly means Christians do not have problems, but meaning and purpose is not one of them. Now a Christian may wonder what God wants them to do with their life, which is an entirely healthy question and endeavor. However, that is far different from giving up all hope that there is any meaning or purpose in the universe or in our lives.

Moreover, for the Christian, this is an objective meaning and purpose, not subjective, nor simply an existentialist religious experience. A Christian can have good and sufficient reason for his belief in God and faith. In other words, this faith is reasonable - not unreasonable. Perhaps I will explain the reasonable grounds for faith in another blog, but Christians throughout history and to the present assert their faith is reasonable, and reject an unreasonable grounds for faith, even to the present.

Therefore, Christians have a good answer to the modern despair in meaning and purpose - found throughout philosophy, art, theater, and literature. Further, Christians do not have to seek a subjective meaning and purpose to make this despair bearable.

My Dinner with Andre

My Dinner with Andre is a great film made in 1981. It is simply a dinner converation. It has no action, plot, romance, or anything Hollywood often considers essential. The two actors, Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory, wrote the screenplay. The conversation mostly revovles around the theater and follows much of their own life.

Andre Gregory had spent time in Poland doing a theater workshop for Jerzy Grotowski, considered a father of contemporary experimental theatre. He is most well-known for what was called a "beehive," a theater event consisting of communal rites and simple interactive exchanges. The concept was to breakdown the traditional distinction between the actors and the audience.

As Andre descibes this and other various experiences to Wally, Andre urges Wally to undergo some similar experience himself. Wally is unsure, and the conversation revolves around the meaning and purpose of life, whether people are essentially asleep, and whether there is any hope that traditional theater can say anything to anyone.

The film is a great exploration of existentialism. An existentialist believes the universe in reality has no meaning and purpose. However, an existialist believes in moving beyond this bleak reality by finding a subjective meaning and purpose. This is usually found by having a life transforming experience whereby the person finds this subjective meaning and purpose, and thus awakens from a dream like state of being.

Andre believes he has undergone such an experience, and is urging Wally to undergo something similar. While Wally agrees with many of the problems Andre observes, he does not feel such an experience is necessary to enjoy the simple pleasures of life. In any event, he enjoys the dinner and the conversation - so that at the end, he tells us he will go home and tell Debby all about his conversation with Andre.

The Abysmal Economy

Lately, there has been a lot of talk about the abysmal economy while Bush has been President. An examination of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) percentage change numbers since 2001 brings this statement into question as the chart below demonstrates.

The chart gives some idea of how various events since 2001 have affected the economy. These numbers would usually be considered good numbers in general for economic growth. Of course other numbers are looked at in measuring an economy, but GDP is the standard number looked at to determine how an economy is doing.

(Go to BEA Chart if you can't see this one that well.)

I tend to believe the private sector has a much bigger part in good economic numbers than the government. If anything, I tend to think the government is much more likely to harm an economy, so that the best course of action it can take is to get out of the way of private business, except in a narrow range of issues where the government must step in.

That does not mean I do not recognize that our economy is currently going through some very troubled times. However, I do not think it is fair to use the present troubles to ignore the good economic numbers the GDP has shown since 2001, simply because one does not like the current President in office.

Hour of the Wolf (Vargtimmen)

Hour of the Wolf (Vargtimmen in Swedish) is a film made by Ingmar Bergman in 1968. It is a great example of artistically exploring the results when you cannot distinguish between reality and fantasy (or non-reality). This is problem we all face as human beings, though we are not always aware of it. In philosophy, this problem is called epistemology - in simple terms - how do we know that we know? For most of us, we just assume we know reality. However, in our post-modern culture, there is great doubt precisely on this point. Modern man does not know if there is an objective world out there or if we have an objective basis for knowing it. Bergman squarely faces this problem in this film. Warning - Do not watch this film unless you are in the mood for a very bleak film.

The film centers on Johan (played by Max Von Sydow), an artist who is experiencing personal disintegration as he focuses on his increasingly disturbing art over his personal life with his seven year lover, Alma (played by Liv Ulman). However, at the start of the film, Johan is missing, and Alma tells us the story from his diary.

All seems blissful at the beginning, but soon disturbing events begin to occur. An old woman appears out of nowhere. She tells Alma of a diary Johan keeps under the bed. She tells Alma to read it. She first tells Alma she is 216 years old. Then she says she is 70. Just as suddenly, she is gone. However, Alma finds the diary, just as the old lady said, and she begins to read it. Was the old lady real or imaginary?

In the diary, Alma finds out very disturbing facts about Johan. She starts talking to Johan, especially very late at night - the hour of the wolf - and finds out more disturbing facts. However, it is almost impossible to tell what is real and what is not, both for Alma - and for us as the audience, especially as the film develops, and the incidents become increasingly bizarre and surreal.

They visit a castle on the island they live on. It is uncertain if anything or anyone there is real or imagined. To emphasize this - in one scene - one of the men in the castle begins to walk up a wall, and then upside down on the ceiling. Near the end, the people from the castle are hacking Johan to death in front of Alma - and not even Alma is sure if it happened.

A Christian does not have to face this terrifying dilemma. In a Christian world-view, a Christian has a basis for distinguishing between reality and non-reality. In very simple terms, God created an objective world and God created us in his image so that we can objectively view and understand the world he created. Therefore, a Christian world-view does not have a basic problem with the basis for knowing reality, and distinguishing it from non-reality. This foundation for knowledge formed the basis for modern science.

However, I appreciate Ingmar Bergman for exploring this problem artistically, bravely, and honestly in this film. He uses a German expressionist film-making style to emphasize the surrealist nature of what he is exploring cinematically.