The famed Danish philosopher and author Soren Kierkegaard uttered these famous thoughts in his work Fear and Trembling: "If there were no eternal consciousness in a man, if at the bottom of everything there were only a wild ferment, a power that twisting in dark passions produced everything great or inconsequential; if an unfathomable, insatiable emptiness lay hid beneath everything, what would life be but despair?Consider the ramifications of these words, in a culture that is becoming increasingly void of meaning and purpose, in favor of relativism. Kierkegaard, I think, posits a very radical view or purpose and meaning, and in his book, these components are the result of one thing, faith. To arrive at an understanding of meaning and purpose, one would have, according to Kierkegaard, resign from reason, in order to capture the essence of faith. Now, Kierkegaard's view of course, is in stark contrast to that of another equally famous physicist, Stephen Hawkings, who boldly stated in an interview that, "[he] regards[s] the [human] brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark" (theguardian.co.uk, 2011).
These two competing views however, resurrect an interesting question: Is life meaningful? One would be hard pressed to find meaning in Hawking's assessment that life is basically all there is, and the idea of an afterlife is simply a 'fairy tale' and we are but mere computers doomed for destruction at some point. Kierkegaard would agree that if we are but mere computers passing through the world as a ' thoughtless and fruitless whim'--then life would be 'empty and devoid' of meaning and purpose. Incidentally, these two compelling views are some of the most discussed views among Christians and non-Christians. For non-Christians, life ends here on earth. For Christians, life here on earth is but a stepping stone; a journey designed to provide a glimpse of what the afterlife has to offer. Indeed, we long or heaven, our home, that our Christ has prepared for us royals (1 Pet. 2.9), mansions (John 14.2) galore. God provides hope...
