April Monthly Blog

Brad Way
Mrs. Burnett
AP English
30 April 2015

This unit we have covered the idea of existentialism. I had the pleasure of teaching the class on The Stranger by Albert Camus. Considering the author is an existentialist himself, I figured I should explore the idea more. I may not be an expert, but I do have the general idea of what it is. I will explain existentialism as briefly as I can before carrying on:

• Life has no universal meaning or moral code
• Humans are to make meaning in life for themselves (each person can have their own unique meaning)
      - Theistic Existentialism: the belief that there is a god or higher power, but humans have gone too far from the nature that god gave them to return.
      - Atheistic Existentialism: there is no god or higher power, each person is the center of their own universe.

There are additional minor points to this idea, however I wanted to focus my writing on these key points.

I have a hard time with the idea of existentialism. First off, due to my faith in Jesus; He makes it clear that every person does have a purpose in life, which is to serve Him and bring Him glory (whether everyone follows that purpose is another thing). Additionally, existentialism falls apart when I examine it.

Going off existentialism's definition, there is no universal meaning or moral code to life. This takes away anyone's ability to say someone is wrong. In existentialism, if I were to say my purpose in life that I made for myself is to kill everyone in sight, 99.9999% of people would say I'm wrong (the other 0.0001% would either be those in the world who unashamedly love evil or are just desiring to fight this argument by saying post-modernism's battle cry, "Well if it's good to you..."). So think about it, would I be wrong or unjust in anyway by saying my purpose in life is to kill everyone in my sight? The true existentialist would be forced to say no because that meaning in life I have found is true to me. However, everyone gets that feeling in their stomach and voice in their head that screams, "NO!"

Why? Why do we care if people decide their purpose in life is to kill everyone? If life is meaningless, who cares? And that's where I can't believe in existentialism because every person in the world, whether they believe it or not, believes in a universal meaning in life. Every person believes that the meaning of life starts with "doing good". I agree whole heartedly with that statement, however my definition of "good" is strongly different than most of this world, especially this society. I believe in the biblical definition of good.

What does the bible say about what is "good"? Well for starters, it mentions that humans, by nature, are far from it. We are NOT good and we can do NO good on our own. If you don't believe me, compare yourself to the Ten Commandments — when you compare yourself with the standards Jesus set in following the law (Matthew 5-7) you fall very short of being anywhere close to good, in fact, the law is meant to show us how bad we are (Romans 3:20).

What else does the bible say about what is "good"? Living your life for God's glory (meaning everything you do, you are thanking, trusting, loving, and giving credit to God) is it (1 Corinthians 10:31). The start of that is a repentant heart, meaning you realize you are bad and realize Jesus was the only good person in all of history, and that He was the perfect sacrifice to die for the imperfect people we are. Jesus' death was a legal transaction, just like in a court of law, Jesus paid your fine and did the time for the crimes you committed. You are no longer guilty because He has taken on your punishment for you.

Philippians 1:6 says, "And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." So not only are we being made more like God (aka GOOD) but one day in heaven we will be completely GOOD. No longer held down by humanly imperfections, but now made just like Jesus: good.

In conclusion, at the heart of everyone, there is a universal desire for "good" to be done. However, when we come to the end of our life, God isn't going to judge us by our own standards of "good" but His. So I plead with anyone and everyone who happens to read this: repent and trust in Christ. Colossians 1:15-23 explains that everything was made by Christ for Christ — don't waste your life on anyone or anything else.