Of the Meaning of Life and the Purpose of Love

Does life have meaning?  If so, what is that meaning?  The answer, to be valid, must discover meaning for lives lived 70 years and longer as well as those lived for 70 minutes or fewer.  That is to say, that it must reveal meaning for all members of the family of Adam and Eve.  I have to admit that I cannot fathom an answer that life offers meaning only for some people but not for others, that the others are just stage props for those fortunate humans for whom life really matters.

I would also posit that in order for life to have meaning for man, then man’s existence cannot end with the end of mortality, that life must have an eternal character for there to be meaning to it.  Temporary meaning is no meaning in the end.  If there is an end, then in the end what does it matter?

I will add that, if there is eternal existence, that whispers to me a strong intuition of the existence of God, the existence of a being who has it all figured out, who has used eternity well.  I do not offer this point as a proof at this moment, but rather as a likelihood.  There are other proofs that I know and could offer for the existence of God, for God has not hidden Himself from His children who want to know Him.  He sent us here to find out which of His children really want to know Him:  that is one of the purposes of this life, closely related to the central purpose of life.  The process of coming to know God is an individual work that necessitates the personal development of what is also God’s defining characteristic.  That development involves the process of living in this life on earth.

That is to say that one way of describing the central purpose and meaning of life is this:  for each individual to develop an ever greater capacity to love.  That may sound sentimental and trite, but it is nonetheless true.  Good fiction draws its vitality from important themes of reality.  J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series climaxes with the discovery that the most powerful “magic” in the world is love, belittled and scorned by the arch villain of the series even as he is destroyed by its strength. 

Love, particularly the love of God, is the central theme of scripture.  The scriptures taken altogether are an unfolding exposition of God’s love operating among His children and either embraced or rejected by them.  The scriptures describe the deepest and most complete form of love as charity, “the pure love of Christ” (Moroni 7:47), the greatest of all the gifts of God (see 1 Corinthians 13:13). 

Elsewhere the scriptures name “eternal life” as “the greatest of all the gifts of God” (Doctrine and Covenants 14:7).  This is not a contradiction, as eternal life and charity are coincidental.  To possess one is to possess the other.  Consider these passages of scripture together.  The first is how God describes His work, what He does, which must therefore be very closely related to His meaning, His purpose:

For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. (Moses 1:39)

The second is how the ancient Israelite prophet Lehi described man’s purpose to his family:

men are that they might have joy. (2 Nephi 2:25)

This means that immortality, eternal life, and joy are all connected.  Jesus taught that they are united in the personal development of the divine trait of love.  During the Savior’s preaching in Jerusalem in the last week of His mortality, the legalistic Pharisees sought to trip the Savior up with a question that to them must have been a real poser, undoubtedly a favorite debate topic:

Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

Conceptually this is just another way to introduce our topic about the meaning of life, for surely the commandments of God and the meaning of life are closely related, God’s commandments designed to lead His children through a life of meaning and fulfillment.  The answer of Christ, who before His birth had given the commandments to the prophets, silenced for a time His tempters; at least, no rejoinder is mentioned in the record, perhaps because Jesus was referencing what He had given in the laws He revealed to Moses (see Deuteronomy 6:4,5, and Leviticus 19:18).

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.  (Matthew 22:36-40)

All the rest of the gospel is elaboration of these two commandments.  That is the purpose of life, to develop charity, the pure love of Christ, the complete soul-filled love of God, which manifests itself in loving our neighbors as ourselves.  How do we do that?  As Jesus said, that is the purpose of the law and the prophets.  “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)

As the ancient American prophet Mormon taught,

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified as he is pure.  Amen. (Moroni 7:48)

Mormon’s people nearly all rejected his counsel and descended into a hatred that devoured their civilization in pointless dissolution.

Life has meaning because it has choices with real consequences.  We feel and see and live them everyday.  Amidst the easy-to-see evils of the world, there are plenty who choose to do good, to love their fellows and increase in their love of God.  There are and have been those who live life to its fullest, growing in the greatest of all gifts and the mightiest of all powers by being true followers of Jesus Christ, increasing in the love by which they become like Him and by which they will know Him. 

Beloved, let us love one another:  for love is of God; and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.  He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.  (1 John 4:7,8)

Let us love, that when at last we see God, as we all will, we will recognize Him, because we will have become like Him in the most meaningful way.

Of Taxes and the Tenth Commandment

It may be a commonplace to comment on popular culture’s war on the Ten Commandments, but it merits the effort.  At best they are treated in Hollywood and other secular Zions of pop culture as the Ten Old Fashioned Ideas.  Undeniably, Moses was after all just another one of those old white men, whom many with public microphones wish would fade from the contemporary scene (as long as they keep paying the bills).

Yet there seems to linger in the hearts and minds of most people in America who are not cultural trend setters an enduring if vague respect for Ten Commandment concepts such as the preeminence of God, the duties to parents, abhorrence of murder, the value of marriage covenants, the evils of theft, and that telling the truth is still better than lying.  These are basic concepts that even children have little trouble understanding.

I must confess, however, that as a child I had difficulty understanding the tenth commandment, “Thou shalt not covet” (Exodus 20:17).  “Covet” is not a word much found in a child’s vocabulary, or in anyone else’s for that matter.  It required explaining to me.  Then it was not overly hard to take in as an idea.  I did wonder, though, why it had an exalted place with the other nine commandments.  The gravity of theft, murder, blasphemy, lying, not going to Church on Sunday, and even dishonoring parents I could sense as a child, but why make such a big deal about coveting?  Very bad things happen from breaking those other commandments.  Sure, coveting, as explained to me, led to other sins, such as stealing, murder, lying and the rest, but where was the great evil in the thing itself?  You could go to jail for breaking some of the other Ten Commandments, and you certainly were on the high road to hell if you did.  Coveting might make you feel unhappy or dislike someone who had something you wanted—not good, but was it really so bad?

I have come to learn, with time and experience, that the answer is, Yes, it is very bad.  The Ten Commandments address, first, our relationship with God; second, our relationship with family; and finally our relationship with our neighbors and in the communities where we live.  Coveting is a powerful corrosive acid in community relationships.  It dissolves kindness and respect and love for our fellows, leaving an envy that has hate at its root. 

Indulged in, coveting insidiously works to separate us from those who have what we might want.  One need not act on the coveting, one need not steal, lie, cheat, commit adultery, or engage in other offenses for the wedge of coveting to work its evil within society.  Neighbors become cold, businessmen and workers become self-centered, helping hands become harder to find, envy and jealousy increasingly push compassion and cooperation aside.  The poor hate any richer than they, and those who are better off lose their pity and concern for those whom they might otherwise be quick to help and encourage.

I am not one who looks to our political leaders to be moral leaders, but I do look to them to be virtuous.  Morality must be a fundamental qualification for those to whom we give authority to make, execute, and judge the laws if we want our laws and their administration to be based upon virtue.  We do not and should not derive our morality from these people, but we should expect them to act morally in the exercise of the duties and powers that they derive from the people whom they govern.

It is more than irresponsible, then, that coveting has not only been accepted by President Obama but is in fact advocated for the nation to embrace as the defining element of our economic policy, one that begins with demands for higher taxes on “the rich.”  This national call to covet is dangerous to our community.  Look again at how the evil was described on Mount Sinai, keeping in mind President Obama’s call to soak the rich to support more government:

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s. (Exodus 20:17)

All sharing in the tax burden is a necessary element of self-government.  Self-government does not work without all of the individual selves in society pitching in fairly.  But how else than a call to covet can we understand President Obama’s “not negotiable” demand that the United States, on the brink of renewed recession and economic trouble for millions, do nothing unless the government first takes ever growing shares out of the pockets of those he calls “the rich”?  He wants their money, and he wants the rest of the nation to covet their money in support of his plans for bigger government. 

The demand cannot be explained on grounds of “fairness” or financial value.  One part of the population is singled out to pay for an outsized share of government spending, including promised subsidies to some of the rest.  The rich, for now defined by the President as those with incomes of $250,000 or more, currently earn 22% of all income but pay 45% of all federal income taxes.  No fairness in raising that share even higher.  But neither would Obama’s plans do much to pay for government budget deficits.  His so-called “Buffett Rule” would drink in some $47 billion more over the next ten years, or just under $5 billion a year.  The federal government, however, is currently spending $4 billion a day more than it collects.  That is, soaking the rich will pay for a little more than one day of the federal deficit.  Not a financial policy that will bridge the government budget gap.

What is going on here, other than a destructive and cynical effort to gain popularity by stirring up the many with envy of the income of a few?  This short-sighted strategy is working to undermine our national community, just as surely as Moses warned 4,000 years ago.  Already it has brought us to a month long national financial emergency, at the very time of Christmas when virtues of generosity, tolerance, kindness, and unity would better occupy the public attention.  The theme of peace on earth and goodwill to men is replaced by a manufactured national crisis over how to pitch class against class with sentiments of envy and hatred led by America’s chief executive.

By the way, I am not aware of any religion that condones coveting.  But even if the fear of God does not make you slow to covet, objective love for the nation as a whole and the integrity of the society should cause you to recoil from a political platform based upon feeding the fires of envy.