Purpose

Note: Last Updated 7/29/2024.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche:

If we possess our why of life we can put up with almost any how.

(Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols: Or How to Philosophize with a Hammer, §. Maxims and Arrows, #12; In: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols; and The Anti-Christ, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, [Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1979], p. 23.)

Viktor E. Frankl:

     To be sure, man’s search for meaning may arouse inner tension rather than inner equilibrium. However, precisely such tension is an indispensable prerequisite of mental health. There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one’s life. There is much wisdom in the words of Nietzsche: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” I can see in these words a motto which holds true for any psychotherapy. In the Nazi concentration camps, one could have witnessed that those who knew that there was a task waiting for them to fulfill were most apt to survive. 

(Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, [London: Rider, 2004], Part II: Logotherapy in a Nutshell, §. Noö-Dynamics, p. 109.)

Viktor E. Frankl:

…this striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man. 

(Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, [London: Rider, 2004], Part II: Logotherapy in a Nutshell, paragraph 5, p. 104.)

John R. W. Stott:

Existentialism has the effect of diminishing people’s sense of significance. Radical existentialists may be said to differ from humanists in general by their resolve to take their atheism seriously and to face its terrible consequences. As we saw in chapter four, because (in their view) God is dead, everything else has died with him. Because there is no God, there are no values or ideals either, no moral laws or standards, no purposes or meanings. And, although I exist, there is yet nothing that gives me or my existence any significance, except perhaps my decision to seek the courage to be. Meaning is found only in despising my own meaninglessness. There is no other way to authenticate myself. 

     Bleakly heroic as this philosophy may sound, there must be very few people able to perform the conjuring trick of pretending to have significance when they know they have none. For significance is basic to survival.

(John Stott, Why I Am a Christian, [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004], p. 104.)

καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν ~ Soli Deo Gloria