Our Current Crisis of Meaning
The Modern doorway to the Divine
Every generation wrestles with spiritual doubts, but not in the same way.
Unique questions about God often come from what’s happening in the culture.
For example, during WWII, the bodies scattered on Normandy’s beaches and the horrors of the Holocaust forced people to ask deep moral questions.
Why is there so much evil in the world?
If God is good, why does He allow so much suffering?
In response to those concerns, C.S. Lewis, the former atheist and professor from Oxford, delivered a series of radio addresses that made a moral argument for God. Those talks became his classic work, Mere Christianity.
From the moral argument to the scientific
The war brought innovation. Enormous energy was poured into genetics, medicine, and space exploration breakthroughs. As we reached farther into space and deeper into the sea, exploring the material world led us to ask different questions.
What are the facts?
What can we test and know through scientific discovery?
Such questions seemed to cast new doubts on anything Scriptural. Faith was seen as a mere fable.
Therefore, several apologists like Josh McDowell and Lee Strobel used scientific methods to build a case for Christ. Their books resonated with a generation who wanted their faith to match the facts.
From Moral Crisis to a Crisis of Meaning
But today’s generation faces a different kind of crisis—a crisis of meaning.
Our digital devices not only distract us from making a meaningful contribution, but they leave us wondering whether we have anything left that AI isn’t doing for us already.
And so the questions we ask today are not so much moral or even scientific or factual. Instead, we are asking existential questions like:
Why am I here?
What is my purpose?
What is the meaning of my life?
How can I be happy?
How can I feel fulfilled?
The answers to these questions not only lead to a more fulfilling life, but they can also lead people back to God.
Who should we listen to?
I think one of the best voices for us to listen to is Dr. Viktor Frankl, the Jewish psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust. His unique contribution to human psychology showed that, more than anything else, humans are driven by meaning.
He summarized these ideas using a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche: “He who has a why can endure any how.”
Frankl showed that life is unconditionally meaningful, no matter the circumstance (even in our modern AI era). We always have a why to live for, if only we choose to respond to the challenges in front of us with the proper attitude.
Frankl would have us answer these existential questions with action, by doing a deed for others, experiencing a friend’s love, or responding heroically to unavoidable suffering.
The Psychology of Faith
This generation needs Frankl to help them find meaning in what seems to be a meaningless existence.
But even more than that, if you keep pursuing meaning, you will eventually find something greater. Frankl wrote, “Ultimate meaning necessarily points to something—or Someone—beyond the finite.” (The Will to Meaning, p. 121)
The search for meaning will lead to a spiritual journey.
The Search for Meaning Is a Search for God
Whereas previous generations met God through moral or scientific arguments, I believe this generation will find God through psychological and therapeutic discourse.
People struggle internally to answer the question, “Why am I here?”
We need voices saying, “Because Someone made you for a purpose.”
As people pursue a higher purpose, not only will they find emotional healing and clarity, but they will realize that, all along, they were seeking God.
