HEROES ON PURPOSE

Atheism and the Crisis of Meaning

Mark Leone

6ST530: Apologetics

Reformed Theological Seminary

Professor William Edgar

March 9, 2001
 For the greater part of an unforgettable week in November 1993, I sat beside my sister’s bed

and watched her life slowly slip away. She was struck down without warning by a ruptured brain

aneurysm, leaving behind a two-year old son, a devastated husband, and a close-knit family of six

siblings and two parents convulsing in irresolvable grief. In the immediate aftermath we turned

our minds instinctively to search for some purpose in this unspeakable tragedy, marshaling the

resources of our Christian faith in a collective discourse on God’s mysterious ways and sovereign

wisdom. Some of us even thought we glimpsed already the first fruits sprouting from our bitter

seed. Laying claim to an order that trumped our grief, we turned away from the abyss that had

opened up before us, lest we suffer loss of more than our beloved sister. But my non-Christian

brother chose to make his peace with the abyss, telling me in private that Sandi’s death didn’t

mean anything except that we had lost her. “God doesn’t get involved with us,” he stated

forlornly. “Things just happen in this world. People die, and it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just

what happens.”

These divergent viewpoints on my sister’s death, namely the hopeful Christianity of most of

my family and my brother’s de-facto atheism, are microcosmic reflections of two contrasting

worldviews, each with numerous adherents in the world today. The experience of personal

tragedy, such as the death of my sister, often serves as the catalyst for identifying or instigating

one’s adherence to one or other of these contrasting worldviews. Apart from such personal

experience, however, the assumptions represented by these two worldviews reveal a fundamental

question that is asked and answered by virtually every human soul, whether explicitly and

consciously, or implicitly and subliminally. Is there or is there not an overarching meaning or

purpose to our existence and to the actual events of our lives? In this paper we will examine the

argument of a serious thinker who answers this question with an emphatic “no!”

Richard Robinson asserts that life has no transcendent purpose, and that this fact has vital

implications for how we should think and act.1 The reality of such personal tragedies as the death

of my sister figures prominently in Mr. Robinson’s analysis. We will see that although his

conclusion appears in some sense justified by the apparently universal experience of the

Heroes on Purpose: 1 Mark Leone

Atheism and the Crisis of Meaning
“senselessness” of the world in which we live, a more probing and intellectually open approach to

the question reveals significant and insurmountable problems with Mr. Robinson’s thesis. We

will also see that the vital concerns regarding the human situation in the world that propel Mr.

Robinson to his thesis are most reasonably and existentially accounted for by the antithetical

assertion of a transcendent purpose that is inseparably joined to all human existence.

The Heroic Vision

Robinson begins at the point of fact that gnaws at every man’s consciousness, that supremely

undeniable datum of our existence– the certainty of our death. Our bodies will certainly perish, he

asserts, but even our conscious mind is nothing but an epiphenomenon of our bodily existence,

and therefore equally subject to the same futility. It will all come to nothing some day, and we

will be no more. Moreover, our death as individuals is not the complete story. Most probably,

Robinson argues, the human race itself will one day die, as our world spins down beneath us. We

are destined to die not only as individuals, but as a collective phenomenon. Our very category of

existence is but a momentary ripple in some cosmic fabric that will carry no memory of us and to

which we have no necessary connection. We are doomed.

Not only are we destined for nothingness, but even in the midst of the somethingness we

presently possess, we are doomed to frustration by our ignorance and impotence. We have need

of much information relevant to our well-being and survival, and we can never discover all that

we need. There is no single secret we can discover to cure our ignorance. There are a vast number

of things we need to know, far more than we could ever discover, our remarkable progress in

knowledge notwithstanding. We are powerless to control our circumstances. Our destiny is

controlled by forces beyond our control, and we are vulnerable to unforeseen disasters. Worst of

all, Robinson asserts, there is no god to save us. We have no superhuman benefactor, neither to

aid us in this world nor to bring us someday to a better one.

How, then, should we react to this state of things, Robinson asks. It would be “senseless” to

rebel, he replies, for there is no god to rebel against. Neither would it be right to let

“disappointment or terror or apathy or folly” overcome us. Likewise it would be wrong to be “sad

Heroes on Purpose: 2 Mark Leone

Atheism and the Crisis of Meaning
or sarcastic or cynical or indignant.” Rather we must acquire cheerfulness, Robinson advises, for

it is an important part of training for difficult times. “Cheerfulness is a part of courage, and

courage is an essential part of the right attitude. Let us not tell ourselves a comforting tale of a

father in heaven because we are afraid to be alone, but bravely and cheerfully face whatever

appears to be the truth.”

Here Robinson adds a surprising twist to his argument. The atheist is far nobler than the

theist, he asserts, precisely because of the bleak horizon made visible to him by his affinity for the

truth. While the theist offers obedience to the all-powerful and all-benevolent god on the promise

of eternal victory and happiness, the atheist contemplates his friendless position in the world and

affirms his own ideals in the vacuum. “Our dignity, and our finest occupation,” Robinson insists,

“is to assert and maintain our own self-chosen goods as long as we can, those great goods of

beauty and truth and virtue.” Foremost among the virtues are love and courage. The former is

crucial since there is no one to love us but ourselves, and the latter is needful in light of our dire

predicament. Man’s glory is manifest in his ability to maintain cheerfulness, love and decency in

spite of his insecurity and coming extinction. He is utterly alone, and any good he attains is

thereby rendered all the more indicative of his remarkable nobility and strength of character.

Buoyed by this self-defined purpose, man snatches cheerfulness from the jaws of despair. “We

have good things to contemplate and high things to do. Let us do them.”

Our Crisis of Meaning

There can be little doubt that Robinson has put his finger on a critical and fundamental issue

that drives our sense of meaninglessness and undermines any assertion of a transcendent purpose

to life. Death is the specter that haunts us all, whether we admit this to ourselves or not. It is a

raging beast, an all-powerful enemy whose eventual victory over us is absolutely certain.

Furthermore, the futility wrought by death is nearly unspeakable. The horror is not the pain, nor

even the unknown, but the ending– the finality, the no-return. Is it possible to believe in an

overarching purpose to life, when all life is universally subject to eventual repudiation? How can

we honestly cling to any sense of purpose when those we dearly love are ripped away from us

Heroes on Purpose: 3 Mark Leone

Atheism and the Crisis of Meaning
without warning, when we are powerless to cling to them, and their very factness evaporates and

is gone forever? If we come from nothing and end in nothing, from whence comes any

transcendent and objective purpose to our radically ungrounded existence?

The indisputable answer is that on Robinson’s materialist premise there certainly is no

defensible meaning or purpose to life. If we are nothing but flesh, and the universe is nothing but

matter, then our futility is self-evident. But Robinson merely asserts, and does not argue, the

premise that the mind is entirely dependent on the body. This assertion cannot be argued any

more convincingly than its antithesis, so we acknowledge at once that we are dealing with two

suppositional frameworks. We will see, however, that Robinson’s framework cannot stand on its

own premises, and requires the very assumptions it is designed to disprove.

Robinson argues that life has no purpose, and then applies his doctrine by illuminating the

meaning of our existence in light of its lack of meaning. We cannot assume that such a serious

thinker was either unaware of or unconcerned about such a glaring contradiction. A reasonable

reading of his intent is that it is transcendent meaning that he denies. His thesis is that there is no

objective purpose to man’s existence, and that man therefore ought to assert his own. But how

can Robinson say this on his premises? It is self-evident that such a normative assertion must

come from outside his framework, and indeed is repugnant to it. Perhaps, then, this ought is not

intended in any objective sense. Perhaps it is only Robinson’s opinion that this would be best for

mankind, and he is not intending to assert an objective norm. But this does not rescue his system

from incoherence, it only reveals further problems. If his opinion has no objective ground, then

why is he writing to us and even trying to persuade us? It is doubtful that the very usage of the

word ought with respect to others in a statement of pure opinion has any coherence whatsoever.

It is clear that Robinson does not present his thesis as an opinion, but argues confidently and

assertively, as one presenting facts that his reader can look into and be persuaded are objectively

true. And it is not only the explicit appeal to ought that subverts his thesis. He uses astonishingly

normative language throughout his argument. “It would be senseless to be rebellious…It would

be wrong to let disappointment or terror or apathy or folly overcome us. It would be wrong to be

Heroes on Purpose: 4 Mark Leone

Atheism and the Crisis of Meaning
sad or sarcastic or cynical or indignant…” The question that immediately arises if we accept his

premises is why? Why would it be wrong to respond to our predicament in these ways? One could

certainly argue that it is more honest to react in these ways to the chilling news Robinson brings

us than to gin up some cheerfulness. Why not give in to despair? Why not be terrified? Why not

be apathetic? Who says it is better to be confident than terrified, if these emotions are simply

particular arrangements of molecules in brains on their way from non-being to nothingness?

Perhaps his normative assertion is intended from within the framework of the brute factuality

of human preferences. Humans prefer to be happy rather than sad, purposeful rather than

purposeless, etc. On this premise, we ought to react with courage and love because such a

response will best accomplish the objective we all just happen to share. This line of reasoning,

however, also fails to rescue Robinson’s thesis. It is far from evident that courage and love are the

best means to happiness on materialist presuppositions. Adherence to these virtues is usually not

the easiest path, and they are generally incoherent without recourse to transcendent ideals. If

human happiness is the main goal, then we are far better served by eschewing any noble

pretensions in favor of a more direct pursuit of pleasure. Inventing a sense of purpose in a

teleological vacuum is hardly the only, much less the happiest, response to Robinson’s ontology,

and certainly no better than inventing a transcendent God, of which he accuses the theists.

Clearly, Robinson believes it would be wrong to respond to our powerlessness, contingency,

and inevitable extinction in the ways that he outlines, but he cannot get this idea from the

premises he lays down as fundamental to his belief system.

A Tale of Two Tales

Another peculiarity of Robinson’s thesis is that he argues against the theistic position by

accusing them of something that is endemic to his own system. “Let us not tell ourselves a

comforting tale of a father in heaven because we are afraid to be alone, but bravely and cheerfully

face whatever appears to be the truth.” Robinson tells his own comforting tale, however, and

does not face up to the full implications of the truth he claims to discover.

On the face of it, Robinson’s thesis is genuinely realistic, embracing the stark truth of our

Heroes on Purpose: 5 Mark Leone

Atheism and the Crisis of Meaning
predicament with a frank and unswerving commitment to the intractable given. But he abandons

this starting point for more favorable territory with no basis whatsoever except the telling of a

comforting tale. It is hard to imagine a more sobering and bitter reality than the picture Robinson

paints. We are vulnerable and exposed in an impersonal universe, lacking the resources to

maintain our well-being, forever ignorant, doomed to extinction, and there is no god to help us.

Where does Robinson go from here? He argues simply that we ought to be cheerful because

“cheerfulness is part of courage and courage is an essential part of the right attitude.” What is this

if not a comforting tale?

Robinson argues that we should “cheerfully face whatever appears to be the truth.” But what

if the truth is not conducive to cheerfulness? Robinson does not allow this possibility because he

uses truth in the narrowest sense here. The truth he so bravely faces is all fact and no value, the

neat product of his Weberian razor. He is free to attach whatever value he chooses to this fact,

and his pre-commitment to cheerfulness is obvious. But if there is no necessary connection

between metaphysical facts of our existence and the value those facts possess, so that Robinson is

free to arbitrarily insist on cheerful acceptance prior to the ascertainment of those facts, then an

opposite valuation of them is equally valid. This would be fatal to his thesis, by definition. Thus

he is compelled to tell a tale of cheerfulness to establish his thesis.

He is therefore incoherent when he argues against the theist on the basis of telling a tale,

since he thereby impugns what is endemic to his own system. Both “tales” are comforting on

their own premises, and this does not invalidate either of them. There is, however, an important

difference between the tales. Robinson accuses the theist of telling a metaphysical story

unsupported by ascertainable facts, but the value that the theist attaches to those putative facts is

not problematic. Robinson himself accuses the theist of telling the tale because it is comforting. It

is natural and unproblematic to be comforted by the facts of theism when they are known to be

true. Robinson, on the other hand, finds comfort in his tale through a pre-commitment to

cheerfulness− a comfort that is not discernibly grounded in the supposed facts of the tale, but is

asserted arbitrarily as an antidote to the natural human reaction to the facts he asserts. It seems he

Heroes on Purpose: 6 Mark Leone

Atheism and the Crisis of Meaning
is not willing to face “what appears to be the truth” in its integrity, but is compelled to sanitize

this truth through a pre-commitment to optimism that is grounded in an antithetical premise.

The Other Side of the Coin

We have seen that Robinson fails to face the existential implications of his thesis, fashioning

a value system that has no ground or justification in the facts he asserts. His thesis not only fails

to support the value system he asserts, but also militates against it. This has been illustrated so far

with respect to the desirability of living according to his thesis, but there is also an ethical

dimension to this discontinuity. Robinson argues for a noble response to the news he has

delivered, pressing us to service in place of the god whose nonexistence has been declared.

Because there is no one to love us, we must love each other. Because there is no one to protect us,

we must protect one another. Disabused of the illusion that we live in God’s shadow, we can

acquire a real sense of purpose as we take up our autonomous mantle and accept our self-defining

role in the world. “We have good things to contemplate and high things to do. Let us do them.”

Once again, however, Robinson has arbitrarily selected a position that is not supported by

his thesis and attached it as if there were a necessary connection. As previously noted, his

normative injunctions have no ground in his system. Even if a number of us could agree on the

definition of these “good” and “high” things, why should we contemplate them and why should

we do them? Robinson can give us no reason from within his system, and the oughtness implied

by their labels and their usage points to a transcendent order and a purpose that belies his thesis.

More importantly, however, a fundamentally different moral response could be asserted on

Robinson’s premise, one that is certainly not excluded by it and arguably is more legitimate. It is

far from evident that courage, love, and the other commonly accepted human virtues are in any

way justified or instigated by Robinson’s thesis, and the cultivation of opposite virtues would

seem to be a more plausible result. If there is no god, we simply have no basis for any ethical

system, as all contenders fall victim to the “grand says who?”. This is not to insist that atheists do

not produce ethical systems, but that when they do their systems have no necessary connection to

their atheistic premise. Thus we need not enter into the debate as to whether useful ethical

Heroes on Purpose: 7 Mark Leone

Atheism and the Crisis of Meaning
systems can be built on non-theistic principles, such as utilitarianism, existentialism, or the will to

power. The point is that many ethical systems are indeed proposed and asserted, and the atheist

has no basis to reject any of them. If there is no god, then man is free to assert whatever ethic he

chooses, and there is no basis for scoring them. Moreover, human experience suggests that when

we perceive that no one is in charge, our moral behavior deteriorates to the opposite of the virtues

cited by Robinson as the proper response to his thesis.

Thus it appears that Robinson has given us only one side of the story with respect to his

thesis. It is significant not only that he fails to report the opposite moral response that is arguably

more legitimate, but also that he seems to assume that the superiority of the response he

recommends is self-evident. Something outside his system that he fails to acknowledge is having

a significant effect on his thinking.

We Have Met the Savior and He is Us

We have seen that Robinson’s argument in denial of a transcendent purpose to life is

rendered incoherent by the necessity of assuming the very premise he is arguing against. We

consider now how this incoherence is extended to the conclusion he reaches. There is no god, he

argues, but there is need for someone to do the work we once thought God did. Man requires a

sense of meaning, a noble purpose, and because there is no god he finds such a purpose in loving,

protecting, conquering, and providing as men once thought God did.

Man is ever ready, indeed, to try his hand at the job of savior, but he invariably does so in a

way that undermines Robinson’s thesis. He is forever appealing to the transcendent, even when

he is trying explicitly to deny its validity, as Robinson’s own argument shows. It is doubtful that

the radical relativism that Robinson is attempting, but failing, to argue could ever succeed in

motivating mankind to contemplate and do the “high” and “good” things he refers to. Even in his

most selfish moments man wants to appeal beyond himself, to ground his selfish motives in

something thicker and more far-reaching than his own existence. He instinctively recognizes the

need for something transcendent to legitimate his self-chosen project. Unable to completely mask

his own inadequacy, he is continually searching for “the ultimate,” even when he turns his gaze

Heroes on Purpose: 8 Mark Leone

Atheism and the Crisis of Meaning
inward.

To the extent that Robinson succeeds in convincing us that there is no ultimate order, that

our self-defined purposes are all there is, he cuts the nerve of human nobility, and undermines the

love and courage he seeks to promote. Love and courage are inherently transcendent ideals. They

are appealing to man not because they are what he created in the vacuum, as Robinson argues, but

because they connect him with something beyond himself, which man is bound by his nature to

seek. This is an intractable reality that will persistently frustrate Robinson’s project.

An Adequate Basis For Cheerfulness

A epistemological tragedy is realized when someone is right for the wrong reason. We find

this to be true in Robinson’s case, but we also find it to be a great opportunity for encountering

truth. Robinson has no adequate basis for the cheerfulness that is fundamental to his argument,

but such a basis can be found in the belief system of Christian theism. Robinson’s instinctual

perception of the necessity of cheerfulness is instructive, commending the plausibility of any

system that provides a truly adequate basis for the hopeful outlook that humans universally seek.

Robinson correctly discerns the teleological vacuum that pervades all existence if there is no

transcendent God imparting order and purpose to a universe of his own making. He is unable to

maintain this materialist supposition, however, as his argument for a human self-defined

teleology presupposes at many points the existence of a transcendent order and purpose. This

transcendent purpose is a central tenet of Christian theism, presupposed by all its assertions,

supported by a diverse set of evidentiary claims, and held together in a coherent system that has

exerted a profound and lasting effect on the course of human history. The God of Christian

theism is self-contained and self-referential. He is “in no sense correlative to or dependent on

anything outside his own being. God is not even the source of his own being. The term source

cannot even be applied to God. God is absolute.”2 All assumptions of transcendent order and

purpose embedded in Robinson’s argument presuppose the existence of precisely this God.

This God, however, is not merely transcendent. He is truly present to all his creation,

sustaining and ordering its existence by his sovereign will. His will is executed and his presence

Heroes on Purpose: 9 Mark Leone

Atheism and the Crisis of Meaning
is mediated by his immanent Spirit, intimately bound to every molecule of matter and persistently

imparting the very life-principle to all that breathes. Moreover, this intimate connection between

God and his creation is not limited to the structural realities of our existence. God’s involvement

with man includes his valuation of our existence and his assignment of purpose. Created in his

image for the manifestation of his glory, we are of infinite, though derived, worth. Assigned the

task of representing God in ruling and enjoying his creation, living by a life-principle that is an

expression of the ultimate life that God has in and of himself, man is imbued with a real purpose.

The purpose that Robinson could not avoid assigning to man in the course of his argument finds

its most cogent expression in the purpose God has assigned to man. This purpose is a real purpose

because it is transcendent and enduring, not self-assigned by men who have nothing but

accidental existence and no teleological resources to legitimate any asserted bestowal of purpose.

The most significant pointer to transcendent purpose in Robinson’s argument, however, lies

in the point with which we began, the futility and horror of death. On Robinson’s premise death

means nothing at all beyond itself. It is simply the intractable is, the reality that life contains

within itself a principle of ultimate and complete repudiation. This is of course at odds with actual

human existence, for death is nearly universally perceived as portentous of something dark and

foreboding, something beyond the physical facts of electro-chemical processes that someday

cease. This fact, too, is profoundly addressed in Christian theism, where death is understood as

the separation of soul and body, a parable of the separation from God that has been pronounced

against our race for committing high treason against he who alone has life in himself.

Robinson’s cheerfulness may find its ultimate ground in this truth, however, for the Christian

God has overthrown death, overcoming it on its own principle in a sort of spiritual Judo. The

author of life takes upon himself a body, and in that body dies the death that was deserved by all.

But because he is the author of life, death cannot hold him, and finds itself utterly spent. All who

are united to Christ in faith partake with him of his death and resurrection life, so that physical

death for them is transformed into the path to true life. This is in marked contrast to Robinson’s

inability to deal with the human apprehension of the horror of death. His approach amounts to

Heroes on Purpose: 10 Mark Leone

Atheism and the Crisis of Meaning
mere stoicism and short sighted utilitarian coping mechanisms. "We can't do anything about

death, so let's just assign it benign status and get on with living the life we do have." If we know

anything at all, however, we know death to be our enemy, and any system that purports to make

peace with death is an execrable betrayal of the universal experience of human existence.

Christian theism makes no such bargain with death, but claims complete and utter victory

over it. The significance of this point can hardly be overstated. What victor has there ever been

like death? Who has been able to stand against it? The greatest of men have been vanquished by

death, unable to stand against it no matter how powerfully they acquitted themselves in the world,

no matter how vast the resources at their disposal. All great religions except Christianity and its

derivatives have faced death only by denying its reality or its significance; Only Christianity

presents a coherent and credible claim of victory over this redoubtable foe, “the shroud that

covers all nations.”3

Conclusion: Heroes with Purpose

The worldviews we have examined represent two competing visions of the heroic element in

man, each operating on its own assumptions. In Robinson’s view, man’s heroism consists of his

self assignment of heroic purpose, while Christian theism asserts a derived purpose for man that

imbues a heroic character of a vastly different sort. Robinson asserts that autonomous man is

more noble than man-the-creature-of-God. Such a valuation, however, is a function of the

presuppositions of the competing worldviews, as may be illustrated by taking the Biblical

characters David and Goliath as paradigmatic representatives of man-the-creature and

autonomous man, respectively.

As the world reckons bravery, it was Goliath who was the braver and nobler of the two. To

stand against a god (as he saw Yahweh) whom you know nothing about requires great bravery.

This is the self-assigned hero, trusting in his own resources, even in the face of an unknown

opponent. The bravery that David possessed was of quite a different kind, far greater than what

Goliath had, but operating according to an opposite principle. To stand with confidence in the

power of an infinite God does not require bravery, it bestows it.

Heroes on Purpose: 11 Mark Leone

Atheism and the Crisis of Meaning
REFERENCES

Heroes on Purpose: 12 Mark Leone

Atheism and the Crisis of Meaning
 11
Richard Robinson, “Life Has No Purpose” in Constructing a Life Philosophy, David L. Bender, ed. (Greenhaven
Press: 1993), pp. 38-41.
22
Cornelius Van Til, Christian Apologetics, (Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company: 1976), p. 5.
33
Isaiah TBD