The important questions concern the search for meaning:
- Why do we exist?
- What is the purpose of my life?
- What is happiness and how can I find it?
- What is the value of a human being?
- How can I know the answers are true?
We can rate the success of human religions and philosophies according to the results they give. If our worldview tells us we are here by accident, that my life has no purpose, that there is no real happiness, or that human beings have no value in themselves, then that worldview is unsatisfying. We would only know it were true if we had exhausted all searches to find an alternative that was better.
If humans exist to kill, if my purpose is to kill, if true happiness only lies in killing, if my value is only as a murder-machine, and I know it’s true because I kill anyone who disagrees with me, then perhaps we have to permit ourselves the thought that such a worldview is at odds with the beauty of creation or the love of a mother for her child or even the idea that if that is the highest purpose the god who created us can think of, maybe he is not a god after all but a mere imagining.
But what if the answers to the important questions were these:
- We exist to love God and love each other,
- My purpose is to love God, love myself, love everyone I associate with or can interact with,
- That happiness is blessing and joy, which is received as a gift from God our Father, just as I can as a father give presents to my children and give them joy,
- That the value of a human being, any human being, being young or old, good or bad, black, brown or white, smart or dim, quick or slow, skilled or not, is of measureless and infinite worth,
- And that we can know this because the Creator God revealed this to us in history by taking visible form, coming to earth and demonstrating by His life that all this is true,
Then that worldview would be Good News indeed. It would be worthy of the name Gospel. And so it is.