What Are You Living For?

Photo by Bryan Baker

“…the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”¹

- Henry David Thoreau, Walden

The snow fell through the night and covered the resolute pines and the mountainside in a thick blanket of fleecy powder. This late summer storm, high up in the Spanish sierra, would have been beautiful, would have been liberating for the soul — but there was a war on, and today the storm meant death. Death for El Sordo’s small band of communist guerrillas.

It meant death because they had been ordered to steal horses the night before, and horses left tracks in snow. So now El Sordo and his men were pursued by fascist cavalry — through heavily timbered valleys and over glimmering slopes and spurs, and always they were leaving more tracks. The numbers of their pursuers kept growing and they brought out submachine guns and then one by one El Sordo’s men were cut down by the hot steel slicing through the cold mountain air.

Then there were only five of them left; three of them wounded. They were on a hilltop lying behind their dead horses, waiting for the final assault from the fascist troops that would kill them all. Bullets thudded into the horseflesh as all five men covered a different slice of the slope below them with their carbines.

One of the men on the hilltop spoke in an attempt to rally his comrades. It was an eighteen year old boy named Joaquín. Hemingway put it this way:

“‘Resistir y fortificar es vencer,’ Joaquín said, his mouth stiff with the dryness of fear which surpassed the normal thirst of battle. It was one of the slogans of the Communist party and it meant, ‘Hold out and fortify, and you will win.’”²

Joaquín, young and naïve, expected his comrades to rally around this slogan; but they would not. They had become disillusioned with the Communist cause. Joaquín tried again: “Pasionaria says it is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.”³ The guerrillas wanted none of it. One replied, “Thou, Communist. Do you know your Pasionaria has a son thy age in Russia since the start of the movement?”⁴

At first Joaquín would not believe this charge. Pasionaria had been encouraging the Spanish leftists to give their lives for the cause since the beginning of the war. Would she really send her son to safety in Russia while sending peasants’ sons to die?

But Joaquín was finally convinced of this truth. His comrades had proof — and it was not just Pasionaria that did this, it was all of the Communist elites. His world was shattered. There weren’t supposed to be any elites in the Spanish Republic. Here he lay on a hilltop behind a dead horse in mud made by melted snow. And he would soon die for a cause that was nothing more than hypocrisy. At that very moment Pasionaria’s son was probably studying at university and chasing women in Russia.

With this terrible thought dominating his mind, Joaquín and the others suddenly heard the low whine of fascist planes coming over the mountains. The whine turned into a drone and then the drone became a roar and then the planes were overhead in steep dives and then came the shrieking of the bombs and then the great thunderclap and then — nothing. Thus ended the life of a young man who discovered, at death’s doorstep, that he had lived for a lie.⁵

***

The Mediterranean sun beat down in relentless waves as an old but resolute man with bright eyes left the Lyceum, cut through a grove of olive trees, and passed under the sturdy gates of Athens.

He meandered through the dusty streets, made his way up and up, until he was high enough on the Acropolis to smell the salty breeze flowing in from the port at Piraeus. Socrates finally stopped just outside the King Archon’s court, where he promptly ran into a man he knew, Euthyphro.

It was soon clear that both men had business at court today. Socrates was facing the charge of corrupting the youth of Athens, and Euthyphro was bringing murder charges against his father, who had killed a laborer.

Euthyphro’s case was complicated; the laborer in question murdered a slave in a drunken rage. Euthyphro’s father then bound this laborer and placed him in a ditch while he waited for instructions from a priest on what was to be done. The laborer died of exposure before instructions arrived. Euthyphro’s family was shocked that he would bring murder charges against his own father in this scenario. But Euthyphro believes piety requires him to do so.

Socrates then asks Euthyphro to, “…tell me the nature of piety and impiety, which you said that you knew so well, and of murder, and of other offenses against the gods. What are they?”⁶

The rest of the dialogue reveals that Euthyphro has no idea what piety is. At first, he says piety is whatever is loved by the gods, but Socrates quickly points out that Greek literature shows the gods to be quarrelsome beings who rarely agree with each other, so this definition could hardly be satisfactory. Euthyphro makes a few more attempts to define piety but ultimately retreats, exasperated. He is, however, still intent on charging his father with murder — in order to be pious.

***

A pike shot through the surface of Walden Pond, momentarily interrupting the man from his meditations. Realizing the sun was setting, he stood, took a long draw of the sharp, pine-filled air, and proceeded on his way. The breeze quickened and more fish broke the rippled glass of the water as he made his way through underbrush and under large maples. He pulled his thin coat closer to his body and reprimanded himself for not returning sooner.

After ten minutes he was on the other side of the water. Walking over to a woodpile on the far side of his small cabin, the man collected a few branches and placed them on his cold campfire. It was nearly dark now, but he uncovered some still-hot coals and soon a merry blaze was dancing in the dusk.

He sat around the fire, ate some of the bounty of his beanfield, and eventually returned to his meditations. He felt at odds with his country and the society that surrounded him. He was fed up with slavery, fed up with the war on Mexico, and fed up with how his fellow men lived.

His countrymen were absolutely dominated by materialism. They worked themselves to death, not to feed their families, but to keep up with the Joneses — to have bigger farms and nicer carriages, and the latest fashions from Paris. This was why he had moved to a cabin in the woods — to escape that life and have time to think. The man took a notebook and pen out of his coat pocket, angled the notebook to illuminate it with firelight, and wrote the following words:

“But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool’s life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before.”⁷

It took him a few attempts to get it right. The notebook was covered in scribbles and scratches, but there it was. Mankind wasted their lives on the pursuit of things. They slumbered through existence, plowing themselves into the soil, wasting their very lives on things that did not matter. Mankind was asleep. He put pen to paper again:

“The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive.”⁸

***

How many of us live like Joaquín — sacrificing our lives for causes that feel so important, but ultimately don’t really provide us with the meaning and purpose we crave? How many of us live like Euthyphro, failing to define our terms, question our fundamental assumptions, or dig to the roots as we make important decisions? And how many of us just endlessly chase the American Dream, pouring our lives out to secure wealth (or pleasure, or achievement, or fame)? Most of us, I think — myself included!

If we could stand upon the heights of Olympus and gaze down through the mist, we would see humanity in a pitiful state. Like with Joaquín, politics has become our deity. We worship at its feet and are prepared to lay down our lives on the sacrificial altar of this “blood-swollen” idol.⁹ Like Euthyphro, we are in such haste to act we hardly take time to think. We presume to be wise sages, but carry only superficial, media-fed opinions that we use to trample over others in misguided pursuits of justice. And like the people in Thoreau’s day — though magnified a thousandfold by mass and social media — we numb our minds and strive to accumulate things that will rust — or accomplishments that only offer fleeting fulfillment — instead of pursuing the things that matter.

I am writing this book to help us all escape these traps. I’m writing this book to help us pursue the things that matter. So, what matters?

Deep down, every human being craves answers to life’s fundamental questions:

1. Origin: where did I come from?
2. Meaning: why am I here on this earth — does my life matter?
3. Wholeness: how can I feel peace, joy, and completeness amidst suffering?
4. Hope: will things get better here on earth? What happens when I die?

We may pretend we do not care about answering these questions. Or we may occupy and dull our minds — playing video games, binge-watching Netflix, or endlessly scrolling Instagram — so that we do not have to ponder them too often. But those that have not answered these questions will be haunted by them. They will plague us when we can’t sleep at night, or they will gnaw at us when we feel depressed. For those that are somehow able to ward off these questions, there will come a day when one realizes they must be answered immediately. This sense of urgency will be caused by a cancer diagnosis, a car accident, a pandemic, or some other tragedy. I hope this book helps us avoid this moment of metaphysical crisis.

But more importantly, I hope this book will help us avoid the three traps listed above.

For I firmly believe that our obsession with politics and causes, our misguided pursuits of justice, and our endless pursuit of the American Dream are all one big effort to answer these four questions — especially the last three. Our endless striving is in the pursuit of meaning, wholeness, and hope. But we need to dig deeper. For the well-trodden paths most of us take today are merely mirages. They lure us further and further into the desert until it’s too late to escape — then comes despair and death.

Clearly, then, it’s time to abandon the beaten track, revisit these fundamental questions, and figure out what it really means to live and to live well.

When Thoreau wanted to answer life’s fundamental questions he went to the woods. I think it is time for us all to do so, at least metaphorically. Thoreau said:

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”¹⁰

I hope this book will provide the space for you to do just that. I hope in reading this you will be able to disconnect from the cacophony of culture that is claiming our undivided attention so that you can consider the fundamental questions of life.

Where I Mean to Take You

Since I mean for this book to be part of an authentic search for truth, I must take a moment to make sure my readers do not feel misled or tricked later on; this is a Christian book. I build a case for theism, then I build a case for the historicity and veracity of the Christian faith, and then I answer life’s fundamental questions through that lens.

Some of you are rolling your eyes after reading that last sentence. You think Christians have behaved very badly lately and you want nothing to do with us. I don’t blame you. But I beg you to give this book a chance anyway. Here’s why: the caricature of Christians you have in your mind is based on people who have perverted Christ’s teachings for their own gain. I’m convinced Christ himself would want nothing to do with the power-seeking, flag-waving “Christianity” that currently plagues this country. So before you toss this book aside, I would implore you to at least hear me out.

A Note on Understanding Our Own Biases

For Friedrich Nietzsche, most would-be philosophers were incapable of conducting an authentic search for truth:

“What makes one regard philosophers half mistrustfully and half mockingly is….They pose as having discovered and attained their real opinions through the self-evolution of a cold, pure, divinely unperturbed dialectic…while what happens at bottom is that a prejudice, a notion, an ‘inspiration,’ generally a desire of the heart sifted and made abstract, is defended by them with reasons sought after the event — they are one and all advocates who do not want to be regarded as such, and for the best part no better than cunning pleasers for their prejudices, which they baptize ‘truths.’”¹¹

Similarly, Bertrand Russell wrote, “Most people believe in God because they have been taught from early infancy to do it, and that is the main reason.”¹²

Having been raised in the Church, I want the reader to know that I have had these two quotations at the forefront of my mind as I wrote this book. I will concede that there are many Christians out there who do not conduct authentic inquiry, they simply go out and find information they feel will support their predetermined answers. It has been my highest goal not to do this in writing this book. This is why you will find the writings of atheists and agnostics throughout this work. I have worked hard to read the best arguments for both sides of these questions and to present my findings to you in the pages that follow. Thank you for reading.

Two Final Notes

First, please understand that when I make my rhetorical attacks in this book, I mean only to attack philosophies and worldviews, not the people who hold them.

Second, you may recognize that I tackle the four fundamental questions in an odd order. Please trust that I have my reasons for doing so. Let’s get started.

Thank you for reading! This book will be published serially right here over the coming months. If you enjoyed or are intrigued by this chapter, please clap and share!

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Footnotes

1. Thoreau, Henry David. Walden and Civil Disobedience. New York, NY: Penguin Books, [1854] 1983. 73.
2. Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls. New York, NY: Scribner, [1940] 2003. 308.
3. Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls, 309.
4. Ibid.
5. This entire scenario is, of course, fictitious. It comes from my favorite novel, For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. That does not mean, however, that this scenario is not indicative of truth. Hemingway wrote this book after extensive observation of, and participation in, the Spanish Civil War. He is writing here about the disillusionment experienced by those who fought for the leftists in that conflict.
6. Plato. Euthyphro. Project Gutenberg. Accessed October 5, 2020. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1642/1642-h/1642-h.htm.
7. Thoreau, Walden, 47–48.
8. Thoreau, Walden, 134.
9. Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage, 1895. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/73/73-h/73-h.htm.
10. Thoreau, Walden, 135.
11. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil. In The Great Books of the Western World, edited by Mortimer Adler, translated by R.J. Hollingdale, 43:466. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1990.
12. Russell, Bertrand. Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1957. 14.