Lenten Questions, No. 4: on the Meaning of Life

Q: What is the meaning of life?

A: There is an answer to this cliché, to this question that is rarely meant seriously, and even more infrequently taken as a meaningful subject of inquiry.

If you think about it, if you dare, this one question – which is meant to be uttered by every pubescent – constitutes the basis of all meaning, of all possible philosophy.

There are several moments in the Pillar and Ground of Truth where the answer is revealed. Here is one such moment, from St. John Damascene’s Exposition (I, 13):

For goodness is concomitant with essence. He who longs always after God, he sees Him: for God is in all things.

“Goodness is concomitant with essence.” That is the meaning of meanings, the sea of "hyper-essentiality"  that surrounds all circumscribed essences (like you and me), light that makes all vision possible (like real thought). Savor that phrase of the Exposition like a cool chardonnay on a spring afternoon, and feel its warmth melt the chill of your mind. Long for God, and you will see Him, for He is, after all, everywhere. There is the spring, there is the sun, there are the trees in leaf again, sing sunrise, wind and rain.

Not everything, for we do not appreciate nearly enough the infinite distance between the nature of the Uncreated and that of the Created. Not everything, but surely, and because of the Nature of the Uncreated, certainly everywhere.

A Christian is Christian when he knows, the meaning of life is in the prose of the goodness of God, and the godness of Good:

The freedom of God from ontic determination is the ground of creation's goodness: precisely because creation is uncompelled, unnecessary, and finally other than that dynamic life of coinherent love whereby God is God, it can reveal how God is the God he is ... (from "Trinity," in The Beauty of the Infinite, p. 158, by David Hart, emphasis added).

“Goodness is concomitant with essence.” How is this articulated? What is the rhetorical expression of this logion?

Again, the Damascene (ibid.):

Existing things are dependent on that which is, and nothing can be unless it is in that which is. God then is mingled with everything, maintaining their nature: and in His holy flesh the God-Word is made one in hypostasis (i.e., “person”) and is mixed with our nature, yet without confusion.

"Goodness is concomitant with essence." In God, St. Dionysios insists, one cannot separate His being and His goodness. I need an experience, a life, of such concomitance, and most likely, so do you.

I guess what we need is grace, yes? And that is why He, the Son, came and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, yes? "Made one in Person and mixed with our nature," yes?

The meaning of life, mine and yours, yes?