Overview
The most profound and perplexing questions of existence are those that ask why things are as they are. Modern knowledge and ways of thinking have undermined the traditional answers provided by religions. This work seeks a secular answer to the challenge posed by these why questions.
Part I - Purpose and Meaning
Human life has a purpose, and that purpose brings meaning to individuals and their societies.
Chapter 1 - Philosophy and Truth
We all need a philosophy to guide our lives. The search for truth is guided by an understanding of the nature of truth. We recognize truth by how it supports applications. Philosophical truth finds its ultimate application in supporting a content society.
Chapter 2 - Routes to Truth
There are only three secular routes to truth. Each has its own characteristic strengths and limitations, so none can be relied upon to always provide truth. We approach truth most confidently when we use the three routes to cross-check each other.
Chapter 3 - The Premise
Every philosophy must ultimately be grounded in a belief. This philosophy is grounded in the belief that life does indeed have a purpose. Without purpose, there would be no basis for moral judgements.
Chapter 4 - Free Will
For human purpose to be meaningful, we must have free will. Free will is constrained because it must act through physical, physiological, and psychological mechanisms. It can take advantage of life to act in the universe.
Chapter 5 - Soul
The physical universe is absolutely determined by the laws of cause and effect. For free will to exist, it must arise from a non-physical substance, a soul. We can learn something about the nature of a soul by understanding what it means to be non-physical.
Chapter 6 - The Role of Life
A non-physical soul requires the complexity of life to allow it to act in the physical universe.
Chapter 7 - Soul Character
A soul has a changeable quality called character. Character is somehow associated with morality.
Chapter 8 - Morality Download sample chapter
The complications of morality have defied humanity's best attempts to describe or prescribe it philosophically. Morality involves good and evil, which are distinct from goodness and badness, and right and wrong.
Chapter 9 - The Directionality of Time
From the earliest moments of the universe, there has been an inexorable trend towards increasing complexity in the physical, biological, and social realms. This complexification has characteristics that allow it to fill the role of purpose.
Chapter 10 - Whether to Integrate
We must progressively integrate our societies in order to move humanity in the direction of its purpose. Our success will depend on finding the right approach to integration.
Chapter 11 - Morality and Purpose
Morality is the servant of purpose, but our biological nature stands in the way of a moral life. Moral conflict pits the inclinations of the body against those of the soul. Often a society's culture also stands in the way of a moral life.
Chapter 12 - Meaning in Life
An individual life finds its meaning in striving for a moral life. We must learn to recognize the soul's moral voice amid the distractions of life and implications of the body. The soul's nature must support an opportunity for moral improvement.
Chapter 13 - Societal Morality
The structural choices or accidents of a society can make morality easier or more difficult for an individual. There is a strong mutual interaction between the individual's and the society's morality, and between a society's and its neighbors' societal morality. We must pursue human purpose together.
Chapter 14 - A Soul for Society
Across human history, and especially in the last several centuries, humanity has made great progress in improving the morality of its societal and cultural structures. Our challenge is to find the motivation and amoral means to continue this progress.
Chapter 15 - Core of Purpose, Mantle of Meaning
Human purpose provides the core motivation for morality and spurs us on to the greatest human achievement. The interwoven challenges of improving our individual and societal morality bring meaning to an individual's life.
Part II - Implications of Purpose
The nature of purpose directs its pursuit and unveils many mysteries.
Chapter 1 - Pessimism and Suffering
The existence of suffering does not make existence absurd. On the contrary, suffering is essential to the pursuit of purpose.
Chapter 2 - The Pursuit of Happiness
Human purpose is not found in pursuing happiness, though the desire to be happy propels us towards our purpose.
Chapter 3 - Beauty, Truth, and Goodness
The pleasures of the flesh can tempt us to evil. To achieve a morally benign or beneficial happiness, we pursue happiness as the joy of beauty, the satisfaction of truth, and the gratification of goodness.
Chapter 4 - Goodness and Love
Understanding the spiritual nature of the soul and morality, we see goodness and love as releasing us from the boundaries of our spiritual self.
Chapter 5 - Agape
The broad, selfless love of agape is the ultimate force for driving us towards our purpose, but it is also the most difficult to achieve. However, we can progress towards agape in small, reasonable steps in our response to people we know.
Chapter 6 - Relationship
We can grow towards agape by learning the lessons of love in progressively wider circles of relationship, centered on marriage.
Chapter 7 - Pride and Chauvinism
Growth in love can be poisoned by pride. Progress towards agape can be poisoned by chauvinism.
Chapter 8 - Religion
Although the function of religion has changed across human history, it still has an important role to play in assisting people to lead a moral life.
Chapter 9 - God
The ideas in this treatise open a new understanding of God's existence and nature, and this understanding, though arrived at by secular means, is in accord with the cherished notions of the great world religions.
Chapter 10 - Past, Future, and Present
The understanding of our spiritual nature and the nature of God allows us to speculate on the possibility of a brilliant, transcendent purpose for humanity if we have the will to pursue it.
Chapter 11 - What Is
Humanity does have a purpose, and the universe is perfectly ordered to encourage us to pursue that purpose, but our success is not assured.
Chapter 12 - But Never Mind All That
We must not take the ideas in this treatise uncritically but instead search for evidence of human purpose working in our own lives and our world.
Afterword - The Next Challenge: How
The pursuit of our purpose has never been so critical. We must actively and intelligently search for ways to move ourselves and our world in the direction of this purpose. We must act together or fail.
