What is the meaning of life, of the universe, and everything? For millennia, man has tried to answer this basic question. During the Renaissance, philosophers began to believe that man could, beginning with just himself and find his own answers to this great question. Over time, though, man has discovered that he cannot do this. Instead of turning his mind toward a spiritual answer, today’s man has determined that there is no answer at all.
An author named Douglas Adams accidentally came up with the right answer to this great question. In his Sci-Fi series, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, he gives his answer. In the book, all the great philosophers of the galaxy came together and tried to answer that question. After much debate they could find no answer, so they built a super-computer named Deep Thought to compute the answer.
After Six Million Years, long after the galaxy had forgotten what the question was, Deep Thought came up with the answer. It was Forty-Two! I can tell you that we know this is the correct answer! Forty-Two is the answer to the great question of life, the universe, and everything, just not the way Mr. Adams meant it.
Douglas Adams was an atheist and, as such, he did not believe that there is an absolute standard. He, like his fellow humanistic philosophers, came to the conclusion that there is no meaning to life, the universe, and everything. Therefore, he picked for the book what he thought was a purely arbitrary answer.
His arbitrary answer is as good an answer as can be found if God does not exist.
Questions about the Meaning of Life
Christians know that God does exist and that His Two Testaments, written by about forty different men, contain the answer. Thus, Forty-Two, otherwise known as the Bible, has the answer to the great question of life, the universe, and everything.
As far as man is concerned, this great question can be broken down into three basic questions:
- Who am I?
- Why am I here?
- Where am I going?
The Bible contains the answer to all of these.
The first question, “Who am I?” is answered in the book of Genesis. In chapter 1:26-27, we learn that we were created in the likeness of God. We were not created in a physical likeness to God, because God is a spirit and has no physical body, but we are like God in that we have an immortal soul. We have within our physical body a spiritual soul that will never cease to exist, somewhere.
The second question, “Why am I here?” is summed up by Solomon.
“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole of man.” — Ecclesiastes 12:13
Solomon taught that we are here to glorify God through our obedience to Him.
Jesus states our two greatest reasons for existence.
“Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” — Matthew 22:37-39
The third question, “Where am I going?” is the most important one of all, for we know that this world is not our home. We all know that we are going somewhere.
We are all going to either one of two places, depending upon which path we take. Which path we take depends upon which guidebook we choose to follow.
Answers to Questions about the Meaning of Life
If we adopt The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as our guidebook, we will end up someplace we never wanted to go, just as Arthur, the protagonist of the Hitchhiker’s trilogy, ended up at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. To him, this restaurant was an eternally boring and weird place.
In reality, the destination we will find if we follow the godless philosophy behind the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is one of eternal fire and damnation.
However, if we adopt the Bible as our guidebook, we cannot fail to reach the other destination: Heaven.
- Jack McNiel, Evangelist
