Article Review
In the article, “The Meaning of Life,” written by Daniel hill, the author makes his case about the meaningfulness of life and its correlation to the existence of God. The author argues that “without God, life would be meaningless.” He begins his article by discussing the meaning of life using the concepts of analytic philosophy. He claims that finding the meaning of life is an uphill task, one that cannot be handled by presenting an irrational explanation since the question “what is meaning of life?” requires to be answered in a logical way. He quotes the research of Peter Van Inwagen, David Hume, and Thomas Morris in order to make his case that the meaning of life depends on the “purpose of an agent that brought life about.” However, he considers this explanation incomplete and insufficient because he does not regard the need for a physical parent to create life. His main argument in the article is that in order to find the meaning of life, one has to have a belief in a higher power. It is fair to infer that atheists should not believe in the meaning of life since they do not believe in the existence of some higher power. The author rejects the beliefs of atheists and claims that we are created by God due to some purpose. That purpose being said is to “glorify God and to be in relationship with God.” Furthermore, the author argues that there should not be an overarching goal for everybody in life, which must be pursued as per typical beliefs. Everyone has some innate idea about what wrong and right things; however, our goal is to glorify God because it leads to good things in life. In the end, he clears a confusion that God’s life has a purpose; it doesn’t because God has no creator so having a purpose requires the existence of a creator. He concludes that there can be a meaning to one’s life only if he believes in the existence of some creator or God. He can find out the meaning of life by glorifying and God and developing a relationship with God. This essay will examine the persuasiveness of the argument Daniel Hill makes in his article about the meaning of life and the existence of God, our creator.
Daniel hill makes a persuasive argument using the standard rhetorical appeals. His main argument is to prove the existence of God and associate it with the meaning of life. He says that life is meaningful when one believes in his creator and adopts His purpose for one’s life. In order to make his argument convincing, he makes use of ethos to establish his credibility and authority on the subject matter. The use of ethos implies that the author has quoted searches of well-established and pioneering scholars and philosophers and refers to their work to make his case stronger. For example, at the start of the article, he quotes Peter van Inwagen while discussing the point about the meaning of life in these words, “If Alice surprises a trusted employee who has broken into her office and is going through her files, and if Alice says ‘What is the meaning of this?’ she is requesting an explanation of a certain state of affairs in terms of the purposes of her employee or those whose agent the employee is.” (Hill, 2002). The purpose of quoting Peter van Inwagen is the standard use of ethos to expand on his argument he made at the start of the article about what is the meaning of life. He argues that when a person asks about the meaning of life, he is not necessarily asking to define the word ‘life.’ Rather, he is apparently asking for the presence of things or the reasons for the existence of life and things. The analogy quoted by Hill allows him to make his argument convincing by suggesting that a person always asks about the context and current state of affairs related to the word instead of the literal meaning of the inquired word. After establishing credibility by quoting the philosopher, he gives his own explanation by saying that every action is not the result of some processes leading up to the execution of the action; rather, every action is due to some specific purpose. For example, water is boiling not because of the fact it has reached its boiling point, but because of the motive that someone wanted to boil the water for making tea. The intent or purpose behind something is important rather than the processes behind it.
Similarly, he quotes Thomas Morris to further expand on his argument to make it more persuasive. He brings the attention of readers towards the question that what if water was boiling for no reason, such as in a natural geyser, then there would have been no purpose. In order to explain this, he quotes the concept of Endowment Thesis presented by Thomas Morris in these words, “Something has meaning if and only if it is endowed with meaning or significance by a purposive personal agent or group of such agents.” (Hill, 2002). This suggests that in order to possess some meaning, an individual or an item must be brought under the governance of some sort of purposive intention. The use of Harris Morris quote allows him to establish ethos and to make his expanded argument convincing, which is apparent in the next lines of the article, “As far as life is concerned, then, life has a meaning only if there is an explanation of it in terms of the purposes of an agent that brought life about.” (Hill, 2002).
In addition to the use of ethos, the author uses logos as well to convince his readers about his arguments in a logical way. Particularly, after making his case about the meaning of life, Daniel Hill moves on to discussing the existence of God and rejecting atheists’ beliefs in the remainder of the article. The use of logos means appealing to the audience using logic and presenting arguments backed by logical reasoning. First of all, he introduces the claim that all living things are made by the action of parents, so their purposes are created by the actions taken. Then he rejects this concept and provides a counter-argument in a logical manner that although parents are responsible for the necessary condition of life, this condition for this life is still incomplete because “not everything is physically able to be a parent” (Hill, 2002). He uses logos to acknowledge that having a purpose is not the only condition of life; rather, one has to believe in his creator or designer in order to understand that life has a meaning. He explains his arguments that God is the creator of everything since it’s illogical to believe that things or created on their own regardless of the fact that they or living or nonliving. He quotes the reasoning given by paleontologists to make his argument sound more logical, “The World’s first living organisms were not things of the sort that could have had purposes – they were too biologically simple to have any mental life at all.” (Hill, 2002).
Author comments on the beliefs of Atheists and claims that they do not believe in the meaning of life. Again, he uses logos to make his claim convincing by saying that since atheists do not believe in a designer or God, they must deny the fact that life has a meaning. Furthermore, he gives an explanation for God’s existence and purpose of creating humans in these words, “It does not seem that God could have created living things for their benefit – does it make any sense to talk about benefiting something by bringing it into existence? I do not think so, for it does not seem sensible to compare an existent and a nonexistent thing with respect to happiness.” (Hill, 2002). So, the next question arises that why God created a life for His own sake because he wants to be praised by the things he has created or he wants to be glorified. Here, again he uses logic to make his argument convincing by saying that, “An artist creates a picture not for the picture’s sake, but for her or his own sake, to redound to her or his own credit.” (Hill, 2002). In order to establish credibility, he quotes The Shorter Catechism that “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” (Hill, 2002).
To conclude, Daniel Hill has used rhetorical appeals such as ethos and logos to make his argument, “without God, life would be meaningless” convincing. Throughout the essay, he takes a position as a firm believer in the existence of God and opposes atheists’ beliefs. He uses arguments backed by logical reasoning and quotations from scholars and philosophers in order to make them persuasive. I believe that he has made valid arguments about life’s meaning and its correlation with the existence of God.
References
Hill, D. (2002). The Meaning of Life. Philosophy Now, 35, 12-14.