Answering the Great Question

It’s the question of our lives. But where can we find the answer?

There is a natural curiosity that young children possess. They look upon scenic environments with wonder, awed by the beauty and the variety of plant and animal life they encounter. What a child sees is unfiltered and not yet fully processed and categorized—making what they see new and captivating.

Perhaps a vague thought occasionally flickers within the child’s mind. What does all this mean? Why does all this exist? No matter—another item of interest soon distracts them and draws their attention away.

As individuals become preoccupied by the requirements of growing up, learning about self and society, they gradually spend increasingly less time and energy asking the question “Why?” For what purpose does this or that thing exist? Is there some overriding cosmic explanation that can give us what we once instinctively wanted to know—but had not the means to find out?

Victor Frankl, in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, famously stated that “man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life.”

Idle speculations from numerous “authorities” concerning the meaning of life merely create more confusion than clarity. Reliance on philosophical dead ends provides no satisfying, objective answer to the question “Why do we exist?”

Acknowledging the Obvious

We can cut to the chase—it is obvious that things exist. They did not just come into existence out of nothing! They had to be created. What or who caused them to come into being?

One of the wisest men who ever lived, King Solomon, wrote, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

The Apostle Paul explains that this Creator shows Himself, but many refuse to see: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:18–20).

God speaks through His prophet, Isaiah: “Remember what happened long ago, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and no one is like Me. I declare the end from the beginning and from long ago what is not yet done, saying: My plan will take place, and I will do all My will” (Isaiah 46:9–10, Holman Christian Standard Bible). God has a plan and a purpose—though He has only given some the means to fully understand it, while many others have become willfully blind.

Mankind and all of creation exists for a purpose, and that purpose was determined by a Creator! Some scientists examine the material world and conclude that the Bible’s words on these matters are fact. Yet sadly, many more dispute or ignore them.

Denying the Only Source of the Answer

For example, Francis Crick—molecular biologist, biophysicist and neuroscientist, and co-discoverer of the structure of the DNA molecule—stated in his book, The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul, “The Astonishing Hypothesis is that ‘You,’ your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.” Or, as Carl Sagan once said, “The cosmos is all there is, or was, or ever will be.”

Such “experts” cannot provide real answers.

There is only one source that explains why you and I draw breath. The answers that mankind searches for are found in the pages of the Holy Bible. If you really want to know, challenge yourself and personally dig into the Word of God. For assistance, write for our free Bible Study Course, or you may enroll and take it online at TomorrowsWorld.org.