The Meaning of Life Project

According to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in the October 3, 2015 Wall Street Journal, “Homo sapiens is the meaning-seeking animal. If there is one thing the great institutions of the modern world do not do, it is to provide meaning.” Our project has two components: 1) during the calendar year 2017 in Oxford, to research historical Christian thought about life’s meaning and what, if any, bearing the thought of contemporary naturalistic evolutionary biology has on it; and 2) to hold a week-long conference in the summer of 2018 consisting of daily meetings for Christian seminary professors, clergy, para-church workers, and leaders of high-school church groups about the meaning of life, based in part on what we learned from our work described in 1). In light of our overall goal of making available written materials on the meaning of life for use by seminaries/theological colleges, churches, and para-church groups, the week-long conference will help us assess our first attempt at putting together such materials. Building on the success of this conference, and with the support of a bigger grant from the JTF, we plan to hold additional conferences and develop educational materials about the meaning of life in the form of written works and videos to reach a wider audience in the Christian community. The week-long conference will be held in either Oxford or the Philadelphia area. We envision twelve persons attending the conference, with at least some individuals being invited and perhaps others selected on the basis of a competitive application procedure. Reading materials will be provided to participants ahead of the conference so that they can come prepared for discussion. In sum, Christians, like everyone else, wonder about the meaning of life. Our goal is to help them think more clearly for themselves about life’s meaning so that they can effectively talk with others about the topic.