Does God have a meaning?

Viktor Frankl’s “Logotherapy” deals with the question of “meaning”. Frankl expresses the basis of this as follows: “Whoever has a ‘why’ to live can also endure every ‘how’.”

Viktor Frankl attributes this quote to Friedrich Nietzsche. However, Nietzsche put it this way: “Whoever has a ‘what for’ to live can also endure every ‘how’.”

The difference seems negligible, but it is fundamental. “Why?” is asking the question of the reason. “What for?” is asking the question of the purpose. The reason answers the question “Where am I from?” The purpose answers the question “Where do I (want to) go?”

The reason answers the question about “God”. The purpose answers the question of “Meaning”. Friedrich Nietzsche started from “God”, Viktor Frankl from “Meaning”. Nietzsche died in the madhouse, Frankl survived the concentration camp. Nietzsche left the philosophical questions, Frankl gave the psychological answers.

If there is a “Why” then there is also a “What for”. How can one grasp this? Atheists who neglect the “Why?”, must ultimately measure the “What for?” and inevitably end up with “money”.

This worldview is collapsing right before our eyes. The transcendental, the “unspeakable” is immeasurable. We are faced with the decision as to whether we want to look “upwards” or “downwards”. The immeasurable is therefore either “infinite” or “zero”. The theory of relativity tries to catch the immeasurably large (“infinite”), while quantum physics tries to catch the immeasurably small (“zero”).

The Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) tend towards the infinite and call it “Paradise” (“Eternity”). The Asian religions (especially Buddhism) tend to zero and call it “Nirvana” (“no pain”).

These are the two different forms of representation of the immeasurable, which seem to contradict each other (in “physics”). Beyond that (in “metaphysics”) they are one.

In this world their encounter can be experienced in the moments of love. People who have mainly experienced joy in their life tend to the maximum. (“Because all lust wants eternity.”) People who have mainly experienced pain in their lives tend to the minimum. (“What becomes, passes.”) The joyful want everything, the painful want nothing. When they come together in love, paradise and nirvana meet in the infinity of the present moment.

No money in the world can measure this beauty.

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