Finding Meaning and Purpose in a Godless Universe

In the 1880s, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was at his intellectual peak. Following his untimely resignation as a professor of classical philosophy from the University of Basel in 1879, Nietzsche chose to spend the following decade as an intellectual exile in Switzerland, Italy, and France. During this time, he wrote and published his most groundbreaking philosophical works, fiction and nonfiction alike, including, most importantly, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, and On the Genealogy of Morality. Yet Nietzsche’s creative phase ended abruptly in 1889 when the philosopher was institutionalized in a mental asylum for reasons of insanity after suffering a mental breakdown from which he effectively never recovered.

One of the key issues Nietzsche wrestled with in the 1880s was what he called ‘the death of God.’ Nietzsche first addressed this crucial problem in two aphorisms in 1882 when he published the first four books of The Gay Science.¹ The Enlightenment, Nietzsche argued, had once and for all demonstrated that there was no God. Yet people, Nietzsche prophesied, would remain unwilling to accept this fact for a long time and cling to religion, be it out of loyalty to tradition, lack of courage, or fear of death. This blind and unreasonable belief in the unreal, Nietzsche reasoned, would plague men with severe problems. For as long as they do not accept the death of God, Nietzsche concluded, men would be torn apart while vainly trying to harmonize contradictory ideas, such as, for example, the new and the old, life and death, reason and faith, self-assertiveness and self-sacrifice.

These unresolved conflicts, Nietzsche feared (rightly so), would lead to unprecedented turmoil in the twentieth century for two key reasons. First, how is the individual to find meaning and purpose without God? After all, Christianity had provided man with a raison d’être for almost two millennia. If he consistently sacrificed himself and all his earthly, mundane pleasures for the sake of the poor, he would ultimately be admitted into heaven where he could spend eternity in perfect bliss (or so he thought). Given the death of God, however, man no longer had a reason to believe in such a heavenly paradise. Consequently, Nietzsche concluded, only two subpar solutions to this problem were available. On the one hand, the individual could continue practicing the outworn morality of altruism and attempt to find meaning and purpose in self-sacrifice while (at least subconsciously) knowing that there would not be a reward for his asceticism. On the other hand, the individual could start practicing a new, rational, this-worldly morality and create meaning and purpose from within. The problem with this latter approach was that no such morality had yet been discovered.

Second, how can people coexist peacefully without religious morality? After all, Christian morality had not only given the individual a meaning and a purpose but it had also provided the bedrock of ‘liberal’ political regimes. If each and every man was ‘his brother’s keeper,’ men would no longer be in perpetual conflict with each other but they would live in perfect harmony (or so they thought). Given the death of God, however, people no longer had a convincing reason to altruistically sacrifice themselves for others. Once again, only two subpar solutions to this problem, Nietzsche concluded, were available. On the one hand, men could attempt to keep practicing altruism to stabilize their political regimes. How should this be possible, though, now that they knew that their incentive of being rewarded with eternal bliss had turned out nothing but a pipe dream? On the other hand, men could begin to base their political regimes on a new, rational, this-worldly morality. Yet, once again, no such morality had yet been discovered.

Throughout the 1880s, Nietzsche became increasingly concerned about the long-term repercussions which were to follow from the death of God. In 1887, five years after publishing The Gay Science, Nietzsche republished the work in its second edition, adding a fifth book to the text. While the earlier four books merely mention the death of God twice in passing, Nietzsche opens the fifth book by recapitulating his warning in minute detail:

The greatest recent event—that ‘God is dead’; that the belief in the Christian God has become unbelievable—is already starting to cast its first shadow over Europe. To those few at least whose eyes—or the suspicion in whose eyes is strong and subtle enough for this spectacle, some kind of sun seems to have set; some old deep trust turned into doubt: to them, our world must appear more autumnal, more mistrustful, stranger, ‘older.’ But in the main one might say: for many people’s power of comprehension, the event is itself far too great, distant, and out of the way even for its tidings to be thought of as having arrived yet. Even less may one suppose many to know at all what this event really means—and, now that this faith has been undermined, how much must collapse because it was built on this faith, leaned on it, had grown into it—for example, our entire European morality. This long, dense succession of demolition, destruction, downfall, upheaval that now stands ahead: who would guess enough of it today to play the teacher and herald of this monstrous logic of horror, the prophet of deep darkness and an eclipse of the sun the like of which has probably never before existed on earth? Even we horn guessers of riddles who are so to speak on a lookout at the top of the mountain, posted between today and tomorrow and stretched in the contradiction between today and tomorrow, we firstlings and premature births of the next century, to whom the shadows that must soon envelop Europe really should have become apparent by now—why is it that even we look forward to this darkening without any genuine involvement and above all without worry and fear for ourselves?²

This short intends to address Nietzsche’s first concern, i.e. how the individual can find meaning and purpose without God. (I intend to answer Nietzsche’s second question, i.e. how people can coexist peacefully without religious morality, in a separate piece.)

Millennia ago, men invented God(s) to explain phenomena which they could not understand. They, for instance, saw lightning and wondered about its origin. Given the fact that science did not exist at the time, it was actually not unreasonable to assume that some powerful being(s) might inhabit (the) heaven(s) and sporadically express their anger by punishing mankind with their heavenly weapons. Thus, men gradually came to think of God as an omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent power in the universe. Man’s purpose, in turn, was to self-sacrificially and humbly worship his supreme creator, a being whom he could never equal in any possible way, in order to ultimately be granted admission into the kingdom of heaven.

The death of God put an end to this fantasy and it has plagued men ever since. Torn between a mythological past and an unknown future, the majority of people chose to forgo the great potential of a fulfilling yet unrevealed future for the alleged safety of an unfulfilling yet revealed past. Instead of accepting facts and embracing reality, gaining knowledge about the world, and taking responsibility for their lives, they kept dreaming of an unattainable state of perfection. As American philosopher Ayn Rand describes the mindset of such utopian idealists, “Unable to determine what they can or cannot change, some men attempt to ‘rewrite reality,’ i.e., to alter the nature of the metaphysically given. Some dream of a universe in which man experiences nothing but happiness—no pain, no frustration, no illness—and wonder why they lose the desire to improve their life on earth.”³

Even though there was no longer any reason to believe in the existence of a God or a heaven, people nevertheless stubbornly continued clinging to one belief, namely the righteousness of the morality of altruism. For time immemorial, they had self-sacrificially given up their lives for the sake of God. Unwilling to live their lives independently, they resolved to look for new authorities to justify their outworn moral beliefs. Substitutes were quickly discovered and found. Now that God was dead, men started to invent and revere new deities. Instead of sacrificing themselves for the sake of their by now dead religious idols, they began worshipping and serving new gods, such as the God of the State and the Goddess of Nature. While the gods changed and men substituted new ideologies, for instance, communism and environmentalism, for religion, altruism remained a sacred, unquestioned ideal, and men continued spending their lives as sacrificial animals.

Yet, as with every other major change in knowledge, culture, or politics, a small minority of people refused to simply accept the status quo by offering flimsy excuses and rationalizations. Rather than damning existence and becoming nihilistic, these exceptional men used their minds to the best of their ability to make sense of the world and to create meaning for themselves. While others gave in, lamented the fact that their ‘all-too-human nature’ prevents them from emulating God and creating universes in godlike fashion by themselves, and, consequently, as English poet A. E. Housman puts it, felt like “stranger[s] and afraid in a world [they] never made,”⁴ these intellectual innovators self-confidently ventured forth and pondered how to properly deal with their newly acquired knowledge.

God, the strange object of worship invented by man, is, these early innovative thinkers realized, in a position unlike any other being. Given that he is eternal, God must necessarily have existed outside of space and time before the creation of the universe. Given that man exists within space and time, he, in marked contrast, does not have the ability to create ex nihilo. Rather, for a man to be creative, he has to first accept the facts of reality. If he does so, he can then use his creative power to transform potentiality into actuality by giving form to matter. As Rand explains:

The power to rearrange the combinations of natural elements is the only creative power man possesses. It is an enormous and glorious power—and it is the only meaning of the concept ‘creative.’ ‘Creation’ does not (and metaphysically cannot) mean the power to bring something into existence out of nothing. ‘Creation’ means the power to bring into existence an arrangement (or combination or integration) of natural elements that had not existed before.⁵

It is precisely by first accepting our metaphysical position in the universe and then using our minds to the best of our ability that we can create meaning for ourselves. As German-Swiss novelist and poet Hermann Hesse expresses this idea in Narcissus and Goldmund, “[W]hen a man tries to realize himself through the gifts with which nature has endowed him, he does the best and only meaningful thing he can do.”⁶

For most people, the notion of a godless universe was frightening. “Some dread the thought of eventual death—and never undertake the task of living,”⁷ Rand once remarked about the mindset of such people. Afraid and sheepishly, they chose to evade the fact that there was no God, either clinging to old idols or inventing new ones to shun responsibility for themselves and their own lives. Innovative thinkers like Nietzsche, Hesse, and Rand, in marked contrast, realized that a godless universe was in no way lamentable or intimidating. Rather, the idea of an atheist existence in which causality rules was a fact to be accepted—and celebrated.

Given the death of God, people no longer had any conceivable reason to look for an external entity to give them meaning and purpose. Rather, freed from these theist beliefs and constraints, they were now in a position to set their own purposes and create meaning by pursuing and achieving self-determined aims—here, on earth, and in reality. God, these brilliant thinkers recognized, was not to be found in heaven but in the self.

This motive of the God within is featured prominently in the works of Nietzsche, Hesse, and Rand. After having announced the death of God early in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, for instance, Nietzsche’s eponymous hero, Zarathustra, happily declares, “Now I am nimble, now I fly, now I see myself under myself, now a god dances within me.”⁸ Feeling free and light, Zarathustra incentivizes other pursuers of truth and values to also look for the gods within themselves. “Solitary man,” he states, “you are going the way of the creator: you want to create yourself a god from your seven devils!”⁹ Given that the old gods have died, man, Zarathustra concludes toward the end of the narrative, can now become godlike himself and create his own meaning. All it takes, Zarathustra argues, is to set and pursue one’s own aims rather than follow and fear the outworn religious deity. In his words, “Away with such a God! Better no god, better to produce destiny on one’s own account, better to be a fool, better to be God oneself!”¹⁰

Hesse makes a similar point in his pamphlet “Zarathustra’s Return.” Like Nietzsche and Rand, Hesse observed that young children do not share many of the fears of their elders. Rather than fearing both life and death, youngsters typically view the universe as an open space in which they can achieve their values. Self-consciously and self-determinately, they venture forth to explore existence and to make their own way in the world. As Hesse’s Zarathustra tells his audience:

In each one of you there is a hidden being, still in the deep sleep of childhood. Bring it to life! In each one of you there is a call, a will, an impulse of nature, an impulse toward the future, the new, the higher. Let it mature, let it resound, nurture it! Your future …, your hard dangerous path is this: to mature and to find God in yourselves. Nothing … has been made harder for you. You have always looked for God, but never in yourselves. He is nowhere else. There is no other God than the God within you.¹¹

It is this self-reliant and optimistic spirit which, Hesse’s Zarathustra concludes, we need to recapture and reactivate in order to find God within us and give meaning to our lives.

Rand also pondered the idea of locating God within the self. In her early novelette Ideal, for instance, a character states that “there is a God in us.”¹² This inner force, he argues, motivates us neither to bargain nor to settle for the second best but to instead grab the very best possible to us. A few years after writing Ideal, Rand expanded on this very idea in her novelette Anthem. In this text, Rand’s hero Equality 7-2521 bravely challenges the collectivist society in which he was raised. Having rejected the false God of the State, Equality escapes into the Uncharted Forest where he explores his individuality. It is here that he discovers his inner God which he comes to identify as his self. “And now I see the face of god,” he proudly declares, “and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: ‘I.’”¹³ In short, it is the soul, which a character in Rand’s later novel The Fountainhead describes as “[t]he thing that thinks and values and makes decisions,”¹⁴ that Rand comes to evaluate as the God within us.

Meaning, these three thinkers understood, is to be created internally, from within the self, rather than to be sought externally, from another source. It is only by thinking and introspecting that we can come to identify what we truly value. Yet how to identify our highest values and maximize our happiness? Doing so, Rand argues, requires that one identify a central purpose to determine the importance of any other value(s) we might act to gain or keep. This central value, she continues, is one’s productive career. “Productive work,” Rand emphasizes, “is the central purpose of a rational man’s life, the central value that integrates and determines the hierarchy of all his other values.”¹⁵

Neither God nor religious morality are necessary prerequisites to leading a meaning- and purposeful life. Contrary to ‘popular wisdom,’ religion has actually barred man from finding meaning and purpose in his life. By providing him with an irrational purpose, i.e. to enter the kingdom of heaven, to be achieved by irrational means, i.e. by self-sacrificial service, religious leaders have effectively established death as man’s end and suffering as the means to this end.

If we aim to achieve happiness on earth, the discovery that there is no God is not to be lamented. Rather, it leaves us without straightjackets. We are free to individually discover our own central purpose by selecting one of the myriad fields which we would like to specialize in. Pursuing our central purpose and flourishing while doing so, in turn, provides us with meaning.

It is for these reasons that innovative thinkers should consider an atheist universe nor as a threat but as an opportunity. Nietzsche arrived at this conclusion as early as 1887 when he published the second edition of The Gay Science. Rather than merely recapitulating the crucial problem he had identified five years earlier, Nietzsche optimistically ventured forth to stress the potential of a godless universe in his newly added book, which he aptly titled “We Fearless Ones.” Nietzsche stressed:

[T]he … immediate consequences [of the death of God], the consequences for ourselves, are the opposite of what one might expect—not at all sad and gloomy, but much more like a new and barely describable type of light, happiness, relief, amusement, encouragement, dawn … Indeed, at hearing the news that ‘the old god is dead,’ we philosophers and ‘free spirits’ feel illuminated by a new dawn; our heart overflows with gratitude, amazement, forebodings, expectation—finally the horizon seems clear again, even if not bright; finally our ships may set out again, set out to face any danger; every daring of the lover of knowledge is allowed again; the sea, our sea, lies open again; maybe there has never been such as ‘open sea.’¹⁶

Rand, in turn, expressed a similar view in a little-known radio interview she gave in 1966. When asked, “[D]oes [being an atheist] never leave you with a lonely feeling?,” Rand laughingly replied, “No, dear. Never. It leaves me with a very clean, confident feeling that the universe is not unknowable, that it is not a mystery, and that there are no supernatural phenomena disposing of my life. It leaves me with a feeling of responsibility.”¹⁷

If we follow these thinkers and start to create meaning for ourselves by discovering, pursuing, and achieving our purpose, there is no longer any need to fear obstacles, to despair, and to sell out. Even in the toughest of times, our central purpose remains our internal loadstone and prevents us from becoming nihilistic. As Nietzsche reminds us in The Twilight of the Idols, “If you have your why for life, you can get by with almost any how.”¹⁸

1. Friedrich Nietzsche, “Aphorism #108” and “Aphorism #125,” The Gay Science, 2nd ed., translated by Josefine Nauckhoff (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, [1887] 2008), 109 and 119-120.

2. Nietzsche, “Aphorism #343,” The Gay Science, 199 [emphasis in the original].

3. Ayn Rand, “The Metaphysical versus the Man-Made,” Philosophy: Who Needs It (New York: Signet [1982] 1984), 40.

4. E. A. Housman, “The Laws of God, the Laws of Man,” Last Poems (London: Grant Richards, 1922), 28.

5. Rand, “The Metaphysical versus the Man-Made,” 34.

6. Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund, translated by Ursule Molinaro (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, [1930] 1984).

7. Rand, “The Metaphysical versus the Man-Made,” 41.

8. Friedrich Nietzsche, “Of Reading and Writing,” Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and No One, translated by R. J. Hollingdale (London: Penguin, [1885] 2003), 69.

9. Nietzsche, “Of the Way of the Creator,” Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 90.

10. Nietzsche, “Retired from Service,” Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 274 [emphasis in the original].

11. Hermann Hesse, “Zarathustra’s Return (1919),” If the War Goes On …: Reflections on War and Politics, 2nd ed., translated by Ralph Manheim (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, [1946] 1971), 116.

12. Ayn Rand, Ideal: The Novel and the Play (New York: New American Library, [1934] 2015), 171 [emphasis in the original].

13. Ayn Rand, Anthem (London: Penguin, [1938] 2008), 97.

14. Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead (London: Penguin, [1943] 2007), 441.

15. Ayn Rand, “The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism (New York: Signet, [1964] 2014).

16. Nietzsche, “Aphorism #343” [emphasis in the original].

17. Ayn Rand Institute, “Ayn Rand Interviewed by Michael R. Jackson,” YouTube.com, 24 Apr 2024, 47:50-48:13.

18. Friedrich Nietzsche, “Aphorism #12,” The Twilight of Idols: Or, How to Philosophize with the Hammer, translated by Richard Polt (Indianapolis: Hackett, [1889] 1997), 6 [emphasis in the original].