Sartre’s Existentialism and the Meaning of Life

Nice thoughts, Clark. I read Sartre at BYU — not Being and Nothingness (which still sits perched on one of my bookshelves) but a late book of essays … Life/Situations I think it was called. Orthodox Christians see God creating the world (i.e., the Universe) ex nihlo, so it is infused with God’s purpose from t=o. But the Mormon view sees the raw stuff of the Universe as being prior to God, so whatever meaning God imposes on the Universe — and that we, as humans, come to recognize — arises in a different fashion.

Now it would be wrong to suggest that rank-and-file Mormons struggle to find meaning in the Universe as given. God, the Bible, and LDS scriptures provide a map of meaning for life for Mormons as much as for Christians. But if you dig deep enough, there is some similarity between the struggles of Nietzsche and Sartre to find meaning in a godless universe of stuff and the Mormon view that there is a universe of stuff that is (in some underdefined manner) independent of God but that somehow supports the meaning that we accept on faith or that we ground on our own human experience of life.

Chris, Bill has a bit of a vendetta against Continental types and has this odd tendency to misread them or read them in the least charitable way possible. While his argument is a bit of a caricature here, I think at the same time there is an engagement with the question of God that is important and too often neglected by Mormons.

I should note that while I share a number of beliefs with Sartre there is just something about him as a philosopher that rubs me the wrong way. I suppose I should go back and reread him since I’ve not read him since college. But somehow I just can’t work up the will to do so.

As to why Mormons seems drawn to Nietzsche, Sartre and even Heidegger I should once again note that not all are. However I note that many of the more philosophically inclined tend to be. I think the reason is that because Mormonism has God and men being co-eternal and deny creation ex nihilo that God can’t give meaning to people the way he does in traditional Christianity. This means either meaning is inherent to existence – either as a whole or in the individual – or else existence entails radical meaning making ala Sartre or Nietzsche. I think, given the LDS view that this life is a trial necessary for our growth (i.e. suffering is ontologically necessary for progression), that Nietzsche is a better fit. And I’ve often joked that Mormons are what Nietzsche would be if he were a theist.

Roger, while I’m really sympathetic to using a more Hegelian sense of spirit when doing exegesis, I don’t think it would work quite as well as you suggest. There simply are too many places where it clearly means something else. The JST of Genesis 2 in particular I don’t think can be quite read in the fashion you suggest, although many have suggest the idea of spirit as idea or plan. Maybe it’s a subtle difference but I think it important.

Dave, while Mormons think God give life meaning in a certain sense the way God does this within Mormonism is quite interesting. He gives very vague direction and expects us through our stewardship to fill in the pieces. I think the classic tale of this in LDS theology and folk thinking is the Brother of Jared and the lighting of his barges. But it is a practical matter. For a Mormon creation is always part God and part man with a lot of too and fro between the two.

So while the typical Mormon emphasizes that Mormonism teaches the meaning of life, the way we think about this is really quite unlike most Christianity and has a pretty strong existential aspect to it. (The very notion of needing to come here, lose our memory, and then suffer and develop a character is kind of a radical embrace of finitude and suffering as necessary not at all unlike one finds in existentialism – it’s just that contrary to the more Nietzschean sense we see a kind of brotherhood developing out of our state)

The rejection of creation ex nihlo is probably the key distinguishing factor between Mormonism and the rest of Christianity. While I doubt the typical Mormon could point to that (or is even sure what creation ex nihlo means) it seems that this affects the Mormon psychology in many ways and really changes how we view many issues.

It always seemed interesting to me that Sartre, like Heidegger, had his “naive” embrace of totalitarianism. In both cases their behavior just is amazing. And, in both cases, I think it demands we take a suspicious view of their philosophy. (Of course with Heidegger this has been in the news a lot of late due to the new book that’s out on Heidegger and the Nazis — although the book itself is pretty poor stuff)

While there were things about Sartre I liked – his notion of authenticity for example. Once I discovered Heidegger though I found it far more robust than Sartre. (And of course in many ways Sartre’s philosophy developed from reading (misreading?) Being and Time) My Sartre is pretty rusty, so I don’t want to make claims about where I found Sartre so problematic. My memory is that his particular kind of conception of nothingness was problematic — especially against Heidegger’s. Even though as I noted they are related.

That said, from the books I’ve read most of the parts of Sartre that have been appropriated by cognitive science are broader points where I think Sartre and most Heideggarians share agreement. (Say externalism vs. internalism)