The final verdict

Why are we alive? What is the meaning of life? Listen to one man’s attempt to define our existence: “For what are we, brother? We are but a phantom flare of grieved desire, the ghostly and phosphoric flicker of immortal time. We are an unspeakable utterance, an insatiable hunger, an unquenchable thirst, a lust that bursts our sinews, explodes our brains and rips our hearts asunder. We are a twist of passion, a moment’s flame of love and ecstasy, a sinew of bright blood and agony, a lost cry, a haunting of brief sharp hours, an almost-captured beauty, a demon’s whisper of unbodied memory. We are the dupes of time” (Thomas Wolfe). Can we glibly shrug off his lament as the raving of a madman, or is there some logic to his plea? Is there any evidence for his claim that we are simply dupes of time? Let’s be honest. The scandal of Christianity is the existence of a world where violence, greed and pain rule; where brute strength and national wealth determine the destiny of nations; where an accident of birthplace determines whether one will grow up free or enslaved, comfortable or starving.