The most important statements in life always come in the form of a question. The more simple the question, the more profound the insight. Take for example three elementary reflections: Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? It can be argued that the whole of philosophy is nothing more than individuals trying to answer this trinity of questions. In this sense, I believe one can reasonably argue that there is only one genuine school of philosophical thought the branch of philosophy known as existentialism with its emphasis on individual meaning. While I am convinced that all philosophers are existentialist to one degree or another, this work will primarily focus on four significant thinkers: Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, and C. S. Lewis. These reflective thinkers represent the depth and vastness of the school of existentialism through their works and individual lives. Through their words, we can fully explore the core concerns of philosophy namely, truth, meaning, existence, suffering, and death.

These three basic and penetrating questions I affectionately term these as The Big Picture generally receive little examination in todays classrooms or coffee shops. There is any number of reasons for this, but perhaps the most far-reaching explanation is our present willingness to abandon Truth. In defining the concept of truth, I simply mean the belief in a binding, universal, and objective order as opposed to the idea of relativism where all propositions are equal and each person is the sole determiner of reality.

What makes this retirement from truthfulness so devastating is that it truth is inexorably united with meaning and purpose. According to the absolute apologist Chuck Colson, this retreat from truth has resulted in individual and societal decay and confusion. In his address at the University of Chicago in 1993, Colson remarked, When a society abandons its transcendent values, each individuals moral vision becomes purely personal and finally equal. Society becomes merely the sum total of individual preferences, and since no preference is morally preferable, anything that can be dared will be permitted. Consequently, if man loses his ability to define and distinguish truth, he concurrently becomes unable to detect and define meaning. As Felipe Fernandez-Armetso, current member of the Modern History Faculty of Oxford University points out, Unless there is (absolute or universal) truth, what status is left for a statement like X is wrong where X is, say, adultery, infanticide, euthanasia, drug-dealing, Nazism, pedophilia, sadism or any other wickedness due, in todays climate, for relativization into the ranks of the acceptable. It becomes, like everything else in western society today, a matter of opinion; and we are left with no moral basis for encoding some opinions rather than other, except the tyranny of the majority.

Yet, there was a time when the ancient masters of philosophy Plato and Aristotle tutored their students day after day on matters of meaning, purpose, existence, life, death, justice, virtue, and most of all, truth. They could, in fact, teach on these subjects because there was a fundamental belief in the existence of objective truth as a real entity in other words, Truth did actually exist and was transcendent or above mere personal opinion. The glory of the writings of many of the ancient philosophers is that these men dared to exclaim that one could know what justice, virtue or truth is. There were, argued many venerable orators, certain absolutes and, contrary to modern thought, these absolute standards did not burden an individual but, rather, they reassured a person that he could find meaning because there was meaning to be found.

Underscoring the need to reacquaint modern man with the existence of absolute or objective truth, Fernandez-Armesto writes, We need a history of truth. We need to be able to tell whether truth is changeful or eternal, embedded in time or outside it, universal or varying from place to place. We need to know how we have got to where we are in the history of truth how our society has come to lose faith in the reality of it and lose interest in the search for it. We need a history of truth to illuminate the unique predicament of our times and if possible help us escape from it. We also need it because truth is fundamental to everything else. Everyones attempt to be good every attempt to construct happy relationships and thriving societies starts with two questions: How do I tell right from wrong? And how do I tell truth from falsehood?



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