BP 242
Are we alone in the universe?
Are we humans the only creatures who exist with the intellect and language and ability to “know” one another? Are we bereft of any god, mere accidents in the universe?
On top of that, are we then doubly alone because, as Irvin D. Yalom writes (quoted in last week’s post from his book, Love’s Executioner), there exists between humans an unbridgeable gap between self and others, a gap that exists even in the presence of a deeply gratifying interpersonal relationship” (p. 10)?
I’m not sure what Yalom’s position on extra-terrestrials is (maybe he would identify with Ellie Arroway, the atheist and SETI scientist in the movie Contact), but as an atheist he believes that since there is no God in the universe, “obvious meaning or sense to life” (p. 5) are absent from our existence. Where there is no Supreme Agent who created us on purpose for a purpose, there is no ultimate meaning and no relationship that can solve the insurmountable problem of existential aloneness.
An abyss will always separate us from one another—unbridgeable, unsolvable, and filled ultimately with existential death anxiety.
Lovely (sarcasm). Terrifying. Achingly lonely.
In Yalom’s view, then, we are meaningless accidents in the universe who, like Mayflies, are here for a day and then pass into nothingness. Gone forever.
It is interesting that Yalom says that this world has no “obvious meaning,” but then in his book, Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death, he says, “I think my meaning comes from helping others find their meaning.” So, I guess there is no obvious meaning in this universe but one must settle for finding (or fabricating) some non-obvious meaning to make life worth dying for.
Yalom states elsewhere that there exists an existential dilemma: a human is “a being who searches for meaning and certainty in a universe that has neither.”
C.S. Lewis would counter Yalom’s assessment by saying, “If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.”
Maybe Yalom has never read Lewis . . .
In his book, Love’s Executioner, Yalom writes about ten tales of psychotherapy all of which demonstrate that “it is possible to confront the truths of existence and harness their powers in the service of personal growth and change” (p.5).
One of these psychotherapy patients is a seventy-year-old woman named Thelma. Basically, Yalom states that due to this woman’s fear of death and her lack of vitality in her everyday life, she falls into a brief affair with a much younger man.
Even though Thelma’s magical bliss with Matthew lasts only 27 days, she obsesses for the next eight years about how she and Matthew briefly “slipped outside everyday reality.” She seeks psychological treatment from Dr. Yalom because her obsession with Matthew and their brief dalliance is driving her to the brink of suicide. “You are my last hope,” she confesses to the psychotherapist.
Looking back on his therapeutic journey with Thelma, Yalom states that romantic love—such as Thelma experienced with Matthew—is incompatible with psychotherapy since psychological therapy is a light-shedding process while romantic love is a mysterious thing that tends to obscure the light. Good therapy cannot be done with one whose mind and heart are obsessed with love.
“I hate to be love’s executioner,” Yalom states, but he goes on to make it clear that such an execution is necessary because romantic love—among other things—is “a common, and vigorous, attempt to solve existential isolation” (p. 11). He refers to such an attempt as a “fusion,” a merger of two people, “the softening of one’s boundaries, the melting into another” to serve as a shield against being alone.
According to Yalom, why do humans like Thelma pursue fusion with another human? Apparently, to avoid the fear of death (p. 40) and the accompanying sense of existential isolation that dogs every man and woman who has ever lived . . . and died . . . never to live again. Since there is nothing in the universe that offers true meaning in the face of personal extinction, humans are driven to find someone (something) to merge with to distract them from laboring under the long, dark shadow of being a terminal being in a meaningless world.
Yalom repeatedly points out that at the core of every form of human bliss is blissful merger–becoming one with another human to avoid existential aloneness and its silent partner, death.
To repeat what I alluded to above, in Thelma’s case, Yalom believed that her intense obsession with her short-term lover, Matthew, was fueled by two things, namely, the impoverishment in her real life that made anything else feel magical and her impending death that would lead to her being extinguished for all time.
My question for Yalom (which is probably ultimately meaningless to him since he is an atheist) is that if humans are so hungry for fusion with another because their lives are so impoverished and held hostage by the fear of death, why not find meaning and peace in a personal relationship with the living God? After all, God is the One who never leaves us alone in the universe because He came for us. He loved us so much that He pursued us. He delivers us from the fear of death through His death for us on the cross and His subsequent resurrection.
Do you recall what DTFL believes about the ultimate meaning of life as found in the Bible? It is all about Presence. Not being alone. Being with God, others, and one’s own self. We are made for Presence and will be empty and anxious and depressed until we find the safety and love of that Presence who will fill the terrifying void within us.
We are beings created to seek and find presence with God, others, even our own hearts as we see communicated in the two great commandments. Since there is a God in the universe, there exists the ever-present possibility not to settle for existential isolation because the original drama was all about relationship. We were created by a Triune God who has been in relationship with the three members of the Trinity forever. Like Him, we also are relational beings, designed to not be alone in the universe but to be with Him and others.
Jesus says we can experience oneness with God so we don’t need to seek oneness with people through emotional fusions, sexual mergers, or becoming one with a substance through addictions.
Regarding this truth, Rob Green writes in his book, Tying the Knot, “When Jesus is at the center of your life, he will be your rock, your fortress, and your strong deliverer. This will mean, among other things, that your future spouse will not have to serve in that role. I can be, and must be, a Christian husband to my wife, but I can never be her savior or her hero. That is a title reserved for Jesus alone” (p. 18).
God says to every man and woman, your spouse and other people and pets were never meant to fill you by fusing with them. You are meant to be one with me through the existential mystical union with Christ. If we have that, our obsessions can cease, and our mergers can be laid at His feet. Of course, it is a journey. Since we are innately wired to fill our emptiness with something other than God, we don’t arrive deeply in Christ’s Presence overnight.
Can we see how amazing it is to have a personal friendship with The Creator? It solves the obsession to fill that emptiness by losing oneself in romantic love or some other love. Yalom would say that while the possibility of deep friendship in this world does exist, the terrible gap created by existential isolation always remains. As one of Yalom’s psychotherapy patients remarked, “Even though you’re alone in your boat, it’s always comforting to me to see the lights of the other boats bobbing nearby” (p. 12).
But Jesus says something quite amazing that blows Yalom’s theory of false fusions and magical mergers to smithereens: “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” ~ John 17:20f
So, there you have it: the Triune God solved the terrible two-pronged terror, both existential isolation and the fear of death. And why do you think humans desire fusion with other humans? Could it be because they were created for such a union with God Himself and if they don’t find it in Him, they will look for counterfeits all over the landscape of the universe.
Yalom is right about the fear of death and the fact that there is an unbridgeable abyss that yawns between us and other humans—but especially between us and God. But Jesus came to make peace between us and God and invite us to draw near to His Presence, His “withness.” He is our High Priest who “is able to save to the uttermost all those who draw near to the Father through Him” ~ Hebrews 7:25.
Instead of trying to become one with someone or something other than God, believe that He does exist. Trust me, seeking Jesus is much simpler and much less scary than muting your fear of death by distracting yourself with fleeting fusions and magical mergers. Why settle for illusions when you can have the real God? If you come to Jesus, you can let go of all other paper shields that at best offer meager protection against existential isolation.
He will be “my strength and my shield” ~ Psalm 28:7. Being with Jesus is far better than being alone in this dark universe. So, seek Him with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. You will never be isolated again.
“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” ~ John 15:4,5
“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” ~ Hebrews 2:14,15
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” ~ 1 Corinthians 6:19, 20.
