Nothingness, Metanarrative, and Possibility
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This last point is of particular importance, for without such an encounter, this revelational particularity will have no genuine meaning. As our examination of the existentialists has made clear, humans “are condemned” to constantly and continually devise ways to deal with the implicit angst of existence. Otherwise, they may well choose not to live. As we have also made clear, these efforts of liberation re-volve around choice, be it towards faith, or towards additional choices of material experience. Hence, any revelational meaning which we choose to establish and defend must be such that it enables human beings to definitively (and, perhaps, permanently) choose to lift themselves out of this morass of emptiness, ennui, and longing. To wit, not only must such revelation be available to those who choose to avail themselves of it, but it must also a singularly direct reflection and embodiment of the meaningfulness of the personal metaphysical in the human experience, the wholeness, substantial and effectual meaningfulness, of the universe contained and expressed in comprehensible material form. Christianity indeed contains the seeds of this particular type of singularity. It presents a singularity which at once encompasses materiality as well as transcendence, metaphysical as well as the physical. In addition, it is a singularity which, because it is a direct reflection of the metaphysical, is potentially existentially transforming. This singularity Christianity calls the logos.
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About the Book
What is the solution to human angst and nothingness, the gnawing emptiness and frustration with the lim-its and fragility of this present existence? After reviewing the work of Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Jean Paul Sartre on this question, this work argues that the proper re-sponse must be metaphysical metanarrative, a transcendent metaphysical metanarrative that is the ground of all that is, yet a metaphysical metanarrative that makes the fullness of meaning available and apprehen-sible in physical experience. This metanarrative, this work asserts, is the logos, the ultimate referent prin-ciple of the ancient Greeks and, according to Christianity, the God-man Jesus Christ, the eternal become present in present experience. Because the logos constitutes transcendence in human form, it recognizes the beauty of existential experience even as it underscores the necessity of transcendence for temporal meaning. The logos as metaphysical metanarrative brings the worlds of time and eternity together, link-ing earth and the beyond in a seamless whole. It is the ultimate existential experience.
About the Author
William E. Marsh, who holds masters and doctoral degrees in theology, history, and philosophy, is a writer and teacher. He lives with his family in northern Illinois.