An apologetic of meaning

Another sermon I've never heard in church, given by one Andrew Fellows (associated with L'Abri).

I was taken aback that his point of departure was Viktor Frankl. Admittedly, Frankl has written well on the topic and has a depth of thought on it in his book 'Man's Search for Meaning'...but?

Meaning comes from a meta-purpose, or a meta-significance with a spiritual basis. Finally it is found in life of faith, but those without faith also have meaningful lives; naturalism fails to explain this, but its there!

He rightly extends his thoughts to meaning being bedded in the creation, and the creation is God's representation of himself to us as creator...the creation as his gift to us. It is grounded in concrete historic events done by the triune creator who always exists. In his act of fellowship done in the very days that mark our our lives (thus making the 'one true story' in which we live) he shows his domain intersects at this point with ours: he is thus concretely and tangibly present and truly active in the domain of our existence, of our 'existential extension'. That is extension over time and in terms of communion with our creator.

Meaning has to be grounded in something real, concretely real, not abstractly or imaginatively fabricated. These latter two are mere puffs by contrast to the concreteness of creation explicitly described in 'our world' terms---because it is the creation of 'our world' as the place where we bear God's image and are thus able to be in communion with him.

[I like Fellow's 'quadrilateral' of meaning, although it is not an inherent figure, but really four elements or dimensions of 'meaning'. A true quadrilateral is a summarized two axis map of criteria interaction):

Coherence: making sense of it

Purpose: clarity on what it is for

Significance: why it matters, and

Belonging: how I participate]