Vox Nova At The Library: The Meaning of Life

Last updated on: May 14, 2011 at 11:38 am by Henry Karlson

Vox Nova At The Library: The Meaning of Life 2011-05-14T11:38:16-05:00 Henry Karlson

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S.L. Frank, The Meaning of Life. Trans. Boris Jakim (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010).

“Love is the foundation of all human life, its very essence; and if, in the world, human beings appear to themselves to be isolated and self-enclosed fragments of being which must assert themselves at the cost of other lives, by contrast, human beings who have found their genuine essence in the world-embracing unity are conscious of the fact that without love there is no life, and that the degree to which they truly assert themselves in their genuine essence is directly proportional to the degree to which they overcome their illusory self-enclosedness and find a foundation in the other. Outwardly, the human personality appears to be self-enclosed and separated from other beings, but inwardly, in its depths, it communicates with all other beings, is fused with them in primordial unity” (90).

Semen Liudvigocich (S.L.) Frank is one of the least known of the great Silver Age Russian thinkers. While not as recognized as his contemporaries Sergius Bulgakov, Pavel Florensky, and Nikolai Berdyaev, his works belong with theirs, and should be studied alongside theirs. His life was filled with setbacks, setbacks which leave hurtful resonances in his writings. S.L. Frank was a Jewish convert to Russian Orthodoxy, a fact which explains much of the circumstances which surround his sad life. He was one of many intellectuals sent into exile from Russia; when he moved into Germany, he was to find the setbacks we now know happened with many intellectual Jews, causing him to move to France (where, at the beginning of World War II he would lose contact with family which had moved to England); finally, in 1945, he was able to emigrate to England where he would die a few years later.

The Meaning of Life was written after his exile from Russia in 1922, and it continued with themes begun with his The Fall of the Idols. It shows how he can have a rather pessimistic understanding of the significance of temporal existence. He looks at earthly existence – in and of itself—and sees how everything in the world, when looked at in the framework of existence in time – must be seen as meaningless. Everything produced in the world will end; every idol which one tries to establish as a way of finding meaning in the world will show itself insufficient. In a way, life can be said to be meaningless. “That left, as it actually is, is meaningless; that it does not in the slightest satisfy the condition under which it could be recognized as having meaning – this is a truth attested to by personal experience, by direct observation of life, by historical knowledge of mankind’s fate, and by natural-scientific knowledge of the structure and evolution of the world” (38).

Whatever one might want to pursue – be it pleasure, be it social and political reform, be it romantic love of some other – in and of itself, that pursuit will never amount to anything; what one would find is at best a temporal good, an illusory satisfaction which, while nice while it lasts, never satisfies the heart, never satisfies the desire to find meaning in life. There needs to be some good which exists outside of time, in eternity, which we can participate in, if we want to find meaning for ourselves. Without such, everything will end up being empty nonsense, in a life which in the end is meaningless. “All the works of a man and of mankind in general — both those which he himself considers great and that which he thinks is his unique and greatest work – are negligible and vain if he himself is negligible, if his life in essence has no meaning, if he is not rooted in some rational soil that surpasses him and is not created by him” (22).

Frank experienced this firsthand in Russia, where political idealism promised a kind of utopia on earth if and when the Soviet system took over his homeland. What came out of it was anything but utopia; it created more chaos and despair. The idols of the 19th century fell apart in the early 20th century, showing the dreams of the past lead to the nightmares of the present.

Yet, there is a path toward meaning; it requires one to cut oneself off from all that is not absolute, to find the absolute (which is already within) and to participate in it; this, then can reenergize the world and bring meaning not only to the searcher, but to the work that searcher accomplishes and the world around them. The absolute makes life valuable, the absolute found within the relative allows the relative to have value and worth, while making sure the relative is not confused with the absolute. And that absolute is found in God who is Love, God who incarnates and reveals through the light of truth the meaning behind creation. This light draws people together in love. “True life is life in the all-embracing all-unity, the unceasing service of the absolute whole. We genuinely find ourselves and our life for the first time when we sacrifice ourselves and our empirical isolation and self-centeredness, and establish our entire being in another – in God, as the original source of all life. But by doing so we connect ourselves – in the most profound, ontological manner – with all living things on earth, and first, and foremost, without our neighbors and their fate” (89).

There is much value to reading The Meaning of Life. It offers a fine introduction to one of the neglected geniuses of the early 20th century. It offers rather profound insights on the role of love for the modern world. It offers a comprehensive critique, not only of 19th century movements which led to the destruction found in the early 20th century, but of all hopes and dreams put in any such movement and why all such movements must, in the end, be ineffective. There is a similarity of perspective between Frank and von Balthasar when examining the outcome of 19th century philosophical endeavors, and it serves as a fine (and simpler) complement to von Balthasar’s Apokalypse der deutschen Seele. There are times in which his pessimism from all the suffering he faced gets the best of him, and leads to semi-gnostic paths in the work, but he knows the errors of gnosticism, and confronts them and reminds the reader of the incarnational aspect of the truth, that asceticism must end in a positive recognition of the world in God. He does not reject those who find themselves in the world, who have a place in the world, but rather reminds them of their peculiar place, that they must act and do in the world, but never forget that they also have a place in the kingdom of God which must set the way they are to be in the world. “All such activity, when it is put in its proper place, namely as an auxiliary means externally facilitating the fundamental spiritual work of the deification of life, accomplished in the name of Christ and with Christ – all such activity not only is legitimate but is obligatory for those who are not capable of totally suppressing in themselves the influence of the world” (110). He points out that the way of the ascetic, who entirely dies to the self, must never be seen as indifference to the world, and their transcendence must not be used to create moral indifference for those called to life in the world. Life in the world is going to require action, not indifference, action which halts the progress of evil: “Vladimir Solovyov spoke justly when he said that the state exists not to establish heaven on earth, but to keep hell from being established on earth” (109).

Boris Jakim, once again, masterfully renders a Russian classic into the English language. While not Frank’s best work, it is nonetheless, a good one and a worthy read.

Boris Jakim also provides in this English translation of Frank’s work the final chapter of The Fall of the Idols as an appendix. While it offers more discussion on the themes addressed in The Meaning of Life, it is generally considered a negative, harsh work which led his friends to write this positive complement to it. Nonetheless, there was, to some extent, the same positive approach and meaning for life in it as one finds in The Meaning of Life. Indeed, one of my favorite quotes of the whole book is in this chapter, and will serve as a fit end to this review:

“We understand first of all, that the fundamental law of our moral world is the responsibility of all for all, which connects us with the whole world. Conscious of the all-unity of being rooted in God, we clearly see our own responsibility for the evil that reigns in the world, and we just as clearly understand that it is impossible for us to be saved unless all are saved. Just as an individual leaf on a tree cannot turn green when the whole tree is drying up and rotting, since the tree as a whole is unified by a commonality of life – so the social life of men is dominated by an inner solidarity which cannot be violated with impunity. From this flows the fundamental inner rule of love for people and solidarity with them in the name of our own salvation“(133).

4/5 stars.

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