Louisville Process Theology Network

Clyde Crews' List of Ultimate Questions

Mar 16, 2010

From Page 11 of ?“Ultimate Questions?” by Clyde Crews.


?“A question is ultimate when it concerns the very foundation of my life and meaning ?… What, then, are some of the ultimate questions that would be easily familiar to all the great thinkers of both east and west? The following list is a modest attempt at a first skirmish with the primal inquiries.

1. Our Purpose:
a. Why is there anything at all rather than nothing?
b. What is my own purpose in being on the earth?
c. On the cosmic level it can be asked if there is a destiny for higher life forms. Or, is what we know nothing more than a cosmic accident?
d. On the more personal level, there is the puzzle as to what I am making of my own individual life. Am I pursuing the right career? Am I making of my life all that it can be?

2. The Meaning of Life:
a. Why do we keep asking why? There is a great mystery resident in this three letter word.
b. Why are the facts alone never quite enough for us, so that, we constantly seek out meanings, patterns, significance, in both the great and minor events of life?
c. Why isn?’t the meaning of things clear, agreeable, and available to us?

3. The Meaning of Divinity:
a. Is humanity alone in the universe?
b. Are there other intelligences on other planets?
c. Is there an Intelligence or Source that is at the ground of it all?
d. Have we been created by a benevolent reality that continues to care actively for each of us?
e. Are there evidences of the existence of such a provident being?
f. Is belief in God realism or escapism?

4. The Meaning of Pain:
a. Why do we find such a load of conflict, contradiction, frustration, and suffering within ourselves and around ourselves?
b. Does suffering have a point or is it cruel and pointless?
c. Why do the innocent suffer?
d. Why must all things that live ultimately die?
e. Is death final?

5. The Reasons for Hope:
a. Why are resiliency, hope, and rebirth such constant factors in human existence?
b. What accounts for the amazing drive for life and meaning whenever humanity finds itself in the most desperate situations?
c. What is the source and meaning of the life force, or rage to live, that modern writers such as Freud and Fromm have documented?

6. Use of our Resources:
a. What are our individual strengths and weaknesses?
b. Do I use my talents effectively?
c. What are resources of the community and the nation of which I belong? How effectively are they used? Shared?

7. What is Morality?
a. Where do we find the source of our experiences of right and wrong?
b. Is our conviction of right and wrong a clue to the meaning of the universe?
c. Do right and wrong have an objective basis? To what extent can they be codified into law?
d. How much freedom do we truly have to make the significant choices in our lives?

8. What is Character?
a. What are the qualities or characteristics that I most admire in others, and others want to find in me?
b. Why have people and cultures all over the world preferred, honored, and encouraged certain character qualities and discouraged others? For example:
i. Courage v. cowardice
ii. Honesty v. falseness
iii. Compassion v. egotism
iv. Humor v. glumness
v. Justice v. injustice
vi. Freedom v. oppression
vii. Harmony v. turmoil
viii. Beauty v. ugliness
ix. Patience v. rudeness
x. Fidelity v. promiscuity?”