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What is the meaning of life? Do we create meaning or find it? Every person, implicitly or explicitly, has a conception of the meaning of life, which is intimately connected to our view of human freedom. How we answer these questions determines the course of our lives and our fulfillment.
Drawing from the great writer G.K. Chesterton, Brady Stiller identifies four dominant philosophical positions on meaning in our day—determinism, existentialism, skepticism, and nihilism—and evaluates their answers to these ultimate questions, and how they fall short. Evoking Chesterton’s notion of paradox, Stiller proposes a philosophical position more true to reality—namely, that the meaning of life is both objective and subjective at the same time. By viewing life as a story with both determined and undetermined aspects, we are equipped to coauthor our stories with the divine author, discovering our role in the grand drama of creation.
More Info
Publisher: Word on Fire ISBN: 978-1-68578-091-3 Binding: Paperback Page count: 224 Dimensions: 6 x 9 Thickness: 0.57 (in) Language: English Release date: Mar 18, 2024
“I had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller.”
— G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
About the Author
Brady Stiller was the valedictorian of the University of Notre Dame class of 2020, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences and theology. He earned a master’s degree in nonprofit administration from the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame. He was the first researcher to study materials of the G.K. Chesterton Collection at its new home at the Notre Dame London Global Gateway in the U.K. He also had a role in founding the Chesterton Academy in Covington, Louisiana.
Dale Ahlquist is considered one of the world’s leading authorities on the life and writings of G.K. Chesterton. He is President of the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton, editor and publisher of Gilbert magazine, creator and host of EWTN’s long-running series The Apostle of Common Sense, and founder of the Chesterton Schools Network.
“Chesterton famously telegraphed his wife, 'Am in Market Harborough. Where ought I to be?' She replied, 'Home.' Their exchange neatly encapsulates the paradox of human freedom and human destiny, of subjective lives lived within an objective reality. Brady Stiller unpacks this paradox with clarity and insight. In true Chestertonian fashion, he makes a case that is at once simple and profound.”
— Michael Ward, University of Oxford, author of After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis’s “The Abolition of Man”
“If one wants help with the paradox of freedom, one will do well to turn to the master of paradox himself, G.K. Chesterton. This is what Stiller has made possible for us. We see Chesterton’s genius through Stiller's thoughtful, insightful, and penetrating treatment.”
— David W. Fagerberg, Professor Emeritus, University of Notre Dame
“As Brady Stiller rightly points out in this wonderful book, ‘any worldview that does not ultimately align to reality is bound to crack.’ And so, guided by the joyful wisdom of Gilbert Chesterton, he shows us a worldview that will not fail us; one big enough and humble enough to bring us into contact with reality and into communion with the deeper things of God.”
— Duncan Reyburn, Author of Seeing Things As They Are: G.K. Chesterton and the Drama of Meaning
