Meaning given or made
Does life have a purpose before you choose anything, or do people make their own meaning, or never find any? Some say a purpose is given from outside. Others say meaning is made by what people care about and choose.
What it is
People ask what their life is for. There are two very different ways to take the question. One says that the answer is already there, set by something larger than you, and your task is to find it. The other says that nobody hands out purposes, and that meaning is something people create by what they love, choose and commit to. A third answer says there may be no meaning at all.
The difference matters in practice. If meaning is given, you can be wrong about it and you can look for it. If it is made, you are responsible for it and nobody can tell you what it should be.
The main views
- Given. On the God-centred view, God assigns a purpose to human life and a life is meaningful by fulfilling it. Some versions add that a soul that outlasts the body is needed too.
- Made. On the subjective view, a life is meaningful when it is lived around what the person wants, cares about and chooses. Existentialists such as Sartre add that life has no built-in meaning, but that we can give it meaning through free choice and responsibility.
- Both. Hybrid views say that meaning needs two things: personal engagement, and an activity that is truly worthwhile. In one well-known phrase, meaning arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness.
An example
Picture two people who spend their evenings looking after a neglected community garden. The first sees it as their calling: they believe they were put on Earth to care for living things. The second came to it by accident, grew to love it, and now builds their week around it. Both find it deeply meaningful. The first thinks the meaning was waiting for them. The second thinks they made it. A third person might say that neither is right and the garden only matters because they like it.
Why people still disagree
- Meaning without God. Many point out that lives seem meaningful without any belief in God, and that being given a purpose from outside could even clash with a person's own choices.
- Meaning by choice alone. If anything you care about makes your life meaningful, then collecting buttons or counting hairs would count. Many think meaning needs something more than caring.
- Is it either-or? Hybrid views try to keep both sides, but critics ask what makes an activity 'truly worthwhile' if no one assigns it.
Written by epchē in our own words, and checked against independent sources on 8 October 2026. The sources are listed below.
Philosophies that answer it
Where each philosophy leans on this question, from the same positions the walk uses.
We make meaning, or there is none
Meaning is given to us
Sources we used
- The Meaning of Life · Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, read on 8 October 2026
- Meaning of Life: Contemporary Analytic Perspectives · Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, read on 8 October 2026
- Nihilism · Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, read on 8 October 2026