Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-fvjsw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-15T15:19:43.318Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
Series:   Elements in Religion and Monotheism

Monotheism and the Meaning of Life

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2019

T. J. Mawson
T. J. Mawson
Affiliation:
University of Oxford

Summary

Monotheism and the Meaning of Life explores the role of God, and the relationship to the question 'What is the meaning of life?' for adherents of the main monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Exploring the various senses of 'meaning' and 'life', Mawson argues that there are various questions implicit in the notion of the meaning of life and that the God of monotheistic religion is central to the correct answers to all of them.
Get access

Keywords

godtheismmeaningmeaningfulnessmonotheism

Information

Type
Element
Information
Series: Elements in Religion and Monotheism
Online ISBN: 9781108584425
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 08 August 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Element purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Baird, R. M. (1985). ‘Meaning in Life: Discovered or Created?’ Journal of Religion and Health, 24(2), 117–24.Google Scholar
Churchill, W. (1948). The Gathering Storm, The Second World War, vol. 1. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.Google Scholar
Craig, W. L. (2008). ‘The Absurdity of Life Without God’. In Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, 3rd ed. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.Google Scholar
Frankfurt, H. (2002). ‘Reply to Susan Wolf’. In Buss, S. and Overton, L. (eds.), The Contours of Agency: Essays on Themes from Harry Frankfurt. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 245–52.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, A. (1982). ‘Comments on Frankfurt’, Synthese 53, 291–94.Google Scholar
Mawson, T. J. (2005). Belief in God. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mawson, T. J. (2016a). God and the Meanings of Life. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Mawson, T. J. (2016b). ‘What God Could (and Couldn’t) do to Make Life Meaningful’. In Seachris, J. and Goetz, S. (eds.), God and Meaning: New Essays. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 37–58.Google Scholar
Mawson, T. J. (2018). ‘An Agreeable Answer to a Pro-Theism/Anti-Theism Question’. In Kraay, K. (ed.), Does God Matter. London: Routledge, pp. 70–92.Google Scholar
Mawson, T. J. (2018).The Divine Attributes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Metz, T. (2007). ‘The Meaning of Life’. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/search/searcher.py?query=meaning+of+life.Google Scholar
Metz, T. (2013). Meaning in Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Metz, T. (2018). ‘God’s Role in a Meaningful Life: New Reflections from Tim Mawson’, European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 10(3), 171–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Metz, T. (2019). God, Soul and the Meaning of Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, F. (1974). The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann. London: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Russell, B. (1953). ‘A Free Man’s Worship’. In Mysticism and Logic. London: Penguin, pp. 25–8.Google Scholar
Russell, B. (1979). ‘The Existence of God’. In Russell, B. (ed.), Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays (London: Unwin Hyman, pp. 133–53.Google Scholar
Waghorn, N. (2014). Nothingness and the Meaning of Life London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Williams, B. (1973). ‘The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality’. In Problems of the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 82–100.Google Scholar

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility compliance for the HTML of this Element is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Save element to Kindle

To save this element to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Monotheism and the Meaning of Life
  • T. J. Mawson, University of Oxford
  • Online ISBN: 9781108584425
Available formats
×

Save element to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Monotheism and the Meaning of Life
  • T. J. Mawson, University of Oxford
  • Online ISBN: 9781108584425
Available formats
×

Save element to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Monotheism and the Meaning of Life
  • T. J. Mawson, University of Oxford
  • Online ISBN: 9781108584425
Available formats
×