Meaning -> Intention -> God

by Aryeh Siegel

It seems to me that just about everyone will at some time say there’s something meaningful in what is happening around him or her. The meaningfulness consists in there being some message that is being conveyed. In other words, there’s some intention behind what is taking place.

So the existence of meaning is, for all practical purposes, a universal claim. Some may try to insist that all meaning is subjective and/or relative, but this is much more counterintuitive than is usually realized. How can anyone be willing to invest in the belief that something has a certain meaning, if he or she believes that it is equally true for someone else to give it a different meaning (subjectivity)? And yet we do invest time and energy on the basis of perceived meaning.

Even the modest claim that what I perceive only has a certain meaning for me (relativity) – while allowing that is has a different meaning for another – still implies that there is an objective and absolute meaning which I see as relating this something to me. In other words, the meaning that it has for me is nonetheless a meaning.

As I initially stated, the recognition of meaning implies the existence of intention. And having recognized meaning and intention in a situation, we often see that there is some further meaning that frames and deepens our understanding of the intention behind it.

But then it’s only a small step to take that realization to its infinite ideal and attribute to the world deep intentionality. That is, there is always the possibility of revealing a layer of meaning that gives further intention to a previously discovered explanation. The limit of this revelation – that always lies beyond our grasp – is God.

In short, the existence of any meaning at all implies intention, which in turn implies the existence of God.