The book Jesus, The Great Philosopher: Rediscovering the Wisdom Needed for the Good Life by Jonathan Pennington, is a worthwhile read—especially for young people who are struggling with the philosophical meaning of life and are attracted to other philosophies. In that book, Pennington asserts that “Only humans die by suicide” (p.186). He offers this footnote to that statement, “There has been some debate over the centuries about this statement. The times when animals appear to commit suicide is best explained as the result of severe changes that create aberrant behavior, not the psychological state that leads a person to imagine their own death. A well-researched article on this is Melissa Hogenboom, “Many Animals Seem to Kill Themselves, but It Is Not Suicide,” BBC, July 6, 2016, http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160705-many-animals-seem-to-kill-themselves-but-it-is-not-suicide”

This raises an intriguing question. Why?

Humans are the only part of creation that seek meaning in life; that is part of what it means to be in the imago dei (image of God). Without meaning, life is not worth living. But where do we get meaning for life? All too often people will tragically try and find life’s ultimate meaning in such things as power, money, sex, drugs, alcohol, physical fitness, transgender ideology, a career, or via a relationship with someone else. Hedonism is a dead-end road at the edge of a cliff. At the end of the dead-end road on the edge of a cliff, lies nihilism where everything is meaningless. Once someone comes to this conclusion and sees no hope, suicide unfortunately becomes an attractive option. Pennington recognizes this writing,

“Nihilism—the understanding that nothing really matters—is the air we breathe in the modern secular age. And this is bad news for humanity. Humans today, especially in the West, live in a psychological space where the old structures, both pagan and Christian, have broken down and been replaced with a scientific understanding of the world. This enables us to send a probe to Saturn but find it difficult to live meaningful lives. While most people walking around aren’t committed nihilists—this is more often the felt experience of artists and philosophers—they struggle to find a comprehensive worldview that makes life meaningful. It is hard to be happy. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t have 577,000 mental health professionals, 15 million people suffering from depression, and a $10 billion industry in bibliotherapy (self-help books). This is just in the United States alone.”

It should come as no surprise that in 2011 Las Vegas had the highest suicide rate (see here) with over three times the national rate. Medical statistics for the United States indicate the problem is far worse today. “In 2024, the United States saw a troubling resurgence in suicide rates, reaching levels unseen since 1941. According to a report from U.S. News, the national age-adjusted suicide rate climbed to 14.7 per 100,000 people—an increase from 14.2 in 2022. This statistic reflects a staggering 30% rise over the past twenty years, underscoring a deeply rooted mental health crisis.”

The skyrocketing rate of homelessness and drug addiction testify to this surging mental health crisis. By definition, mental illness has a warped understanding of reality. Philosophy wrongly has a negative connotation for many Christians based on Col 2:8 “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.” Understand that this verse refers to philosophy that is antithetical to truth; it represents the wisdom of the world which is foolishness to God (1 Cor 3:19). There is good philosophy that is rooted in transcendent truth. In fact, everyone has a philosophy of life—for good or bad—that directs them. Everyone is a philosopher. The question is . . . what kind of philosopher?

The gospel alone offers ultimate meaning that originates outside and transcends the space/time continuum. Pennington’s book is an excellent analysis of where ultimate meaning originates, and how one can find and experience it. Ultimate meaning is rooted in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The resurrection of Jesus Christ ruptured the very fabric of reality, sending shockwaves to the furthest reaches of the cosmos. The effect of the resurrection transcended the speed of light, immediately affecting every part of a fallen creation, serving notice that everything had changed. But it was not only efficacious within our universe; it also sent powerful blast waves echoing throughout transcendent reality well beyond the universe into the realm of eternity—rippling both forward and backward in time. As N.T. Wright puts it, “the future has already burst into the present, so that the present time is characterized by a mixture of fulfillment and expectation, of ‘now’ and ‘not yet’.”

Pennington wiselt concludes, “The ancient Christian philosophy offers a remarkably sophisticated understanding of what it means to pursue and find true happiness in this broken and disappointing world.”

That kind of meaning changes everything.