Theism and meaning in life

This chapter examines meaningfulness in life as significance. It argues that there are two sorts of significance, subjective significance and objective significance. Subjective significance is a matter of how much something is cared about, and objective significance is a matter of how objectively valuable something is relative to suitable comparators. Given these understandings and in critical conversation with the work of Williams and Kahane, the chapter draws out the assumptions on which human lives may be argued to be more significant in both these senses if there’s a God than if there’s not, and endorses these assumptions (in one case, somewhat tentatively), arguing indeed that, on them, one may say that individuals’ lives have infinite significance in both senses if there is a God and only finite significance in both senses if there is not.