Purpose
Rediscovering the art of treating life as an end instead of a means.
A quick Google search for the definition of teleology brings up two possible uses for the term. The first is philosophical and the second theological.
Philosophically speaking, teleology is “the explanation of phenomena in terms of the purpose they serve rather than of the cause by which they arise.” Theologically speaking, it is “the doctrine of design and purpose in the material world.” While these two definitions are related, teleology grounded in theology represents an extreme application of the concept, especially as far as it emphasizes design.
Sadly, theological teleology’s insistence upon hogging the cosmic stage by promoting capital ‘T’ Truth has given purpose a bad name. Worse, it has only encouraged our contemporary tendency to favor either/or thinking at the expense of nuance and context. Whether we should emphasize cause and effect or purpose will always depend upon the context, and in any case neither way of seeing the problem should ever be entirely excluded.
When cornered and forced to choose between fundamentalism and its associated insistence upon ideas like creationism (a.k.a. intelligent design) and materialism’s more “evidence-based” approach, materialism won over all the minds that really mattered even if many hearts…
