by Don Hooton
“More Than a Momentary Blip in the Universe? Investigating the Link Between Religiousness and Perceived Meaning in Life“ is a study authored by Michael Prinzing, Patty Van Cappellen, and Barbara L. Fredrickson and published in December, 2021 in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (psypost.org).
They hoped their research could explain why being religious is positively associated with perceiving meaning in one’s life. Prinzing said, “I have found that religious people will often claim that, if their religious beliefs weren’t true, then life would be meaningless. As someone who studies meaning in life, this makes me curious.” So, Prinzing and his colleagues had five different studies for their observations. They found that heightened religiousness was associated with heightened social mattering and heightened cosmic mattering, which in turn was linked to heightened meaning in life. But cosmic mattering accounted for a much larger proportion of the relationship between religiousness and meaning in life than social mattering. Even Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg wrote in his book The First Three Minutes that “the more the universe is comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.”
So Prinzing asked, “What is it about religious faith that makes life feel meaningful? Psychologists who have studied the link between religiousness and perceived meaning in life have tried to explain it by pointing to the ways in which religions bring people into communities. These communities provide social support and a sense of purpose and significance, which make life feel meaningful.”
Of course. Churches are communities of people committed to Christ and to each other. In fact in Acts 4, “there was not a needy person among them because all those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the proceeds of what was sold, and laid them at the apostles’ feet. This was then distributed to each person as any had need.” And even for other communities in other places, “even beyond their ability, of their own accord, they begged us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in the ministry to the saints, and not just as we had hoped. Instead, they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us by God’s will.” (2Corinthains 8:3-5).
Yet Prinzing wrote, “However, I didn’t think that religious people themselves would offer that kind of explanation.” “When I talk with religious people about why their faith makes them think that life is meaningful, I have found that they tend to say things like this: ‘If God didn’t exist, then we would be just a cosmic accident. We would be mere specks of dust in the vast cosmic void, and there would be no significance to anything we do.’ That is a very different kind of explanation. In this paper, the idea was to test these two explanations: the academic psychologist’s explanation and the layperson’s explanation.”
Of course. Churches should understand what Life is – and how Wisdom shows our lives: “The whole of man is to fear God and keep His commandments” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). Our wholeness is connected to our purpose. And for believers, particularly in Christ, we know that Jesus said that “I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance” (John 10:10).
Prinzing told PsyPost: “The primary takeaway is that both explanations for the link between religiousness and perceived meaning are correct, but the ‘cosmic mattering hypothesis’ plays the larger part. Religious faith appears to make life feel meaningful primarily because it appears to give people the sense that they matter even in the grand scheme of the universe.”
And that is the point. Humans matter because “God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female” (Genesis 1:27). Humans matter because “From one blood* he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live. He did this so that they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:26-28). Humans matter because we matter to God who gave us life – and gives us life eternal in Christ – for all who will believe.
You Matter. God has offered forgiveness in His Son. God has called all to repent. And God has asked us to believe. That’s why Jesus said, “Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also” (John 14:1-3). The Matter with Mattering – socially and in the cosmos – is to find that you matter to God. And I hope you see – you matter.