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On my analysis, to live as a human being at all is to live by faith, in the sense that one lives by what I call "a basic confidence in the meaning of life." This is the confidence that there is a meaning to human life prior to and independent of such meaning as we human beings ourselves may give it or take it to have. That to be human is in some way to give life meaning or to take it to have such seems as certain, for instance, as that one cannot be human as each of us is without believing certain things or taking them to be true. But when we say that something is true, we do not mean simply that we believe it or take it to be true, but that, prior to and independent of our believing it or taking it to be true, it is worthy of our belief. In much the same way, when we trust that life has a meaning, as I believe each of us does and must, if only implicitly, we do not mean simply that we give life a certain meaning or take it to have such, but that, prior to and independent of what '"any of us takes it to mean, it has a meaning that is worthy of our confidence.

Because each of us lives a human life only insofar as we trust in its meaning, one of our vital questions as human beings is the existential question concerning this meaning. That life has a meaning is, indeed, beyond question, since any questioning, just like anything else we could possibly think, say, or do, necessarily presupposes our confidence that it does. But what this meaning is is the object of a genuine question. In fact, of all our vital questions, our existential question about the meaning of life--not life—not whether it has meaning, but what its meaning is--is is—is the most vital. There is nothing surprising, then, about the prominence of this question and of the various attempts to answer it throughout human history. Clearly, if anything may be said to have a secure place in "the great conversation" in which it is our nature as human beings to engage, it is our discussion with one another about the meaning of life.

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