Man is alienated from himself, from other persons, and from God, and as a result man has been burdened with absurdity. Absurdity ought to be understood in a dichotomous manner. Absurdity is experienced subjectively, such that the individual experiences it in an autonomous manner. The objective absurdity is the metanarratives of life. This would include a lack of ultimate meaning, incentive, value, and purpose.
Overcoming this alienation and the notion of absurdity, primarily objective absurdity, can only be done so by a divine telos.[1] It does seem that man lives his life as if he does have an ultimate meaning, incentive, value, and purpose. However, if God does not exist, then the absurdity is not only subjective but itreally is objectively absurd. The existence of a divine telos enables man to live a consistent life of meaning, incentive, value, and purpose. There is a reconciliation of man to himself, others, and God by overcoming this absurdity.
In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov (1821-1881), a story of four brothers in Russia is a grim description of the reality of what the world would look like if God were not to exist. One brother, Ivan, an atheist, tells another brother that there are no objective truths, specifically that there are no moral absolutes. Ivan’s brother then kills his father, an act that obtains no condemnation if God does not exist.
Given the natural order of universe and its cause and effect network, perhaps redemption and reconciliation from absurdity can be found in biology or physics. For example, consider an adult salmon’s biologically given capacity to swim upstream and mate. In this case the end at which the adult salmon’s activity aims is not, or anyway need not be, valuable, it is simply the end with which it was endowed by nature.