What is Purpose in life? The God's-Eye-View

One of the ways in which we are misled and fall prey to temptation; is is having a false picture of our core assumptions. For instance, Christians have been led deep into sin and desired-damnation, by false pictures of the nature of Love - such as regarding love as essentially an emotion.

Another potential problem lies in conceptualizing Purpose in life. Most Christians would recognize that we need purpose in life, and that purpose is focused on resurrected eternal life in Heaven. But what it is to have A Purpose, is often unclear or inaccurate.  

If pressed for an answer; I guess that most people would have a picture of purpose in life as something like a shining lamp, up ahead, towards which they are striving. A vision of where they want to be, and what they want to be doing. 

The difficulties with such a picture is that it is (again, as with the example of love) very much about emotions; secondly it entails a separation of here-and-now from the-goal. It raises all kind of means-and-ends problems about how we ought to get from here to there - and almost inevitably our actual mortal lives (here-and-now) start to seem like merely a means to the end of Heaven.

In other worlds, we tend to devalue this life, as something we want to get-through, get out of the way, over and done-with - soon as possible. 

By this way of thinking; we don't want to be here (earth), we instead want to be there (Heaven). And the journey (mortal life) is an annoying delay. 

But if (as I believe) this mortal life is important - for as long a God sustains it - then this is a mistaken attitude. We are wishing-away something that God is sustaining us through - for, no doubt, good reasons. 

Thus the idea (which I believe true) of mortal life as learning. 

Yes, mortal life is indeed a temporary and transitional phase, and considered-of-itself therefore evanescent. But its learning consequences may be everlasting - may affect of post-mortal life for eternity: especially if we are able to learn those life-lessons that God provides for each of us, according to our need and benefit. 

What all this implies is the need for a picture of (or perhaps a metaphor for) purpose in mortal life, that gives proper value to this life. 

Also, to be effective, it needs to be the kind-of-picture that is in-practice suitable to motivate Modern Men - as we actually-are. 

And I mean by this that we cannot any longer depend on spontaneous and unconsciously right-understandings; our situation begins with alienation, cut-offness, most often an assumed materialism. 

This means that our picture of life's purpose needs to be something consciously chosen - therefore the kind-of-thing than can be chosen. 

Negatively; this means our purpose can't depend heavily on emotions; it cannot be underpinned by emotions - because we can't choose to have particular emotions, and we need to be able to continue with our purpose even when (as will surely happen) emotions are adverse.  

In other words; our purpose needs to be more like an understanding of reality, than like an emotional drive. 

So, what kind of picture of purpose fits the bill? I think the answer is that the picture should be an assumption. We choose to assume that such-and-such is true reality. 

Choosing to assume that the picture is real means various things - firstly that we want our world-picture to be real, and also that we regard the world-picture as really-real (at least in essence, if not in detail). 

Both wanting it and regarding it as true, is the combination that makes for motivation. 

I suppose we could consider the picture as a God's Eye-View of our mortal life and beyond; by which we see mortal life from the outside, as one part of a larger and more complex scheme. 

Form such a perspective, we can see that the problem with the "lamp" analogy for purpose in life, is that it is a Man's-Eye-View - which is why it fails to see properly beyond death, and hastens towards Heaven without proper regard for Earth.  

By our eternal natures; we all have the divine within us; however weakly or imperfectly - and it is this innate divinity (if we acknowledge it) which enables us validly to take a God's-Eye-View on things, and to know that the picture is essentially valid.