We are biological creatures. We are born, we live, we die. There

"We are biological creatures. We are born, we live, we die. There is no transcendent purpose to existence. At best we are creatures of reason, and by using reason we can cure ourselves of emotional excess. Purged of both hope and fear, we find courage in the face of helplessness, insignificance and uncertainty." So wrote Jonathan Sacks, the philosopher and rabbi who often stood between faith and philosophy, between mystery and the mind. Yet in this passage, he speaks not as a priest of heaven but as a philosopher of earth, describing the stark vision of a world stripped of divine purpose—a world where reason must be our only torch, and courage our only consolation. Here, Sacks does not preach despair, but truth: that even if life bears no ordained meaning, the human spirit may still rise in dignity by facing the void with open eyes.

These words are not the creed of cynicism, but the meditation of a mind unafraid of the abyss. In them we hear echoes of the Stoics, who long before Sacks taught that man must stand calm amid the storm of fate. The ancients too believed that we are frail creatures of flesh, bound by mortality, yet capable of greatness through reason and virtue. Marcus Aurelius, emperor and philosopher, wrote: “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” For him, as for Sacks, courage was not the denial of helplessness, but its acceptance—the quiet strength to act rightly in a world that offers no guarantee of meaning.

To say there is no transcendent purpose is not to say there is no value. It is to strip away illusions, to meet existence as it is: uncertain, fleeting, immense. In such a world, hope and fear, those twin tyrants of the heart, lose their power. Hope binds us to fantasies of what might come; fear enslaves us to what might go wrong. The one drags us forward into dreams, the other backward into shadows. But when both are laid aside, when the heart is purged of emotional excess, what remains is clarity—a calm awareness of being alive in this very moment, neither clinging nor fleeing. That, Sacks says, is the seed of courage: to live without illusions and yet without despair.

Consider the story of Socrates, who drank the hemlock with serenity. He did not claim to know what came after death; he did not plead for mercy or divine rescue. Instead, he reasoned: “Either death is nothingness, or it is a journey to another place. In either case, there is no need for fear.” Here was courage born not from faith in immortality, but from reason’s clear gaze. Socrates had stripped life of false comfort and found freedom in its simplicity. His death, serene and unshaken, stands as proof that reason, properly cultivated, can calm even the deepest dread.

Sacks’ words echo also in the life of those who faced annihilation with lucidity rather than despair. In the horrors of the Holocaust, where Sacks’ own Jewish heritage was scarred, many learned this paradox: when all meaning is taken away by cruelty, man’s last freedom is to choose how to respond. Viktor Frankl, survivor of Auschwitz, wrote that even in suffering, one may find dignity through awareness and choice. Though the universe may be silent, the human will can still speak. Thus, in the absence of transcendent purpose, the act of courage itself becomes sacred—it becomes the meaning.

To find courage in helplessness, insignificance, and uncertainty is to live nobly in a world that offers no promises. It is to stand beneath the infinite sky, knowing one’s smallness, yet daring to say, “I am here.” It is to live not for eternity, but for truth—to reason clearly, love deeply, and act justly, even though the stars will one day forget our names. Sacks, in this, joins the long line of philosophers who believed that human greatness lies not in escaping mortality, but in facing it with grace.

The lesson, my children of tomorrow, is this: do not fear your mortality, nor mourn the absence of divine design. If the universe is indifferent, let you be kind. If fate is blind, let you see clearly. Use reason to quiet your turmoil, but let courage fill the silence left behind. For though we are but dust in the vastness of time, we are also the dust that dares to think, to feel, to create beauty amid decay. That is no small miracle.

So live wisely, act bravely, and let your courage be your prayer. If there is no transcendent purpose to life, then make your purpose transcend despair. In that quiet rebellion—where reason steadies the mind, and compassion warms the heart—you will find what Sacks called the noblest strength: the courage to live without certainty, and yet to love without measure.