3.2.2 - The meaning and purpose of life
Is life's highest purpose worship, preparation for judgement, or transforming the world? Christian teaching links glorifying God and personal relationship, accountability before Christ, and bringing about God's kingdom on earth. Using 1 Corinthians 10:31 and Matthew 25, these aims can be compared without reducing them to a simple ranking, revealing whether one has priority or each becomes distorted when separated from the others.
Three purposes and their relationship
AQA is not only asking, "What do Christians think life is for?" It is asking for the relative importance of three purposes. That means students need to explain each purpose accurately and then judge how they fit together.
| Purpose in the AQA wording | Basic meaning | The issue of relative importance |
|---|---|---|
| Glorify God and have a personal relationship with him | Human life is directed towards worship, love, trust, prayer and communion with God. | Is this the foundation of the other purposes? |
| Prepare for judgement | Human life is lived before God and will be accountable to God's judgement. | Does future accountability give Christian life its urgency? |
| Bring about God's kingdom on earth | Christians seek to live under God's reign and make God's will visible in the world. | Is Christian purpose private and spiritual, or also public and social? |
Relative importance
Relative importance means judging how several ideas rank or relate to one another. A reasoned answer can defend priority, equal importance or interdependence. It should explain what each purpose contributes and justify their proposed relationship, rather than merely list them.
The three purposes are closely linked. A Christian may glorify God through prayer and worship, prepare for judgement through repentance and moral living, and seek God's kingdom through justice, mercy and witness. The AO2 task is to decide whether these are separate aims, a hierarchy of aims, or different expressions of one God-centred purpose.
Glorifying God and relationship
To glorify God means to honour God as supremely worthy. It is not mainly about making God greater, as if God lacks glory. It means recognising God's worth through worship, obedience, gratitude and the whole shape of life. 1 Corinthians 10:31 is often used to support the idea that even ordinary actions should be directed to God's glory.
The second half of the AQA phrase is just as important: Christians are to have a personal relationship with God. This should not be narrowed to one modern phrase or one denomination. It can be expressed as knowing God, loving God, trusting God, praying to God, receiving grace, participating in the life of the Church, or following Christ.
| Source or tradition | What it contributes | Caution |
|---|---|---|
| Matthew 22:37-40 | Love of God and neighbour are treated as central commandments. | Love of God should not be separated from love of neighbour. |
| John 17:3 | Eternal life is associated with knowing God and Jesus Christ. | "Knowing" God is relational and covenantal, not just knowing facts about God. |
| Catholic Catechism | Human beings are called to share God's life through knowledge and love. | Catholic sacramental and ecclesial emphases should not be treated as the only Christian form. |
| Westminster Shorter Catechism | A Reformed Protestant summary says humanity's chief end is to glorify and enjoy God. | This is a historically important Protestant formulation, not a neutral definition for all Christians. |
| Orthodox teaching on theosis | Christian purpose may be framed as participation in God's life by grace. | Theosis does not mean creature and Creator become identical. |
This purpose can be judged as foundational because it gives the other two their direction. If judgement is separated from relationship with God, it can become merely fear of punishment. If kingdom action is separated from glorifying God, it can become only humanitarian activism. For many Christians, relationship with God is what makes moral action, repentance and mission Christian.
Glorifying God and relationship with God can be treated as the deepest purpose because it explains why judgement matters and why kingdom action should be God-centred.
Preparing for judgement
The second purpose is to prepare for judgement. In mainstream Christian belief, human life is accountable to God, and Christ will judge the living and the dead. This is stated in the ancient creeds and supported by New Testament passages such as 2 Corinthians 5:10 and Matthew 25:31-46.
In this lesson, do not turn judgement into the whole separate topic of heaven, hell and purgatory. The focus is narrower: if life has meaning because it is answerable to God, then Christian choices matter eternally.
Preparation for judgement can include:
- repentance, because sin damages relationship with God and neighbour
- faith in Christ, because salvation is understood as God's grace rather than mere self-improvement
- moral seriousness, because actions reveal the orientation of a person's life
- mercy towards others, because Matthew 25 links judgement with treatment of those in need
- perseverance, because Christian life is lived with future accountability in view
There is an important tension here. Some Christian traditions emphasise justification by faith, warning that humans cannot earn salvation by good works. Ephesians 2:8-10 is often used to hold two ideas together: salvation is by grace, yet believers are created for good works. James 2 stresses that faith without deeds is dead. So preparation for judgement should not be presented as a simple points system where good actions buy heaven.
| Strong AO1 point | AO2 significance |
|---|---|
| Judgement makes life accountable before God. | This gives Christian purpose urgency and moral seriousness. |
| Christians differ over how grace, faith and works are related. | This prevents a simplistic claim that all Christians prepare in exactly the same way. |
| Matthew 25 connects judgement with mercy and service. | This links preparation for judgement to bringing about God's kingdom, not just private piety. |
God's kingdom on earth
The third purpose is to bring about God's kingdom on earth. In Christianity, the kingdom of God is best understood as God's reign or rule, and the fulfilment of God's will. It is not simply a place on a map or a human political programme.
Jesus' preaching in Mark 1:15 presents the kingdom as near and calls for repentance and belief. The Lord's Prayer asks for God's kingdom to come and God's will to be done on earth as in heaven. This means the kingdom has both a present and a future dimension:
| Dimension | Meaning | Example of Christian purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Present | Christians seek to live now under God's reign. | Prayer, holiness, justice, mercy, forgiveness, evangelism and service. |
| Future | God's kingdom will be fully realised by God, not completed simply by human effort. | Hope in Christ's return, final judgement, resurrection and renewal. |
This is sometimes described as an already and not yet tension. Christians believe God's reign has been revealed through Christ and can be witnessed in the life of the Church, but the fullness of the kingdom is still future. This matters because it keeps two errors in view.
One error is to make the kingdom purely inward: a private feeling of spiritual peace with no concern for justice, poverty, violence or creation. The other error is to reduce the kingdom to social reform, as if Christianity were only a human project to improve society. A balanced Christian account says that kingdom action is grounded in God's reign and expressed in concrete love of neighbour.
This purpose may be especially important for Christians who stress mission, social justice, liberationist approaches or public witness. However, those wider topics belong to later lessons. Here, the key point is that Christian meaning and purpose is not only about the individual's soul; it also concerns the transformation of life on earth under God's will.
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