Os Guinness at Cambridge: PURPOSE--What Am I Here For? (Audio)

This is the fifth and final talk in a series given by Os Guinness at Cambridge University. In this talk, Os emphasises that his concern over the five talks has been "an examined life and a warranted belief".

A few quotes from the talk:

"You only live once – if then" 

"Is your ladder up against the wrong wall?" 

A saying from an American Football coach: "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing. But the day after the Superbowl, it's nothing."

Soren Kierkegaard: "Life must be understood backwards but has to be lived forwards."

"you have to have an end that is truly an end in itself – that finally satisfies and stops all the searching and isn't circular… What is that end to you?" 

Finally, Os gives an analysis of purpose in Eastern religions, secularist beliefs systems and finally within Christianity. In Christianity "the God who's created you calls you ... that's the deepest source of purpose the world has ever seen.... those two words 'Follow me' have in many ways shaped the world." 

"You can get all As and still flunk life."  

Os’s wife’s prayer: “God, I can’t find you. If you’re there, find me.” 

 
Jenny Guinness (before she became a follower of Jesus and met Os)

“Something might look very adequate but be ... nice and comforting…. No-one should believe for that reason. The only reason to believe in any faith is that you are convinced with all the powers of your mind that it is true.”

“When people come to faith, and … it is not a leap of faith or a leap in the dark. No, you can see the examined life and the warranted faith is thoroughly reasonable.”

“The journey of a searcher is looking at all the possibilities in order to commit himself or herself to the beginning of the way. And there’s a whole lifetime of following the way. So there are two extremes today. One extreme is the idiots who think they’ve arrived. Never ask any more questions. Never open themselves to any more challenges. Not at all. That’s wrong. None of us have arrived. The other extreme though is the more modern and the secular idea that there’s no arrival anyway. Better to journey hopefully, than ever to arrive, as it’s put today…. But we are journeying to a destination. And in fact in the Christian view, we are journeying home.”

“So I challenge you to think through – where are you in this?”

About Os Guinness

Os Guinness is an author and social critic. Great-great grandson of Arthur Guinness, the Dublin brewer, he was born in China in World War II where both his parents and grandparents were medical missionaries – his grandfather having had the privilege of treating the Empress Dowager, the Last Emperor and the Imperial family. A survivor of the terrible Henan famine of 1943, in which five million died in three months, including his two brothers, Os was a witness to the climax of the Chinese revolution in 1949 and the beginning of the reign of terror under Mao Tse Tung. He was expelled with many other foreigners in 1951 and returned to Europe where he was educated in England. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of London and his D.Phil in the social sciences from Oriel College, Oxford.

Os has written or edited thirty books on a wide range of themes, including The American Hour, Time for Truth, The Call, Invitation to the Classics, Long Journey Home, Unspeakable, and A Case for Civility. His latest book is A Free People’s Suicide: Sustainable Freedom and the American Future, published by InterVarsity Press in August, 2012.