Your Life Is a Story: G.K. Chesterton and the Paradox of Freedom

What is the meaning of life? Do we create meaning or find it? Every person, implicitly or explicitly, has a conception of the meaning of life, which is intimately connected to our view of human freedom. How we answer these questions determines the course of our lives and our fulfillment.

Drawing from the great writer G.K. Chesterton, Brady Stiller identifies four dominant philosophical positions on meaning in our day--determinism, existentialism, skepticism, and nihilism--and evaluates their answers to these ultimate questions, and how they fall short. Evoking Chesterton’s notion of paradox, Stiller proposes a philosophical position more true to reality--namely, that the meaning of life is both objective and subjective at the same time. By viewing life as a story with both determined and undetermined aspects, we are equipped to coauthor our stories with the divine author, discovering our role in the grand drama of creation.

Brady Stiller was the valedictorian of the University of Notre Dame class of 2020, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences and theology. He earned a master’s degree in nonprofit administration from the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame. He was the first researcher to study materials of the G.K. Chesterton Collection at its new home at the Notre Dame London Global Gateway in the UK. He also had a role in founding the Chesterton Academy in Covington, Louisiana.