This is, in my estimation, the summative empirical conclusion from thirty years of positive psychology research. No matter where you enter this literature—humility, gratitude, awe, joy—at some point you're going to find your way toward transcendence. This, the key to mental health, is the best kept secret in psychology.
What do I mean by "transcendence"? By transcendence I simply mean what the Latin etymology of the word points to: going beyond. Mental health necessitates "going beyond" a purely materialistic worldview. Mental health is rooted not in nature but in supernature.
As I discuss in The Shape of Joy, the mental health benefits of transcendence are most clearly seen in the research on meaning in life. Specifically, meaning in life flows from three things: coherence, purpose, and mattering.
Coherence concerns meaning-making, our ability to make sense of our lives. Purpose concerns having an ultimate goal and reason for living, having purpose in life. Lastly, as I’ve shared about a great deal, mattering concerns our cosmic, existential significance and value.
I know I’ve shared all this before, but let me underline the critical point: None of these features that are integral to mental health can be grounded in a purely materialistic and wholly naturalistic view of the universe.
Consider coherence. The existentialists were honest in this regard, that meaning is impossible without transcendence. As Albert Camus so powerfully pointed out, from a purely materialistic and wholly naturalistic view of the universe, our lives are absurd. Human life is devoid of intrinsic meaning. We are Sisyphus, rolling a rock up a hill. The futility and absurdity of Sisyphus' task is the very picture of our lives. Ultimately, nothing matters.
Turn, now, to purpose. According to a Darwinian account of human life, our existence is wholly due to chance and happenstance. There is no ultimate purpose or reason in view for human existence. We are going precisely nowhere. Feeling "at home in the cosmos" is a narcissistic delusion. A Freudian fantasy. Simply put, we are a cosmic accident. Life has no purpose. From the vantage of materialism, suicide has no moral content. The universe doesn't care.
Finally, there is no way to secure our cosmic, existential significance from a purely material, scientific accounting. That our lives have value is, from a naturalistic vantage, wholly fictitious.
Which brings me back to my point. The drum I keep beating. Our mental health is anti-materialistic. Joy demands transcendence. Mental health assumes supernature, the necessity of going beyond a purely materialistic, naturalistic, atheistic, and scientistic worldview. Of course, being an atheist or a materialist does not doom a person to poor mental health. The point is simply that materialism, as a metaphysical stance, is antithetical to psychological flourishing in that is denies or erodes the cosmic and existential convictions associated with mental health.
