“It is self-evident that belief in a super-meaning – whether as a metaphysical concept or in the religious sense of Providence – is of the foremost psychotherapeutic and psychohygienic importance…To such a faith there is, ultimately, nothing that is meaningless. Nothing appears ‘in vain;’ ‘no act remains unaccounted for’ (Wildgans). The world appears to manifest something akin to a law of the conservation of spiritual energy. No great idea can vanish, even if it never reaches public circulation…The ‘novel’ which each individual has lived remains an incomparably greater composition than any that has ever been written down. Every one of us knows somehow that the content of his life is somewhere preserved and saved. Thus time, the transitoriness of the years, cannot affect its meaning and value. Having been is also a kind of being – perhaps the surest kind. And all effective action in life may, in this view, appear as a salvaging of possibilities by actualizing them. Though past, these possibilities are now safely ensconced in the past for all eternity, and time can no longer change them.” (The Doctor and the Soul, p. 33)
Frankl’s premise is that belief in a super-meaning has psychotherapeutic value because with this belief, nothing one has done can ever be meaningless.
If you think what you’re doing is a waste of time and that you have no impact on the world, your life will seem to you to be insignificant. This is evident empirically and logically.
However, the relationship between believing nothing you do can go to waste, and belief in a super-meaning is not as evident as Frankl makes it seem. He seems to be pulling an invisible thread connecting between meaningful possibilities being Providentially presented and meaningful action being made real by humankind.
Many people who believe in divine Providence generally, do not believe in divine Providence in their own lives. They think of it only as a theoretical, abstract concept that does not apply to them personally. Therefore the existence of a super-meaning is of no consequence to them.
For example no super-meaning can explain their suffering, and they will not interpret it even as an invitation to actualize meaningful possibilities.
On the other hand, even without a religious sense of Providence, the awareness that no action goes to waste represents a firmly embedded Jewish religious belief that none of the faithful will deny. A key source for this can be found in the following excerpt:
“Reward in the coming world is the sum total of one’s actions in this world. After the soul is separated from the body it ascends to take pleasure and fulfillment from the illumination and energy of sanctified worlds that have accumulated and multiplied through his good actions…Their intention when referring to the ‘coming world’ was not a place that is all prepared and ready from the time of creation as an existent entity which one must only merit, to be subsequently given as a reward. Truly, the coming world is simply made up of the spiritual result of everything he’s done in life, a reality he has developed, enhanced and preserved for himself through his actions.” (Nefesh Hachaim, Rav Haim of Volozhin 1: 12)
Thus, to be more precise, the therapeutic benefit of belief in a super-meaning stems not necessarily from the belief that Providence presents us with tests in life but from belief in the Providential nature of a spiritual law that assigns inescapable consequence to human action.
Summed up in a terse statement, we can refer to the rabbinic statement: “Rabbi Chiya bar Abba said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan: ‘The Holy One, Blessed Be He, does not deprive any creature his reward.” (Baba Kama 38)