ABSTRACT
To answer this question, persons in different theistic traditions (such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) might appeal to their sacred texts/scriptures. This approach assumes that the texts were written to answer this question, which is, perhaps, an unwarranted assumption. However, even if this assumption is granted, it seems as if the answer provided by the relevant texts must pass the scrutiny of reason. After all, were a text to state that the purpose for which God creates an individual is that he or she serve as food for beings on another planet, it would be summarily dismissed as unreasonable. “So much the worse for the text,” one would conclude. Hence, in what follows, the assumption is that if there is a purpose for which God created each of us as individuals, this purpose can be known by means of reason alone, without appeal to religious scriptures.
