A Philosophical Happy Hour on Jacques Ellul’s “Meditation on Inutility”, challenging us to think about the uselessness of human action.
For this week’s Philosophical Happy Hour, we will take up a specific short text to read and discuss: the postscript to Jacques Ellul’s Politics of God and Politics of Man, titled “a meditation on inutility”. You may find this online here or in the attached PDF.
Ellul, best known for his works on technology—as a totalizing system pervading every aspect of our social existence in the modern world—here confronts a problem of purpose under the belief in divine providence. When we look at human striving in contrast to the omnipotence, omniscience, infinitude, eternality, and providential ordering of God, it seems all our works are ultimately meaningless; that we through our action accomplish nothing, for God has done everything already.
Yet it seems God commands and demands much of human beings, through laws both natural and revealed. Is this mere arbitrariness? Nothing but a test of our obedience, our willingness to submit? Let us read Ellul’s words and think through the difficulty.
Focal Questions
- Is it possible for the actions commanded of us to be both useless and necessary? What does this say about our role as agents in the world?
- Is utility a legitimate measure of what is good? Why/not?
- Is there a correlation between “uselessness” and “freedom”?
Please read the short meditation by Ellul and join our conversation this Wednesday (19 November 2025, from 5:45-7:15+ pm ET) in some rather enjoyable… but perhaps useless… inquiry.
philosophical happy hour
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Come join us for drinks (adult or otherwise) and a meaningful conversation. Open to the public! Held every Wednesday from 5:45–7:15pm ET.
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