From Edie: Discover what makes a story truly meaningful through a Christian lens. Learn how to balance darkness with hope, build redemptive themes, and create stories that resonate deeply with readers.
What Makes a Story Meaningful? A Christian Writer’s Guide to Darkness, Hope, and Redemption
by Zena Dell Lowe @ZenaDellLowe
In anticipation of this year’s Oscars, I’ve been watching as many nominated films as I can—an unpleasant task at times, given the dark worldviews many of these films present. The problem isn’t that these films portray the plight of the human condition. Great stories often do. The problem is when a story makes assumptions about human beings that render suffering meaningless or inevitable.
So today I want to explore the difference between a dark tragedy and a nihilistic story. By nihilism, I don’t mean a story that is bleak or emotionally heavy. I mean a story that assumes there is no ultimate meaning, no moral order, and no real possibility of redemption.
And what you’ll discover is that the difference almost always comes down to anthropology—the assumptions a story makes about what it means to be human. These assumptions often contradict historic Christian anthropology, which rests on four essential pillars. Let’s walk through the four pillars of a biblical view of humanity that Scripture presents as true.
1. Humans Possess Intrinsic Dignity (Imago Dei)
In Christianity, human beings are not merely biological organisms or social constructs. We are bearers of the image of God, and that reality carries several profound implications.
For example, we know from this that human beings possess intrinsic value that cannot be earned or lost. We have moral awareness—or a conscience—that allows us to discern right from wrong. We have creative and relational capacities that reflect something of God’s own nature. And we possess rational agency—the ability to reason, evaluate, and make judgments.
All of this adds up to one radical truth: if human beings possess intrinsic dignity, then human suffering matters.
That’s why dark stories can still be meaningful within a Christian worldview. Even when terrible things happen, suffering remains tragic rather than meaningless. The pain carries moral weight because the people experiencing it possess inherent value.
A nihilistic worldview, by contrast, treats human beings as little more than cosmic accidents. If that’s true, then suffering isn’t tragic—it’s simply biological malfunction.
And that difference has enormous consequences for storytelling.
2. Humans Are Fallen (Morally Corrupt)
Christianity also insists that humanity is fundamentally fallen.
This doctrine—often referred to as the Fall or total depravity—doesn’t mean that human beings are as evil as they could possibly be. Rather, it means that sin has infected every aspect of our humanity.
Our desires are compromised.
Our reasoning is distorted.
Our will is bent toward self.
Every human being exists in a natural state of rebellion against God and struggles against the flesh—our sin nature. Left to ourselves, we are selfish, greedy, deceptive, and prone to all kinds of moral failure simply by virtue of being human.
This means that human beings have the capacity to do great evil. But because we still bear the image of God, we also retain the capacity to do great good. The presence of one does not negate the other. That tension—greatness and corruption existing together—is one of the most realistic and helpful anthropologies ever proposed.
And great storytelling recognizes it.
Think about characters like Michael Corleone from The Godfather, Walter White from Breaking Bad, Anakin Skywalker from Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, or Don Draper from Mad Men. These characters are not monsters. They are image-bearers who have chosen corruption. This framework allows stories to explore darkness without claiming that evil is the fundamental nature of reality.
Nihilistic stories tend to flatten this distinction. Instead of saying humans are good but fallen, they assume something closer to: humans are fundamentally meaningless animals pretending to be moral.
Once that assumption is made, the entire emotional tone of the universe shifts.
3. Humans Possess Moral Agency (Choice)
Without moral agency, story collapses into mechanics. You can still have events—but you can’t have guilt, justice, responsibility, repentance, or redemption—any of the things that make audiences emotionally invest in a character’s journey in the first place. Because without moral agency, there is no journey. Things just… happen.
Christianity insists that human beings possess the ability to make meaningful choices—choices that carry moral consequences. This is an essential Christian doctrine.
If humans are purely determined by biology, trauma, social structures, or evolutionary programming, then nobody is responsible for anything. And if nobody is responsible, then justice becomes meaningless, guilt becomes a social construct, and redemption becomes impossible.
Redemption only makes sense if a character could have chosen differently.
This is why stories that deny agency often feel emotionally closed. Everything becomes deterministic. Characters are no longer sinners; they are merely victims of systems or circumstances.
But redemption requires repentance—and repentance requires the freedom to choose.
4. Humans Are Redeemable
The final crucial ingredient of Christian anthropology is this: human beings can be redeemed.
That is an extraordinary claim.
It doesn’t mean everyone will be redeemed. It simply means redemption is possible. And that possibility is the core difference between tragedy and nihilism. A tragic story can end in death and still be redemptive if redemption was at least available—even if the character ultimately failed to choose it.
Consider films like The Godfather, No Country for Old Men, or Schindler's List. These stories are undeniably dark, but they still assume a morally coherent universe.
Actions matter.
Choices matter.
Good and evil exist.
People can change—or refuse to.
Even when the ending is bleak, the moral architecture of the universe remains intact.
What Nihilistic Films Do Instead
Nihilistic stories quietly remove one or more of these pillars. Most often they eliminate intrinsic dignity or moral agency and replace them with assumptions about human beings that reduce them to little more than animals.
In this worldview, morality is merely a social construct. Free will is an illusion. Truth itself becomes negotiable—determined not by reality, but by power.
Redemption, therefore, becomes meaningless. After all, who could offer redemption? No one in this world. And God is an illusion. Besides, what would there even be to redeem someone from?
In these stories, suffering is not tragic. It is simply the natural state of existence. Hope itself is dismissed as naïve or self-deceptive. No one is coming to rescue us. There is no cosmic judge looking down from above. We are simply cogs in a machine, doomed to destruction.
And that’s why these stories often feel emotionally suffocating. The universe itself is closed. Hopelessness is all that’s left.
One More Insight for Storytellers
Audiences can tolerate enormous darkness. But they cannot tolerate meaninglessness.
That’s why stories about war, sacrifice, and even genocide can still feel powerful and meaningful, whereas nihilistic stories leave audiences feeling disturbed, empty, or emotionally exhausted. Because deep down, human beings intuitively believe three things:
- Good and evil are real
- Choices matter
- Redemption should be possible
In other words, audiences instinctively expect the universe to resemble the Christian moral structure—even if they don't consciously recognize or believe it.
Why This Matters for Story Building
At the end of the day, a story’s moral universe is determined by its anthropology. As you build your own story, ask yourself four simple questions:
- Do my characters possess intrinsic dignity?
- Are they touched by the Fall—capable of both good and evil?
- Do they have meaningful moral agency?
- Is redemption possible for them, even if they ultimately reject it?
If those elements exist—even implicitly—you have a tragic but meaningful universe. But if those pillars are removed, what remains isn’t tragedy. It’s nihilism.
And darkness isn’t the problem. Hopelessness is.
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To find out more about Zena or her current courses and projects, check out her websites at WWW.MISSIONRANCHFILMS.COM and WWW.THESTORYTELLERSMISSION.COM
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