06/12/2021 – Saturday Apologetics Series: “Arguments for the Existence of God – The Argument from Desire”
As promised, I am readjusting my order in this series so we can connect up directly with the recent post from Sapphires daily devotional : “Eyes in the Womb”.
I include here two key connecting sentences to today’s post: “As you dwell in this world, you have a heart that can never be satisfied by the things it sees in this world. Why is that? It’s because this life is Heaven’s womb.” So, I quote here in its entirety from one of my favorite “worn out” book (other than The Word of course) : “Pocket Handbook of Christian Apologetics” by Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli:
“The Argument from Desire
- Every natural, innate desire desire in us corresponds to some real object that can satisfy that desire.
- But there exists in us an innate desire which nothing in time, nothing on earth, no creature can satisfy.
- Therefore there must exist something more than time, earth and creatures that can satisfy this desire.
- This something is what people call “God” and “life with God forever.”
The first premise implies a distinction of desires into two kinds innate and externally conditioned, or natural and artificial. We naturally desire things like food, drink, sex, sleep, knowledge, friendship and beauty; and we naturally shun things like starvation, loneliness, ignorance and ugliness. We also desire (but not innately or naturally) things like sports cars, political office, flying through the air like Superman, the land of Oz, and a Red Sox world championship.
Now there are differences between these two kinds of desires. For example, we do not, for the most part, recognize corresponding states of deprivation for the second, the artificial, desires as we do for the first, There is no word like Ozlessness parallel to sleeplessness. But more important, the natural desires come from within, from our nature, while the artificial ones come from without without, from society, advertising or fiction. (Jimmy note – i.e. : The increasing % of self declared number of transvestites amongst our youth. That isn’t innate, but sources from leftist pagan school teachers drilling it into them from early primary grades) This second difference is the reason for the third difference: the natural desires are found in all of us, but the artificial ones vary from person to person.
The existence of the artificial desires does not necesarily mean that the desired objects exist. Some do; some don’t. Sports cars do; Oz does not. But the existence of natural desires does, in every discoverable case, mean that the objects desired exist. No one has ever found one case of an innate desire for a nonexistent object.
The second premise requires only honest introspection. If someone denies it and says, “I am perfectly happy playing with mud pies, or sports cars, or money, or sex, or power,” we can only ask, “Are you really?” But we can only appeal, we cannot compel. And we can refer such a person to the nearly universal testimony of human history in all its great literature. Even the atheist Jean-Paul Sartre admitted that “there comes a time when one asks, even of Shakespeare, even of Beethoven, ‘Is that all there is?’ “
“C.S. Lewis, who uses this argument in a number of places, summarizes it succinctly:
Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, thre is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. (Mere Christianity, bk. 3, chapter 10)”
Jimmy concluding note:
I cannot recall a time I have ever used this argument is an initial witness, or any witness to a “future Christian”. But in this crazy world today, that is soooo insanely infatuated with feelings, it is good to differentiate between innate desires and feelings. The devil preys on this craziness, it becomes so easy for him to completely brainwash people in large numbers to seemingly whatever insane premise is thrown out there. (Just keep repeating it, the mantra of the cultural marxists, minions of Satan) I leave alot of people with: “feelings mean nothing”. But innate desires? , a different deal entirely. Why does it seem to be a universal innate that everyone senses a paradise lost? Where does that come from, even within the pagan worldview ?
Final note: Nancy just read me a news account of a commercial lobster diver that recounted being swallowed by a whale and in the belly of a whale for about 30 seconds before the whale rose to the surface and spit him out. A lunatic lier? Maybe not. It’s a funny one to me. There have been numerous historical accounts of episodes similar to this yet many Christian skeptics seem to mention the “Jonah being swallowed by the whale” as if it were the most implausibile miracle “of all time!”. Surpassing say, the Resurrection?; Creation, the Big Bang? ; or let’s just take the rise of Christianity in general?
How big is your God? If He fits in your box, can I state the obvious for you?: “Your god is too small dude!”
Blessings to y’all’s day!