The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism

by Timothy J. Keller

St. Augustine in his Confessions reasoned that these unfulfillable desires are clues to the reality of God. How so? Indeed (as it was just objected) just because we feel the desire for a steak dinner doesn’t mean we will get it. However, while hunger doesn’t prove that the particular meal desired will be procured, doesn’t the appetite for food in us mean that food exists? Isn’t it true that innate desires correspond to real objects that can satisfy them, such as sexual desire (corresponding to sex), physical appetite (corresponding to food), tiredness (corresponding to sleep), and relational desires (corresponding to friendship)? Doesn’t the unfulfillable longing evoked by beauty qualify as an innate desire? We have a longing for joy, love, and beauty that no amount or quality of food, sex, friendship, or success can satisfy. We want something that nothing in this world can fulfill. Isn’t that at least a clue that this “something” that we want exists?15 This unfulfillable longing, then, qualifies as a deep, innate human desire, and that makes it a major clue that God is there.