The Inescapable Longing of Humanity

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

There is one stream of scientific thought that has sought to reduce human beings to mere biological or chemical elements. In the midst of much helpful insight that has come from this effort, the idea of describing our condition, thoughts, and maladies as humans all through biological or chemical explanations seems lacking. Although some have used this material as an opportunity to prove that humans are no different from the rest of the natural world, whether plant or animal life, there are several problems with such an approach. One problem with this approach is academic or intellectual. That problem resides in the fact that it proves problematic to utilize the efforts of one intellectual discipline, such a chemistry or biology, to explain and interpret every facet of life, just as it would be true to do so only with philosophy or theology. It is always proves challenging to not view one’s one expertise as the “answer” to all of life’s questions. But such an approach does not give answers to the full scope of the questions raised about what it means to be human in the cosmos.

A second problem with this reduction of human life to chemical and biological terms is that no matter how comprehensive our knowledge about human physical life, there is always something that sets us apart from animal life more broadly. While there are different levels of consciousness, or even self-consciousness, humans have this in a particular way and degree. Dogs who have eaten a good meal chew a bone and then fall asleep. Humans who have eaten a good meal laugh, play games, worry about their weight, and think about whether people enjoyed the party they just hosted or not. Unlike animal life, no matter how physically satisfied we are, there is always an unsettling longing for more within us as human beings. 

This unique longing within human beings is something both ancient and modern philosophers recognize as a unique aspect of humanity. One writer describes this longing in this way: “Aristotle [that great Greek philosopher]… observes that human beings ‘can know only momentary and incomplete satisfaction of … [their] social and rational desires.’ Our self-conscious mortality — not shared with the other animals — gets in the way of our happiness; it frustrates the full satisfaction of our ‘deepest natural desires.’ For this reason, Aristotle acknowledges that we cannot help but long for immortality, if often in ways that are ‘unreasonable’ because they ‘ignore the eternal limits of our nature.’” ^[1]

This is something that the Christian Bible talks about quite a bit. Christianity recognizes this longing for immortality within human beings and identifies it as a gift from God that keeps us from getting confused about reality, both calling us out of settling for mere biological existence and calling us toward a pursuit of the good life or meaningful life.

We were made by God for more as human beings.

In Psalm 19:1, we read: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.” This psalm tells us that we see traces of the divine presence in creation and the beauty of the natural world. It is valuable for its own sake, but it also speaks of something more, in the very creative handiwork of God.

Even more clearly, in Ecclesiastes 3:11, we read that God “has also set eternity in the human heart.” The longings we have for immortality—the longings we have for more—are traces of something that God has planted within the human heart. 

That longing is a gift from Him to tell us that we were made for more.

Now there are several ways we can respond to that inescapable longing within our lives, but, as I see it, they essentially boil down to three responses. First, we can ignore that longing placed within us, trying to pretend it’s not there and live from a merely biological perspective. With this response we see any longing as a physical response to our environment or need and respond in kind. The problem with this sort of response is that it downplays our uniqueness as human beings and often leaves us feeling empty.

Second, we can recognize there is a longing within us but attempt to assuage the longing with that which cannot fully satisfy. We can pursue a range of experiences, from travel to extreme sports. We can pursue a range of relationships, whether wide-ranging friendships or various experiments in intimacy. We can pursue beauty, whether in the natural world or in the various forms of artistry. All of these pursuits will bring some peace to our longing, but it will rise up again and again.

Third, we can recognize that longing as something placed there by God and respond to God in some way out of that longing. Even if we do not give ourselves to a specific religion or philosophy of life, this third pursuit is different from all the rest. It takes this longing as something placed within us by a divine outside source that can only be satisfied by responding to that divine outside source, and not by ourselves or the created world. This third pursuit is the only, I would propose, that can truly bring us to a place of peace and satisfaction in relation to this inescapable longing within the human heart.

For this is the sort of thing that St. Augustine described famously in his work, Confessions, with these striking words: “Our hearts are restless O God until they rest in You.”

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^[1] Peter Augustine Lawler,  “The Rise and Fall of Sociobiology,” The New Atlantis, Spring 2004. http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-rise-and-fall-of-sociobiology.