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page 6 Ad Veritatem
Yet it is this very search, this insatiable longing, that reveals the eternal nature of the human soul and shows that it belongs to God. The desire of the soul for perfect happiness is, therefore, a window for evangelism. A perfect starting place for the intellectual assent to God, because everyone knows this desire intimately. It is a common ground to all human beings.

In the Summa Contra Gentiles, Saint Thomas Aquinas writes that every inclination of an agent tends toward a definite end, in which the agent's desire is satisfied when it is attained. In all the drives found in nature, there always exists an object to satisfy them. When we hunger or thirst in a physical sense, a sufficient quantity of food or water will satisfy this drive. The same can be said of drive of inanimate objects to find their place.

In syllogistic form, the argument can be stated as follows: Major Premise: every natural or innate desire be speaks a corresponding object which can satisfy it; Minor Premise: Human beings experience a desire which nothing in time or space can fully satisfy; Conclusion: There exists something outside time and space which can satisfy this desire.

C.S. Lewis called this argument, "The Argument of Desire". In Mere Christianity he wrote:

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there 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 a sex. If I fi nd in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

The heart "knows" of God, though the mind may deny His existence. The certainty of this desire is the foundation for the argument of desire. It is an intuitive certainty. G.K. Chesterton compared this intuitive "knowledge" to the residual impact of a dream, long lost to mind and memory, but somehow present.


As when one dreameth and remembereth not
Waking, what were his pleasures or his pains,With every feature of the dream forgot,
The printed passion of the dream remains:
Even such am I; in whose thoughts resides
No picture of that sight nor any part,Nor any memory. in whom abides
Only a happiness within the heart,
A secret happiness that soaks the heart
As the hills are soaked by slow unsealing snow,Or secret as that wind without a chart
Whereon did the wild leaves of Sibyl go.

The heart provides the firmest footing in our quest for God . It is in our deepest longing in His absence that we can really begin to see His presence.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:

Burial Shrouds Don't Have Pockets!

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