8. Argument from Natural Desires

12 Arguments for the Existence of God by Prof. Caner Taslaman https://mim.mbirgin.com/?c=posts&id=276

8. Argument from Natural Desires Some theist thinkers claim that in every human, there is an intrinsic desire towards God. Few of them, however, consider this desire as an argument for the existence of God, or present it as part of another argument. For example, according to Pascal, we have the intrinsic desire for God: All men seek happiness. This is without exception... All complain, princes and subjects, noblemen and commoners, old and young, strong and weak, learned and ignorant, healthy and sick, of all countries, all times, all ages, and all conditions... which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present? But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.[64]

Even if there is such an emptiness (desire) in man’s nature, a believer of God could say “I moved towards God, got rid of the emptiness inside me, my desires are now satisfied, hence the target of my unsatisfied desires were God”. Nevertheless, it does not seem possible to turn such personal experiences into an objective argument- that can be used towards non-believers. In fact, many atheists and agnostics deny the existence of such desires in them. For example, John Beversluis criticizes the intrinsic desire claims above and states that the existence of such a desire cannot be proven.[65] The arguments from desire commonly discussed in the literature refer to such approaches.

The desire-related argument we will defend here is quite distinct from those above; it will be based on natural desires, commonly accepted to exist, even by atheists. Our natural desires are properties that define us, and that we witness through introspection. Desires from eating and drinking to living and happiness are our companions since birth. How these desires, intrinsic to us, came to existence is a question that is often missed or overlooked. We often do not realize the existence of these desires, like a fish not knowing it is in water; we regard their existence as a necessity, we say “How else could it be?” and turn a blind eye to them. Witnessing the same type of desires like living, quelling fears, searching for purpose and happiness etc. inside every man, from the most ignorant to the most knowledgeable, often prevents appreciation of the striking fact of the existence of these desires. Yet, witnessing these magnificent phenomena in every human does not demean their value, but elevates it. In order to grasp the extraordinariness, we need a powerful introspection, together with a comprehensive philosophical regard towards the universe. Why are such desires in us but not in trees, dirt, water, etc. which share the same atoms with us? Here, while trying to fill this important gap, we will reach arguments favoring theism. This argument will be presented as follows:

1. The following are our natural and basic desires: 1.1 Living 1.2 Quelling fears 1.3 Purpose 1.4 Happiness 1.5 Attaining doubtless knowledge 1.6 Esteem 2. These natural and fundamental desires, which cannot be reducible to one another even though they are related to each other, can only be satisfied by the existence of God. 3. There are two alternative views to explain how these desires were formed: 3.1 Through coincidence and necessity, as claimed by materialist-atheists. 3.2 Through creation of God, as claimed by theists. 4. Requiring all of the mentioned natural desires (listed under item 1) of the same ontology (listed under item 2); shows that the existence of God and His creation of these desires (3.2) are more rational than the alternative materialist-atheist view (3.1). 5. As a result, theism should be preferred over materialist-atheism.

To begin with, I find it essential to present my response to critics developed against the argument from desire in the form mentioned above, as similar criticisms might also be attempted here. These critics say that they desire to own a Ferrari but they do not have one; they desire to go to the world of Oz in the tales, but they cannot.[66] With this, they mean to point out the impossibility of reaching the existence of the objects of desires from the existence of the desires themselves. Peter Kreeft responds to these critics by dividing desires under “natural” and “artificial” classes. Natural desires are intrinsic, while artificial ones stem from outside effects such as society, advertisements and fiction. The distinction can also be seen through the comparison of being unable to go to the world of Oz and being unable to sleep. The main distinction is that natural desires are common to all of us, whereas artificial ones vary from person to person.[67] One reason why I put the keywords “natural” and “basic” at the top of my list is to shut such arguments down right at the beginning.

Most atheists and agnostics would comfortably agree upon the existence, in every man, of the six desires listed above. Furthermore, some renowned atheists in history stated that satisfaction of these desires necessitate the existence of God, but also attempted to argue that this necessity caused man to make up the existence of God. One of the critical elements of this argument is on this point: acceptance of the starting point of those renowned materialist-atheists, but demonstrating that it is in fact more rational to reach exactly the opposite of their conclusion. I will first focus on three of these desires (living, quelling fears, and purpose) and demonstrate (by referring to some famous atheist thinkers) how they necessitate the existence of God.[68]

Evaluation of the desire for living: “Desire for living” is one of the most basic natural desires in every physiologically and psychologically healthy person. It is so basic that many other natural desires can be sacrificed for it. Imagine for a moment people on a beach being led towards water by thirst, towards food by hunger and towards their mates by sexual desires. If these people were informed that a tsunami would soon hit that beach, or if they actually saw the giant waves coming in, they would leave all these desires aside and run for their lives. Schopenhauer is one of the best known atheists who gave special emphasis to “desire for living”. In his view, this desire/will is more fundamental than anything else. Schopenhauer goes even further to claim that suicide is actually not a denial of desire/will for living; instead, it is a denial of pain and poor living conditions.[69]

Unlike all other living species, the human mind can establish relations between a distant past and a far future. For a mind establishing a relation between the future and a desire for living, it is inevitable to obtain a desire towards a life in the Hereafter. I do not think that this worldly life alone can satisfy anyone who sincerely listens to his internal “desire to live”. The findings of modern science point to the inevitable ending of the entire universe via the “Big Crunch” or “Big Chill” – if not through another unknown mechanism.[70] As a consequence, the existence of the Hereafter as an object of our intrinsic desire necessitates the existence of: the One who is transcendental to the universe, but also intrinsic to a level to be aware of the desires of humans; who is powerful and knowledgeable to achieve this existence; hence the existence of God with attributes as said. It is not hard to understand that returning back to our lives from our rotten dead bodies is only made possible by a Being who is all-powerful and all-knowledgeable, and aware of our desires.

As can be easily observed, human a priori has the property of forming a mental relationship with the future and innate desire for life, and man is mortal in this world. These facts, intrinsic to our humanity, a priori show our need for the existence of a life to satisfy our desires, regardless of whether we are aware of it or not. This is similar to the equality of (a+b)2 with (a2+2ab+b2), without the need for any experimental or observational support, and without the need for our awareness. One may oppose the believers of the existence of a desire towards God (like Augustinus), by stating that he/she does not feel such a desire. However, it should be noted that our starting point here is the “desire to live”, where no such opposition occurs. It is not so hard to see that such a desire can only be satisfied if God exists.

Evaluation of the desire for quelling fears: The necessitation of the existence of God by the “desire for quelling fears” can be established via the fear of death, though it is not limited to this. Man can comprehend his smallness and inability by observing the vastness and greatness of the universe. This comprehension leads to fear. Such fears can be overcome by taking refuge in the existence of God as dominator of the universe. David Hume established an association between the sense of fear and the existence of religions.[71] On the same subject, Freud, one of the most renowned and influential atheists of all times, regarded religions as “wish-fulfillment” and said: “… religious ideas have arisen from the same need as have all other achievements of civilization: from the necessity of defending oneself against the crushingly superior force of nature.”[72] “… belief in God is an illusion that derives from our childish need for protection and security…”[73] It is possible to interpret the “necessity of defending oneself” and the “need for protection” arguments of Freud as satisfaction of the desire to “quelling fears” by religion (belief in God). The necessitation of the existence of God by the desire to overcome all basic fears is a fact that theists and atheists would comfortably agree upon. For our purposes, the actual matter is to determine whether this fact supports theism or atheism. When we combine the innate sense of fear in every man, and the “desire for quelling fears” with another innate talent of contemplating the universe and ourselves, we are directly faced with our possession of desires making us dependent on God.

Evaluation of the desire of purpose: Recent psychological studies indicate that preschool children have a tendency to understand and describe natural phenomena in purposeful ways, showing that we possess such skills a priori.[74] In fact, Richard Dawkins, the famous contemporary atheist, regards this tendency in children about finding purposeful – teleological – explanations as rationale of most people behind their belief in God; thereby trying to support his atheist views: “The assignment of purpose to everything is called teleology. Children are native teleologists, and many never grow out of it… Even more obviously, childish teleology sets us up for religion. If everything has a purpose, whose purpose is it? God’s, of course.”[75]

When human evaluates existence purposefully, when they turn their face to the entire universe, or more importantly, to their own existence, they will desire to learn the purpose behind the universe and themselves. However, the universe and human can have a purpose only via the existence of a transcendental Being who created them purposefully and meaningfully. In the materialist-atheist view the universe exists by itself and human came to existence through coincidences and necessities. In this picture, without God, the universe and human cannot have a purpose; it is not possible to satisfy the intrinsic desire for purpose in human, and the logical outcome of this is “unavoidable despair”. The following quote from Bertrand Russell, the famous atheist philosopher of the 20th century, further elucidates this point: “... but even more purposeless, more void of meaning, is the world which Science presents for our belief. That Man is the product of causes that had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms... Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”[76]

Since the twelve arguments in this book are discussed only briefly, the remaining three desires will not be detailed here. Feuerbach, who said “Theology is anthropology”, and many other atheists established that the desire for happiness (the fourth desire listed above) necessitates the Hereafter, and the Hereafter necessitates the existence of God; however, they interpreted these necessities as a reason why people made up the existence of God and the Hereafter.[77] The fifth desire, “attaining doubtless knowledge”, is closely related to the “argument from reason” discussed in Chapter 10; and the sixth, “esteem” is related to the “argument from innate morality” discussed in Chapter 9. The argument presented here about these three latter desires is that the existence of these innate desires cannot find rational grounds without the belief in God. Up to this point, I have presented discussions on the first two items of the main argument. The third item should be the one attracting the least objection; most theists and atheists would agree upon item 3. If one looks at the history of philosophy, as well as modern philosophy, he/ she would easily grasp that materialist-atheist and theist approaches are situated opposing each other, and the falsification of one is accepted as the verification of the other. Agnostic approaches claim that whichever one of the two above is true is unknowable, rather than presenting a third independent explanation.

The main opposition by atheists and agnostics to my discussion will be on item four (the acceptance of which necessitates the conclusion in the next item). Those who claim that the mentioned desires did not emerge out of conscious planning by God, but rather through mechanisms proposed by materialist-atheism, would claim that they emerged out of natural selection and as byproducts of evolution. We should establish right away that the desires in our discussions are all fundamental ones; no alternative list of natural and basic desires can be formed that would lead to a conclusion contrary to the one we obtain here. We also have additional desires such as eating, drinking, sex, sleeping etc. facilitating our survival; they do not oppose our conclusion, either. Just the opposite: the existence of objects to satisfy these desires (food for eating, water for drinking etc.) supports our point. We observe that all of our worldly desires have corresponding objects already existing. Therefore, the existence of natural and basic desires leading to a transcendental Being supports the belief in God.

I will not touch upon evolution-related arguments here; nevertheless, I should point out that the conclusion will not be affected by the acceptance of the theory of evolution (this point was briefly discussed in Chapter 7).[78] If the emergence of these desires through evolution is accepted as a fact; would this not support the views which accept evolution as “a method of creation used by God” and natural selection as “a tool God uses for creation”? If our innate natural and basic desires necessitate the existence of a transcendental God, would this not mean that evolution and natural selection call attention to God? In this case, do we not find support for those from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to Dobzhansky and Mohammad Iqbal – notwithstanding the differences in their interpretations – who saw evolution as a method of creation by God? The necessitation of the same ontology by all these independent desires cannot be satisfactorily explained through the coincidental process of natural selection, which establishes choices based upon survival and reproduction. When we look closely at our desires, we observe that they extend much further beyond our survival and reproduction in this world. I will expand this point in the framework of the three natural and basic desires detailed above.

Desire for Living: Just as its name implies, this desire provides the strongest support for our survival and reproduction in the world. However, the ability of the human mind to establish relations between the distant past and far future, and our desire to live much longer than our biological organisms would allow, has no relation to our survival and reproduction in this world. Desire for quelling fears: Fear of a predator or of falling down a hill obviously contributes to our survival and reproduction. However, when the human mind comprehends the greatness of the universe and his smallness, he feels a certain kind of fear. His facing, out of this fear, towards an Being who can act upon all phenomena through His power, has nothing to do with our survival and reproduction in this world. Indeed, many other species may feel fear of others that might kill them; yet we do not observe their reflection upon the expanse of the universe and their inabilities, and facing towards a transcendental Being that could save them from the emerging fear. Desire for purpose: The purposeful – teleological – thinking of human can provide advantages towards better comprehension of other species, thereby contributing to their survival and reproduction. However, the presence of desire for purpose/meaning towards understanding themselves and the universe has nothing to do with survival and reproduction in this world.

As previously mentioned, many atheists noted the presence of these desires and they accepted that their satisfaction is only possible via belief in God, essentially evaluating religion as “satisfaction of desires” (wish fulfilment). Such an approach would hold valid only if we assume – a priori – materialist-atheism as the true philosophy. If we leave this a priori assumption aside, we can realize that the “satisfaction of desires” claim by atheists is an example of “genetic fallacy”. The subject of “genetic fallacy” wrongly assumes that a conclusion is suggested based solely on something’s origin or source. The conclusion reached via genetic fallacy may or may not be correct; regardless, the logical methodology is wrong. For example, in the supposition “Alice learnt the shape of the world from her family, hence her knowledge about its shape is wrong”, regardless of the truth or falsehood of the conclusion, the logical method is fallacious; the used origin does not prove the conclusion. Likewise, as Freud and others claimed, for most people behind their faiths in God might be their desires; but, if the belief in God and religions is claimed to be fallacious, based on the origin of the faith, genetic fallacy will be manifested. Yet it might be argued that God guides people towards faith by placing these desires inside them; stated in Augustine’s words, “he has made us for Himself”.[79]

One may inquire whether we also fall into genetic fallacy or not in the present argument. If we had claimed that our innate desires point towards God and hence we should believe in God, we would have fallen into this fallacy like Freud and others. In our argumentation, however, we first state that all these desires necessitate the existence of God, and then we inquire how these desires come to existence. As a result of the inquiry, we claim that the existence of these desires is best explained by theism. Our argument reaches the target from the best explanation of the existence of the desires, rather than directly following the desires (which would lead to genetic fallacy). When we ask the question “Why do some of our desires guide us towards belief in God?”, the statement “Because they are all created by God” provides best answer, while the coincidence-based argumentation of materialist-atheism provides no satisfactory explanation. Since, in the theist ontology, God is the Creator of everything including desires, the guidance of different desires towards a common target is an outcome of God’s plan. As a result, there is no surprise in the guidance of different desires towards God. On the other hand, for someone who considers desires to be the outcome of coincidences, the guidance of these desires as products of the material universe towards a transcendental supreme Being, does not seem as a satisfactory explanation.

In short, famous atheists in history tried to show the necessitation of the existence of God by satisfaction of the desires in human as a reason for human’s forging of God’s existence. Here, I tried to show that the deep waters where atheist philosophers drown can be water for life. The best explanation for the necessitation of God’s existence by many of our independent and irreducible desires is God’s placement of them inside us. The emergence of many desires pointing to God’s existence cannot be explained by haphazard natural selection mechanisms (which make selections based solely on survival and reproduction) as proposed by materialist-atheists. The sole answer to the vital question “Why are many desires inside us in a way that points towards belief in the existence of God?” is provided by theism. The theist view of God’s planning of these desires in the way they are is preferable over the materialist-atheist view, which explains the necessitation of the same ontology by each of the different desires through coincidences.

12 Arguments for the Existence of God by Prof. Caner Taslaman https://mim.mbirgin.com/?c=posts&id=276