A desire nothing in this world can satisfy

The argument from desire

C. S. Lewis 1898 · 1963The moral law everyone feels, and reason itself, point towards God.

What it claims

What can satisfy this desire exists outside this world: we are probably made for another world (for Lewis, that of the Christian God).

Why

Every natural desire has its object in the world; we have one nothing here can fill, so its object must exist elsewhere.

The same idea through history

Augustine of Hippo400In the Confessions, Augustine tells God that we are made for him and that our heart is restless until it rests in him: this is the original intuition.

C. S. Lewis1941In the sermon "The Weight of Glory" and then in Mere Christianity (1952), Lewis makes it a reasoned argument: hunger shows there is bread, and the desire for a happiness nothing fills points to something that can fill it.

In short

"A desire nothing in this world can satisfy" is an argument by C. S. Lewis (Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), III, 10; The Weight of Glory (1941), 1941) on the question "Does God exist?" (answer: theism). Its claim: What can satisfy this desire exists outside this world: we are probably made for another world (for Lewis, that of the Christian God). According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P3). AskPhilosophy presents 4 objections, 2 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), III, 10; The Weight of Glory (1941)

Valid with an implicit premise

Lewis starts from an experience many people know: a longing for a happiness that no success, trip or encounter ever fully satisfies. He notes that our natural desires nearly always have a real object: hunger has food, tiredness has sleep, love has the loved person. If the desire for limitless happiness has no object in this world, perhaps we are made for another. Lewis stays careful: he does not write that it is proved, only that it is a "pretty good indication".

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.

Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.

If the three premises are true, the conclusion follows: the natural desire must have an object; it is not here; so it is elsewhere. Without P3, one could say the desire is not natural and so needs no object.

Analogy.

Objections

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

The objection Lewis quotes himself 1941 · attacks premise 1

"Nor does the being hungry prove that we have bread." A desire can stay without its object: one can starve on a raft, or love without being loved.

Lewis replies

Lewis Lewis' reply

A hungry man may starve on a raft, but his hunger shows he belongs to a species that eats and to a world where food exists. In the same way, Lewis does not believe (he wishes he did) that his desire for Paradise proves he will enjoy it; he sees it only as a pretty good indication that such a thing exists and that some will.

The debate goes on (our summary) Our summary: Lewis moves from proof to pointer. The argument gives only a probability, to be weighed against other explanations of the desire (next objections).

John Beversluis 1985 · attacks premise 3

This philosopher, who gave "the argument from desire" its name, objects that natural desires are bodily needs (hunger, thirst, sex) whose object we know from experience. Lewis' "joy" is not of that kind: the analogy with hunger is weak. And many people say they find their happiness in this world (work, partner, children): the desire is not universal.

no reply

No reply possible: objection raised in 1985, after the author's death (1963).

The debate goes on (our summary) Our summary: defenders such as Peter Kreeft (1994) distinguish innate desires, which always have a real object, from learned ones (a car, fame), which may have none, and place the desire for perfect happiness among the first. The debate is about that classification.

Sigmund Freud 1927 · attacks premise 3

Religious ideas are illusions, fulfilments of the oldest, strongest and most insistent wishes of mankind. The desire for endless happiness is thus explained by our history as helpless children, not by the existence of what it aims at.

Lewis replies

Freud himself (a concession)

Freud himself specifies that an illusion is not the same as an error, and not necessarily an error: a wish can come true. Knowing where a desire comes from does not yet tell whether what it aims at exists; the reasons to believe must be examined separately.

Freud

For Freud, though, these ideas are not "the residue of experience or the final result of reflection": the strength of belief comes from the strength of the wish, not from evidence. The desire alone therefore does not serve as proof.

Where the debate stands (our summary)Our summary: agreement on one point, the origin of a desire does not refute its object. The disagreement stays open about what follows: a pointer to another world for Lewis, a symptom of our childhood needs for Freud.

Ludwig Feuerbach 1841 · attacks the conclusion

The wish not to die springs from self-preservation, then becomes, under the pressure of life, the wish for a better life after death. It is our own wish that we place in a beyond.

no reply

We have not yet found a direct reply by Lewis in the texts.

The debate goes on (our summary) Our summary: Lewis does not answer Feuerbach, whom he does not cite in these texts. His position is that the desire he describes is not just the wish to survive but one for a "far-off country" that experience never gives; Feuerbach would reply that it also comes from us.

Where the debate stands (our summary)Our summary: an open debate. Both read the same experience of desire; one sees a pointer, the other a projection.