The End of Desire

“Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.”

Every man from the moment of his birth is full of desire—humans want warmth, to be held, to slake their thirst and appetite. As we grow older our desires become more complex: we desire recognition, security of position; we desire romantic love and acceptance; we desire a good name. Given our sinful condition our desires often become corrupt and perverse and frustrate our goals and the goals of others. The desire of wealth devolves into avarice and leads to hoarding that destroys wealth creation; the headlong and promiscuous pursuit of love destroys the stability and commitment upon which true love is built.

Be that as it may, desire in and of itself is not bad. Humanity would long have been extinct had it not been for mankind’s natural sexual urge. What progress would we have without the desire to learn and know? It is not desire that is evil, but disordered desire. Desire in itself, when morally and temperately pursued, can lead us to the End of all desire. This is not to say a man will cease wanting new things. Rather there is a purpose, a final goal, that drives all of our desires, but that is not found in the desire itself. This great mover is above and behind all desire, driving desire beyond itself towards its true and ultimate purpose.  

Nearly all our desires correspond to an earthly consummation. For example, we hunger, there is food; we tire, there is rest; we desire to know and be known, there is family and community. Yet as C. S. Lewis pointed out, there remains a desire greater and beyond all desires that nothing on earth can satisfy. Given that all our other desires correspond to means of consummation it is only logical to reason that this desire too has a means of consummation. Since that consummation cannot be found in this earth we may infer that it can be found outside our world. Now, desire alone does not prove satisfaction—a hungry man may die of starvation. But hunger does prove that we are beings that require food to survive.

Our ultimate desire, the desire behind all other desires, is our desire for God. This desire does not prove that we will obtain God, but it is good proof that we are made to know and be known by God. 

Lacking connection with God we turn to pale idols, weak imitations of what can only be found truly in Him. Lacking security in Him we seek security in money; lacking acceptance in Him we vainly seek it in the approval of our peers or in the romantic embrace of another. These idols, being dumb and mute, can never satisfy our longings for the infinite and eternal.

A great example of their failure is seen in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The title character makes the pursuit of a woman the center of his life. His love for her is obsessive and grand, extending high above and beyond the typical bonds of romantic love. When Gatsby finally is united with the object of his passion and obtains all he has been longing after, he is still left unsatisfied. “There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams—not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything.” Gatsby looked to a finite human to quench his longing for the infinite. The object of his desire broke his heart and left him broken and alone at the time of his death.

St. Augustine, like Gatsby, was a man of desire. Augustine too desired the love of women; he too desired to make himself great. But unlike Gatsby Augustine turned from these false pursuits and turned towards God. As he himself prayed to God, “You make us for yourself, and nothing else will do. Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

Recognizing Christ as the ultimate fulfillment of every noble and good desire freed Augustine to rightly enjoy the things of this world. Following Christ does not mean hating all things, as Augustine discovered, but rather thanking God for all things and enjoying all things in God.

Without God, our enjoyment of things can never be temperate. As St. Thomas Aquinas pointed out, “All men need love. When deprived of true love men must needs turn to false love.” Without God we will always be tempted to expect too much from the things of this world and give to these created things the devotion merited only by their Creator.

The love of earthly things apart from God can only make a man wretched. If in this place a man is willing to admit his wretchedness and seek his happiness elsewhere, God in His grace will often lead him to Himself as He did with Augustine. If, however, the man doubles down and seeks to find his happiness in created things he will not find God and not overcome his wretchedness.

Pascal said there are there three types of people: those that seek and are happy that they find, those that seek and will find, but are unhappy until they find, and those that don’t seek and remain blind to their inevitable and eternal unhappiness.

Our unrequited desires will lead to unhappiness on this earth. While earthbound even the greatest saints long for deeper intimacy with God—this intimacy will only be found in Heaven. This frustration need not be in vain. The purpose of desire and its inevitable earthly frustration is to lead us to seek things beyond the world. If it leads us to seek God, we will have moments of frustration still, but insignificant will they be in light of the glory and beautification that will be ours as we know and love and enjoy our Maker and Redeemer for all eternity.