The God-Shaped Void Series, Part One

The first time I heard the song Supermassive Black Hole by the English group Muse, I couldn't help but think of the quote by the legendary philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal. Referring to our spiritual condition, Pascal famously wrote, "There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus." As someone who wrote a groundbreaking treatise in 1647 on vacuums, Pascal knew what he was talking about. He wasn't simply referring to emptiness. He was speaking about a drawing... an unavoidable pull. Pascal was suggesting that there is an eternal restlessness woven into the fabric of the human heart that is only satisfied through relationship with God. It is this supermassive black hole that pulls us forward in our unending quest for meaning.

Many are in agreement with this concept of inherent restlessness and need. In 1934, a Brooklyn-born Jewish-American psychologist named Abraham Maslow revolutionized the world of psychology with the release of his paper A Theory of Human Motivation. Considered the father of Humanistic Psychology, Maslow concluded that every human being is born with a drive to fulfill a heirarchy of inherent, universal needs. According to Psychology-The Search for Understandingby Simons, Irwin, and Drinnien, "Maslow has set up a hierarchic theory of needs. All of his basic needs are instinctoid, equivalent of instincts in animals." These needs fall into five categories: Physiological, Security, Social, Esteem, and Self-actualizing. As Maslow saw it, life is an endless pursuit, the struggle to satisfy these universal needs. We develop our personhood through the process of meeting these needs and progressing into the next level with the ultimate goal being "self-actualization." His views have been widely embraced and they inform numerous disciplines, ranging from education to sociology. While I disagree with the some of Maslow's underlying philosophies, we find common ground in his primary conclusion. All of us, whether we are cognitively aware of it or not, are driven by internal forces to strive for something more.

Even Some Athiests Believe in God

In the Washington Post article "Most Americans Believe in Higher Power, Poll Finds," Jacqueline L. Salmon states, "A belief in God or a higher spirit is pervasive. Even Americans who describe themselves as atheist or agnostic have a robust sense of a higher power: Twenty-one percent of those who describe themselves as atheists expressed a belief in God or a universal spirit, and more than half of those who call themselves agnostic expressed a similar conviction." Many people have an undefined sense of belief in something, but they don't identify its source.

Birth of The God-Shaped Void

The root of this problem can be traced all the way back to Genesis chapter 1, verses 26-27, which state, "Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness...So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." We were created by God and for God. Initially we bore both His image and likeness; we had total access and genuine relationship. Our first ancestors literally walked and talked with God. Then it happened; tragically, we forfeited this privilege. We violated the standards set by God, asserting our lust for independence. Our God-likeness was lost, and though we still bear His image, a chasm developed between Creator and created.

In Genesis chapter 3, verses 6-10 we read, "...Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked... Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." For the very first time they realized that they were naked, a sign of innocence lost. For the first time, they hid from the presence of God. Inside of them, something had changed; their relationship was fractured. They birthed the advent of the restless soul that continues to this day.

Jesus Addresses The God-Shaped Void

Through the course of human history, only one person both understood the void and had the power to do something about it. In the Gospel of John, chapter 4, Jesus meets a Samaritan women at a well. Her life was about to be forever changed. Breaking ethnic and religious boundaries, he asked her for a drink. The stunned woman was hesitant. Jesus responds by saying, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." He knew this woman had an unconventional past. She had been married five times and was currently living with a man. She was unsuccessfully attempting to fill her void through relationships. In this compassionate exchange, Jesus puts His finger on the issue that has haunted generations, offering to satisfy the eternal thirst that resides somewhere deep in the human heart. "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst."

That promise of satisfying the eternal thirst, filling the God-shaped void, will be our focus in this continuing series.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/06/23/ST2008062300818.html

Psychology - The Search for Understanding
by Janet A. Simons, Donald B. Irwin and Beverly A. Drinnien
West Publishing Company, New York, 1987

http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/maslow.htm
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/pascal.html

Encyclopedia Britannica, 1957. "Pascal, Blaise." Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1967.

Pascal, Blaise. Selections from the Thoughts. Ed. and Trans. Arthur H. Beattie. Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1965.

http://www.biblegateway.com/