The Need of Human Nature
As a result of the soul being separated from the body and God being separated from the rest of life, man was confronted with a new problem: despite his worldly affluence he still felt as if something within him was lacking. Modern man has been given everything in life, but he shows no signs of true happiness. Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) begins his book, The Conquest of Happiness, with these words: “Animals are happy so long as they have health and enough to eat. Human beings, one feels, ought to be, but in the modern world they are not, at least in a great majority of cases.”
The reason for this is that modern civilization, despite its impressive achievements, has been able to provide man with only half of what he is looking for. It was provided for his body, but it has been unable to provide for the needs of his soul.
Man desires a world full of meaning, but modern civilization gives him only a piece of stone with no meaning attached to it. Man desires life, but modern civilization gives him only a replica of life. Man seeks peace of mind, but modern civilization places him in a mobile machine, which cannot convey him to his destination. Man wants to know the Creator of the universe, but Science can acquaint him only with creation. Man wishes to throw himself at the feet of his benefactor, but he cannot find his benefactor anywhere in the world of science and technology. Unable to find the true God, he bows down before false ones, but they cannot satisfy him any more than a plastic doll satisfies a childless mother. According to the Quran, they are only ‘names,’ not realities. (12:40)
Man’s need for a superior God is an established fact. It has even been accepted by thinkers who do not care to believe in any God or Religion. Bertrand Russell’s statement in his book, Principles of Social Reconstruction, can be cited as an example: “If life is to be fully human it must serve some end which is, in some sense, outside human life, some end which is impersonal and above mankind, such as God or truth or beauty.”
This is an admission, by an atheist, of man’s intrinsic need for God. The predicament of modern man lies in his loss of God; His salvation is dependent only on rediscovering his God.
In their attempt to understand human nature, anthropologists have studied different societies. They are all agreed that thousands of years of human history testify to the fact that the idea of God is inherent in man’s nature. Just as sheep are instinctively herbivorous and cats instinctively carnivorous, and it is impossible to change these instincts, so the concept of God is inseparable from human nature.
Communist society provides us with a contemporary illustration of this fact. After the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, socialist dogma completely excluded the idea of God. Education and training in every field was based on atheistic principles. Even so, consciousness of God is profoundly embedded in the younger generation of Soviets, who have been brought up in an entirely atheist environment. This is clear from the following incident.
In 1973 a Soviet jetliner was flying over the eastern part of India. The engine failed and the plane crashed in Bengal. A special tape recorder, known as the ‘black box’ placed in the tail end of planes where it is least likely to be damaged, records conversations which usually provide clues as to the cause of any accident. On this occasion, a replay of the recording revealed that the last words that the young Russian pilot had uttered were. ‘Peter save us!’
