"The Absurdity of Life Without God"

This video is one of the better ones I've seen of William Lane Craig. (it is very blurry sadly) It is interesting to compare with the beginning of St. Augustine's Confessions:

"“Great art thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is thy power, and infinite is thy wisdom.” And man desires to praise thee, for he is a part of thy creation; he bears his mortality about with him and carries the evidence of his sin and the proof that thou dost resist the proud. Still he desires to praise thee, this man who is only a small part of thy creation. Thou hast prompted him, that he should delight to praise thee, for thou hast made us for thyself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in thee." (Book 1 Chapter 1) 

Dr. Craig is speaking of the utter meaningless of life without God, while St. Augustine is going further: our essence and end goal is His worship. The two combined do not point to God's existence, but they do raise an interesting question; is it not utterly absurd that we are designed to want something as our main good that we cannot in principle have? While Aristotle called man a rational animal, we could also think of humans as religious animals. Virtually all cultures ever have had religions, no matter how primitive or developed. It would be hard to deny that a sensus divinatis exists in man.

This is why St. Paul says that God is written on men's hearts, and that if we reject it, it we have no excuses:

"Because that which is known of God is manifest in them. For God hath manifested it unto them. For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable. Because that, when they knew God, they have not glorified him as God, or given thanks; but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds, and of fourfooted beasts, and of creeping things. Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonour their own bodies among themselves. Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. (Romans 1:19-25, DRB)

At some point I will try to give some of Aquinas' conclusions on predestination as would be found in the Summa Theologiae and Reginald Garrigou Lagrange's Predestination.