Perhaps the most striking oddity of the human mind is the fact that while it is constantly driven to ask questions it may not ignore, nevertheless, given its inherent limitations, it hasn’t the capacity to answer any of them. Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? These are questions no rational human being can refuse to ask—indeed, as Pascal would say, “they take us by the throat.” Yet, the answers escape even the best and brightest minds on the planet. That is because they point to an infinite horizon which the human mind, fated by the very nature of its finitude, will never reach. Only God can answer these questions.
Not even secularism has succeeded in squaring that particular circle. Which is why, despite the undeniable success of this or that project of secularization aimed at leveling a world once thought sacred and hieratic, the desire for God has not disappeared. He continues to be the touchstone for what it means to be truly human. Indeed, nothing so perfectly defines us as that hollowed out space which only God can fill.
Still, it is not enough that we should know this to be so—or that the attraction for the
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