A Natural Signs Approach to the Argument from Desire

Abstract

C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity that “If I find in myself a desire that no experience in this world can satisfy, the best possible explanation is that I was made for another world.” From this experience of desire for something transcendent, he formulated an argument for the existence of God. My thesis interprets the argument using a natural signs approach—instead of arguing that this experience constitutes proof of God’s existence, I argue that this experience of desire is one of many naturally occurring signs for God and constitutes the basis for a special kind of knowledge about God.