I. Man's Search for God
Everyone, without exception, needs God. He is our creator and the ultimate meaning of our lives. Without him our lives are empty and meaningless, a fact from which people never cease to try to escape without success. Every human soul is directly and lovingly created by him at the moment of conception and designed to find its fulfillment in him alone. It is because of this innate hunger for the divine that we have created countless religions throughout history and around the globe. One cannot find a single natural culture without its own religion which seeks to satisfy this relentless, supernatural need. This is how we have been created and it is a good thing because we have also been created so that this need can be fulfilled, but only by him. The downside is that in creating religions we could never fully grasp his truth. In fact, because we are fallen creatures (more on this later), every natural human religion, stained by sin, has been prone to its own heresies and failings. Nevertheless, these religions do point us in the right direction, that is, towards God, and he uses them to help communicate his truth to us. It must also be said that, despite living in a fallen world, we are able to know with certainty that God exists, through the use of natural reason. By examining creation, we see the work of his hands (cf. Rom 1:19-20a), and by listening to our conscience, we hear his voice. By reason alone we are able to know that God has created everything which exists and that he is one, infinite, perfect, and omnipotent, but this leaves out the more important truths of faith, mainly that he is love and sent his only Son to save us from our sins (cf. 1 Jn 4:8-10).
Michelangelo's Creation