An American humorist was once asked what he loved most in life. This was his reply: “I love women best, music and sciÙence next, whiskey next, God fourth, and my fellow man hardly at all!”

This ranking flashed through my mind recently when I was giving a lecture and a woman asked, “Why did God build us in one way and then almost all of the time expect us to act in a way contrary to our instincts?”

I knew what she meant. Our natural instincts and spontaneous desires generally seem at odds with that toward which they are supposedly directed — namely, God and eternal life.

A reÙligious perspective, it would seem, calls us to reverse the order described by the American humorist; that is, we should love God first, our neighbor just as deeply, and then accord to the human pleasures we are so naturally drawn to a very subordinate role.

But that’s not what happens most of the time. Generally, we are drawn, and drawn very powerfully, toward the things of this earth: other people, pleasure, beautiful objects, sex, money, comfort. These seemingly have a more powerful grip on us than do the things of faith and religion.

Doesn’t this put our natural feelings at odds with how God intended us to feel and act? Why do we seem to be built in one way and then called to live in another way?

The question is a good one and, unfortunately, is often answered in a manner that merely deepens the quandary. Often we are simply told that we shouldn’t feel this way, that not putting God and religious things first in our feelings is a religious and moral fault, as if our natural wiring were somehow all wrong and we were responsible for its flaw.

But that answer is both simplistic and harmful: it misunderstands God’s design, guilt-trips us and leaves us feelÙing bipolar vis-à-vis our natural makeup and the demands of faith.

How do we reconcile the seeming incongruity between our natural makeup and God’s intent for us?

We need to understand human instinct and human desire at a deeper level. We might begin with St. AuÙgustine’s memorable maxim: “You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you!”

When we analyze our natural makeup, natural instincts and natÙural desires more deeply, we see that all of these ultimately are drawing us beyond the more immediate objects and pleasures with which they appear to be obsessed. They are drawing us, persistently and unceasingly, toward God.

Karl Rahner, one of the foremost theologians of the 20th century, in trying to explain this, makes a disÙtinction between what we desire explicitly and what we desire implicitly.

Our instincts and natural desires draw us toward various explicit things — love for another person, friendship, a work of art or music, a vacation, a movie, a good meal, a sexual encounter, an achievement that brings us honor, a sporting event and countless others — that, on the surface at least, would seem to have nothing to do with God and are drawing our attention away from God.

But, as Rahner shows, and as is evident in our experience, in every one of those explicit desires there is present, implicitly, beÙneath the desire and as the deepest part of that desire, the longing for and pursuit of something more profound.

UlÙtimately, we are longing for the depth that grounds every person and object: God. To cite one of Rahner’s more graphic examples, a man obsessed with sexual desire who seeks out a prostitute is, implicitly, seeking the bread of life, irrespective of his crass surface intent.

God didn’t make a mistake in designing human desire. God’s intent is written into the very DNA of desire. UltiÙmately, our makeup directs us toward God, no matter how obsessive, earthy, lustful and pagan a given desire might appear on a given day. Human nature is not at odds with the call of faith, not at all.

Moreover, those powerful instincts within our nature, which can seem so selfish and amoral at times, have their own moral intelligence and purpose: They protect us, make us reach out for what keeps us alive, and, not least, ensure that the human race keeps perpetuating itself.

Finally, God also put those earthy instincts in us to pressure us to enjoy life and taste its pleasures — while like a loving old grandÙparent watching his children at play, God remains happy just to see his children’s delight in the moment, knowing that there will be time enough ahead when pain and frusÙtration will force those desires to focus on deeper things.

When we analyze in more depth God’s design for human nature and understand ourselves more deeply within that design, we realize that, at a level deeper than spontaneous feeling, and at a level deeper than the wiseÙcracks we make about ourselves, we in fact do love God best; love our neighbor quite a bit; and, very happily, love whiskey and the pleasures of life quite a bit as well. 

Father Ronald Rolheiser, OMI, is the president of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas, the author of many books and the weekly column, “In Exile,” which appears in Angelus and more than 50 other newspapers worldwide. This article was adapted from his latest book, “Wrestling with God: Finding Hope and Meaning in Our Daily Struggles to Be Human.” (Image, $17).