This awareness of eternity belongs to what John Calvin calls the sensus divinitatis, and it inescapably orients even the unregenerate to our unending future. This is evident in humanity’s fascination with the afterlife and the way we speak of the “departed.” It is also apparent in how religious humans have been in all ages, including our own. What becomes of us after death is a cardinal doctrine of nearly every religion, and it is ordinarily considered decisive for how we ought to live this life in preparation for what follows.
God “has put eternity into man’s heart,” says the Preacher (Eccl. 3:11). The idea is not just that we retain an intellectual concept or notion of eternity, but that we have a deep-seated sense that our present life in the world is not all there is—that there is a “forever” that renders this life far more significant than many dare to imagine and discloses the vanity of living merely for the things of this age.
This awareness of eternity belongs to what John Calvin calls the sensus divinitatis, and it inescapably orients even the unregenerate to our unending future. This is evident in humanity’s fascination with the afterlife and the way we speak of the “departed.” It is also apparent in how religious humans have been in all ages, including our own. What becomes of us after death is a cardinal doctrine of nearly every religion, and it is ordinarily considered decisive for how we ought to live this life in preparation for what follows.
That eternity is in our hearts is one reason why people who are devoted to pursuing temporal pleasure ordinarily find life so empty. As C.S. Lewis observes, our longings run deeper and reach further and aspire to things far higher than anything ready at hand can satisfy. To live for the present demands that we actively suppress this inward sense of eternity and deny our deepest longings (and aspirations) in order to pacify ourselves with far more superficial ones.
Intriguingly, the ancient Epicureans identified the fear of death as the greatest obstacle to a life given over to temporal pleasures—further evidence of the universal sense of eternity (and expectation of judgment). To free themselves from the fear of death, they devised an atomistic anthropology in which we are nothing more than sentient material beings. Their only hope, in other words, was if death actually is the final end of us. This is more or less where many Americans are today, and one of the drivers behind the popular embrace of metaphysical naturalism in the secular West. If death is not our final end, then we must face the vanity of any life not lived for eternity.
