Biblical Logos Blog

Maslows Hierarchy of Needs is a concept of what drives most humans in how they think and act.   The idea is a staple in higher education as one of the basic models for human behavior.  Science and philosophy do an excellent job of observing and analyzing the created world.  Through analysis, testing, and experimentation, science has come to describe and categorize the world as we see it.  In many ways as our understanding increases, the perceived need for God has diminished.  Many people today see science at odds with faith in a creator and personal God as described in the Bible.

Even Maslow, later in life, divided the top of this hierarchy into self-actualization and transcendence.  According to Maslow: “Transcendence refers to the very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than means, to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos.”.  What is wrong with his original model?  Why did even Maslow need to add an even higher order, transcendence, to his model?  In the end, people are still seeking something that explains existence that is beyond themselves.

The “transcendence needs” insight begins to tell us that true fulfillment is not found in ourselves.  Focus on ourselves and happiness is a hollow goal that does not satisfy.  As science and technology advance, even our perceived understanding of a world and cosmos begins to point to something beyond self and our own knowledge, but to something/someone bigger.  In a recent Science Daily article recounting discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope, they say:

“For all of the breathless excitement it evokes, JWST has presented astronomers with an unsettling dilemma. If the masses and time since the Big Bang are confirmed for these galaxies, fundamental changes to the reigning model of cosmology — what’s called the dark energy + cold dark matter (ΛCDM) paradigm, which has guided cosmology since the late 1990s — could be needed. If there are other, faster ways to form galaxies than ΛCDM allows, or if more matter actually was available for forming stars and galaxies in the early universe than was previously understood, astronomers would need to shift their prevailing thinking.”

The “shift” in “their prevailing thinking” of how the cosmos was formed already has an answer. The Bible clearly predicts this day would come because:

Gen 1:1  In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

And because of that:

Rom 1:18  For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

Rom 1:19  For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.

Rom 1:20  For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Rom 1:21  For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Rom 1:22  Claiming to be wise, they became fools,

Rom 1:23  and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Rom 1:24  Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,

Rom 1:25  because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Like Maslow, nothing is wrong with science trying to discover new and exciting discoveries of how God ordered the world we live in.  The issue for many, is they refuse to understand how the world came to be and as the Bible says “who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth”.  If mankind wants to really find fulfillment and transcendence and truly discover the nature of our cosmos, we need to surrender our prideful hearts to the one who gives us true meaning and eternal hope,  Jesus Christ.