We have all heard it said that searching is better than finding.  One hears this adage not only from everyday folk who haven’t given the matter much thought, but also from those whose business is giving matters thought.  A philosopher I know who is usually more sensible opined in one of his books that the good lies in nothing but searching for the good.

Of course the saying is ridiculous.  The good of a bath doesn’t lie in seeking soap, but in getting clean.  The good of a hamburger doesn’t lie in being hungry, but in having a meal.  Even teenage girls whom we say are “in love with love” want someone to return their love.  To long for something just is to long to have it. 

But there is a pretty deep reason for the saying’s popularity.  The grain of truth it gets wrong has been known for thousands of years:  There is in us one natural longing which is different from all the other natural longings, because nothing in nature can satisfy it.  When we get what thought we always wanted but discover that we still aren’t satisfied, it’s usually a case of mistaken identification.  The thing we wanted wasn’t what we really wanted after all – or not all we really wanted – or not what we wanted most.  If the alternative to the supreme longing is false finding, then we would rather have it, even without fulfillment, than no longer have it at all.

But the actual fulfillment of the supreme longing would be infinitely better.  At last we would have got beyond all those false drinks that left us still thirsty, all those false meals that left us still hungry.  This would be the real thing.  If it didn’t exist, searching for it under the delusion that “searching is better than finding” would be a cruel futility.

But it must exist, for if it is true that nature makes nothing in vain, then the satisfaction of every natural desire must be possible.  If nothing within nature can satisfy it, then its object must transcend nature.  In fact, it is satisfied only in God.

It is better to find that for which we are longing than merely to search for it; better yet, to be found.