JIM COGGINS
Needs

In her high school Marketing course, my daughter was recently introduced to “Maszlow’s hierarchy of needs”. This theory, formulated by sociologist Abraham H. Maszlow (1908-1970), states that people have several levels of needs. Physical needs (food, shelter, safety, etc.) are first, at the bottom of the pyramid, while needs such as love, art, self-fulfillment and religion are at the top. Maszlow argued that only after one layer of needs is met will a person move up to concentrate on the next level.

Maszlow’s theory is taught as a basic understanding in sociology, psychology, business and a whole host of other disciplines. I first encountered it in high school when a chemistry teacher said that hungry people would not be interested in religion until they were fed.

Like much else in sociology, Maszlow’s theory seems so obvious that it is just common sense. Of course, people will take care of their physical needs first.

The only trouble is that Maszlow is wrong. People don’t give priority to meeting physical needs. Why else would street people spend precious money to buy spray paint to graffiti buildings and bridges in an attempt to express meaning? Why do children in the ghettoes in US cities buy $200 Air Jordan running shoes? Why would John McCrae, a doctor trying to save lives and survive himself in the trenches of World War I, take time to write a poem (“In Flanders Fields”)?

A survivor of the death camps in Nazi Germany noted that many people would exist on minimal food for months or years but die after hopes for their release were raised and then disappointed. He said something to the effect that human beings can survive 10 minutes without air, ten days without water, 10 weeks without food but only 10 seconds without hope. What is the point of maintaining a physical body through meeting physical needs if there is no meaning? Who is to say that it is even a good idea to keep a physical body alive?

Maszlow was overly influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution, which says that human beings gradually evolved from primitive life forms and only in recent millennia developed an interest in arts, religion and meaning. This reduces religion to an optional and unimportant accessory.

The Bible, however, says that humans were created by God and are primarily spiritual beings in a material body (“The LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life”, Genesis 2:7). What this means is that although human beings are physical beings with physical needs, our source is not physical but spiritual, and the spiritual should have priority.

Later on in the Bible, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was actively involved in creation, explains, “Do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For . . . your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:31-33).

At another point, Jesus went 40 days without eating, and the devil tempted Him to use His divine power to make stones into bread and feed Himself. Jesus replied, “It is written [in the Bible], ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4). Jesus was referring to an earlier time when about 600,000 Israelites were wandering in the desert for 40 years. They prayed to God for food, and He sent them quails and a special food called “manna” to eat – but God only sent enough food for one day at a time. This was to teach them to rely on God, who sent the food, rather than on the food supply. If God didn’t send the food, then the physical needs could not be met. This is why spiritual needs are more important than physical needs.

Are you busy trying to “put bread on the table”, or maybe even stockpiling more and more physical goods to meet the physical needs of yourself and your family – but finding that somehow this isn’t satisfying? Are you focusing on physical needs but neglecting spiritual needs? Have you considered “religion” to be just an unnecessary accessory in life, but now aren’t so sure? Are you wondering what is the meaning of it all? Then you are experiencing what the Bible says is true, that we are spiritual beings with a primary spiritual need to develop a relationship with the spiritual God who created us. Augustine, a great Christian theologian, lived his early life in pursuit of physical pleasure, but found it unsatisfying. He finally confessed to God, “You made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.”