In Augustine’s Confessions, we see a paradigm shift in Western Christian anthropology, and perhaps the most important idea in the history of the church (save the writings of St. Paul and the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Himself). He tells readers, after a thoroughly gut-wrenching account of His own conversion experience, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you,” a line that has characterized my own life and the life of countless believers. The Lord is a treasure buried in a field, a treasure that we are always seeking after, with those who have not found it existing in a state of longing. Strangely enough, Mike Posner’s 2015 song “I Took a Pill in Ibiza” makes the same conceit, albeit unknowingly. Fame, pleasure, and success may come, but it is a “vanity of vanities”, as identity is hollowed out. Though separated by sixteen centuries, Augustine and Posner articulate the same human condition: a restless longing misdirected toward status, pleasure, and recognition, producing striving without fulfillment and a form of “success” that the world may recognize but the individual does not feel satisfied with.
For Augustine, longing in the human heart is not a bug, but a feature that is God-given. Desire points the agent toward a reality beyond himself, demonstrating that the heart is structured toward God. As John Calvin puts it, “The knowledge of God is naturally implanted in the minds of men.” Human nature itself presupposes a God who has made Himself available to all. On the flip side, sin is not the absence of desire, but a desire (ultimately toward God) that is distorted or incurvatus in se. Among this inwardly-curved desire, we are desperate for recognition and inclined towards performance and acceptance. Posner captures this in his opening lines, “I look a pill in Ibiza, to show Avicii I was cool.” The longing in the human heart does not often name its object, only its proxies, namely fame, validation, and escape. Posner describes this as not something he did because he enjoyed or benefitted from it (quite the opposite, he admits), but because “...it was something to do, an escape from reality, and a longing without a telos. As Herman Bavinck points out, “The human heart has an infinite capacity, and no finite good can fill it.” Posner’s longing is infinite - but its objects are tragically small.
Throughout Confessions, Augustine recounts his own striving, not all that different from Posner’s. In his sexual appetites, “The enemy held his will, and of it he had made a chain, and bound him.” As Posner describes it, “You don’t wanna be high like me, never really knowing why like me,” just as Augustine speaks of “seeking You outside myself”, and finding cheap substitutes in return - the futility of self-made rest. Posner and Augustine share the self-estrangement of chasing what the world offers, conditioned to the sinful cultures they live in, with Posner prioritizing substance use and Augustine aiming at the praise of rhetoric and the disordered, and resultantly vapid, life of the intellect. They were both “ambitious for the empty glory of human praise”. Modernity uniquely detaches vocation from worship, treating success as self-justifying, and rendering striving as endless, competitive, and self-consuming. Retrieving the Augustinian notion of a right-ordering of affections frees the believer “use this world, but not cling to it”.
Along these lines comes the oft-discussed notion of alienation, to which Augustine refers as exile. This goes far beyond social isolation; it is a dispersed and fragmented spirit, unable to be at home in oneself, or “scattered in many things.” Posner is recognized but not known, seen for his fame and success but without a place to lay his head. He is “seen” everywhere and “at home” nowhere. Modernity prioritizes autonomy as a cardinal virtue, unaware that “the autonomy of the human being, once severed from God, does not bring freedom but places an unbearable burden on the human soul” (RD). Posner embodies the modern paradox: maximum autonomy, minimal peace.
As Augustine discovers and articulates so beautifully, the turn to confession means “You have pierced my heart with your word, and I loved you,” in which desires are transformed toward a right ordering and the communion with God that has always been sought is finally found. Posner’s story remains unresolved, largely mirroring the nihilistic picture of our secular age. The listener is left with an ache, precisely proving the point Augustine is making. The hopeful news is that Christianity offers not anesthesia, but healing - the New Humanity. Augustine gives us the theology of restlessness, and Posner gives us its soundtrack, albeit unknowingly. Mike Posner sings what Augustine confessed - the heart cannot be silenced, only satisfied, and that satisfaction is only to be found in the Lord. His yoke is easy, and his burden is light.
Just beautiful.