Where Schopenhauer's Account of Desire Falls Short

Miroslav Volf confronts Schopenhauer’s pessimism and unquenchable thirst with a vision of love that affirms the world.

“Unquenchable thirst makes for ceaseless pain. This befits our nature as objectification of the ceaseless and aimless will at the heart of reality. ... For Schopenhauer, the pleasure of satisfaction are the lights of fireflies in the night of life’s suffering. These four claims taken together make pain the primordial, universal, and unalterable state of human lives.”

In the second installment of his 2025 Gifford Lectures, Miroslav Volf examines the 19th-century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer’s radical rejection of the world. Through Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of blind will and insatiable desire, Volf draws out the philosopher’s haunting pessimism and hatred for existence itself. But Schopenhauer’s rejection of the world—rooted in disappointed love—is not just a historical curiosity; Volf shows how our modern consumerist cravings mirror Schopenhauer’s vision of unquenchable thirst and fleeting satisfaction. In response, Volf offers a theological and philosophical critique grounded in three kinds of love—epithumic (appetitive), erotic (appreciative), and agapic (self-giving)—arguing that agape love must be central in our relationship to the world. “Everything is a means, but nothing satisfies,” Volf warns, unless we reorder our loves. This second lecture challenges listeners to reconsider what it means to live in and love a world full of suffering—without abandoning its goodness.

Episode Highlights

1. “Unquenchable thirst makes for ceaseless pain. This befits our nature as objectification of the ceaseless and aimless will at the heart of reality.”
2. “Whether we love ice cream or sex or God, we are often merely seeking to slake our thirst.”
3. “If we long for what we have, what we have never ceases to satisfy.”
4. “A better version is available—for whatever reason, it is not good enough. And we discard it. This is micro-rejection of the world.”
5. “Those who love agape refuse to act as if they were the midpoint of their world.”

Helpful Links and Resources

• The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Schopenhauer
• Paradiso by Dante Alighieri
• Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables
• A Brief for the Defense by Jack Gilbert

Show Notes

• Schopenhauer’s pessimism as rooted in disappointed love of the world
• God’s declaration in Genesis—“very good”—contrasted with Schopenhauer’s “nothing is good”
• Job’s suffering as a theological counterpoint to Schopenhauer’s metaphysical despair
• Human desire framed as unquenchable thirst: pain, boredom, and fleeting satisfaction
• Schopenhauer’s diagnosis: we swing endlessly between pain and boredom
• Three kinds of love introduced: epithumic (appetite), erotic (appreciation), agapic (affirmation)
• Schopenhauer’s exclusive emphasis on appetite—no place for appreciation or unconditional love
• Modern consumer culture mirrors Schopenhauer’s account: desiring to desire, never satisfied
• Fast fashion, disposability, and market-induced obsolescence as symptoms of world-negation
• “We long for what we have” vs. “we discard the world”
• Luther’s critique: “suck God’s blood”—epithumic relation to God
• Agape love: affirming the other, even when undeserving or diminished
• Erotic love: savoring the intrinsic worth of things, not just their utility
• The fleetingness of joy and comparison’s corrosion of value
• Modern desire as invasive, subliminally shaped by market competition
• Denigration of what is in favor of what could be—a pathology of dissatisfaction
• Consumerism as massive “micro-rejection” of the world
• Volf’s call to reorder our loves toward appreciation and unconditional affirmation
• Theology and metaphysics reframe suffering not as a reason to curse the world, but to love it better
• Preview of next lecture: Nietzsche, joy, and the affirmation of all existence

Production Notes

• This podcast featured Miroslav Volf
• Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa
• Hosted by Evan Rosa
• Production Assistance by Taylor Craig and Macie Bridge
• A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about
• Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give
• Special thanks to Dr. Paul Nimmo, Paula Duncan, and the media team at the University of Aberdeen. Thanks also to the Templeton Religion Trust for their support of the University of Aberdeen’s 2025 Gifford Lectures and to the McDonald Agape Foundation for supporting Miroslav’s research towards the lectureship.