The desire to become God

“The desire to become God” is the name for the impossible ideal at the center of human projects: to unite the freedom of the For-itself with the absolute, self-identical being of the In-itself. It gives a precise shape to the absurdity of existence: people pursue a goal that cannot be attained, while their own contingency has no external justification.

Definition and Structure

The expression identifies a desire for simultaneous freedom and absolute being. The For-itself is not fixed in complete identity with itself; the In-itself, by contrast, is absolute being. The desired condition would overcome that difference, joining the For-itself’s freedom to the In-itself’s absoluteness. The ideal is therefore not simply to possess a particular object or achieve a limited aim, but to reach a mode of being that the terms themselves make unattainable.

The Desire as the Ground of Absurdity

The account connects this ideal to two distinct sources of absurdity. Human existence is absurd because its contingency finds no external justification: it has no given reason that would make it necessary or fully grounded. Human projects are absurd because they are directed toward the impossible reconciliation called the desire to become God. The first concerns the absence of an external ground for existence; the second concerns the unattainable end that gives projects their direction.

Significance for Human Projects

The expression does not make projects meaningless in the sense that people never pursue them. Rather, it clarifies the structural limit built into their aim: projects reach toward an absolute completion that cannot be secured. Their direction is intelligible, but their ultimate goal remains impossible. In this sense, the desire to become God is both the organizing ideal of human striving and the reason that striving cannot deliver the final justification or fulfillment it seeks.