how do you explain the universal need for Man to connect with God?
I don't recognize any such "need." That's gnosticism and new-age drivel -- that we all have a spark of the divine inside us. Look around you. Is the world striving for good or ill; charity or compassion; God or self?
Every age has its pretensions towards goodness. Certainly the 20th century pretensions were as corrupted as any, centering around "the psychology of self," and the largesse of the state, and the inherent goodness of the "natural" man.
The Bible tells us we are all fallen, everyone. Our "attempting to encounter the Divine," as you say, is simply chasing after our own shadow.
We do not "encounter the divine."
God "encounters" us, at His pleasure.