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Augustine’s Preaching and the Healing of Desire: What Sort of Desires Can Be Satisfied?
So I’m an Augustine nerd. My third book on Augustine’s theology of desire is out now. (Ricochet members: Check for a cheaper price here!) I recently posted on the idea of the totus Christus–the Whole Christ–that guides Augustine’s interpretation of the Psalms, and on the overlapping identities implied by Augustine’s theology. Now it’s time to talk about just what sort of desires are the right sort of desires in this remarkable Church Father’s views.
Augustine thinks human unhappiness comes from unsatisfied, and unsatisfiable, desires. Various others agree. Some of them think the solution is just to have less desire, but Augustine is one of those who thinks desire isn’t too strong; it’s just pointing the wrong way. We should be desiring something that can satisfy. We should be desiring G-d.
Here’s some of this in a bit more detail, quoting from the book:
At the heart of Augustine’s theology of desire is the principle that desire must respond to objective reality. Specifically, desire is directed at goodness. The universe is saturated with goodness, the traces of its infinitely good creator. Goodness is built into the structure of reality. Whatever is is good. . . . Of course, as he constantly reminds us, no degree of goodness in any of these created realities can compare to the goodness of their creator. To this God, the summum bonum, is owed the greatest love. Created realities are to be loved in due measure, as a fitting response to the finite degree of their goodness. We should seek and enjoy them under the auspices of God’s laws (Conf. 2.5.10) and in reference to God as their creator and the source of their own goodness (Doct. 1.27.28).
…In the enjoyment of God’s goodness, we rest satisfied.
When our desire for a created thing exceeds the limits of its goodness, we are doomed to disappointment and frustration. Augustine’s advice is to avoid this and learn to love God as we ought, which will ultimately yield a satisfaction whose only possible limit is how much we have learned to love God: However much we love, since God is infinitely good, we will be satisfied by the same degree of goodness. Thus Augustine’s theology of desire aims to maximize happiness.
Augustine’s theology of desire also includes a strategy for finding a degree of satisfaction in created goods, which is possible when we desire them in due measure, under God’s laws, and in reference to God.
Human desire is without limit, and can only be satisfied by a goodness without limit, and that means G-d. But everything G-d created is good, and there’s nothing wrong with enjoying it–properly, as part of our overall love of G-d.
The rest is details. But … important details. Especially the details about how unruly desires can be straightened out. More on that next time.
Published in Religion & Philosophy
Amen
These days, the likeliest place to find this stuff is in C. S. Lewis.
But it seems like there are some things that are that are bad. Does Augustine mean matter that people haven’t played with?
Bad is a lack of the goodness a thing was supposed to have.
Find something bad, and Augustine will tell you what’s good about it, and why it wouldn’t exist at all without that good. Then he’ll tell you what’s gone wrong with it, and how that wrongness is not a thing in itself but only a corruption of a thing.
Same with lies. Lies only exist as a corruption of the truth.
As far as a cure for some unruly desires: last summer, at a community potluck, a group of women I know plus me were all sitting in the shade chowing down the delicious food.
Many of the women were moaning and groaning about a lack of a certain type of intimacy, that befalls older divorced or widowed women.
Then J spoke up. “I do a daily meditation practice that helps me out with no longer craving such a thing. If anyone of you are interested, I’d be glad to teach you my form of meditation.”
First there was a moment of silence. Then a friend of mine piped up, “But J – you are 81 years old! Don’t you think it might be that fact and not your daily meditation curbing your desires?”
Good example. So would Augustine put it that way, or would he say something like, “Hey, man. Sometimes your wife just wants you to tell her she looks good in the dress she just bought… but if your teenager is going through an awkward phase and thinks she’s not a she, we’re in different territory!”
Serious question… I don’t know if I’m being clear, though. Do you think Augustine would say that lies*—which do reasonably happen a lot for the sake of unnecessarily (perhaps?) hurting someone’s feelings—are easily corrupted, or that they are the corruption itself?
*We can add the wildcard that a lot of lies aren’t even stated so much as the unpleasant truths are withheld.
What sort of desires can be satisfied? That question makes me think of this:
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
They’re the corruption.
Augustine tends to think lying is always bad to some degree, though I tend to disagree in the case of the murderer at the door and the midwives lying to Pharaoh. I sure don’t disagree on telling my wife what she looks like. I can’t see anything reasonable about telling a lie there. Don’t I want her to be able to trust me when I tell her she’s pretty?
Right the heck on! Confessions Book I!
I don’t know if you are asking me or St. Aug, but I don’t really have an answer for white lies, other than if they are true, then they’re true, and if they are not then they’re white lies. I think whatever one says, whether it’s a lie or the truth or an omission of some part of all that could be said in the subject, this doesn’t matter as much as the rule must be to speak in love, and that probably winnows down what can be said more than just whether or not it’s a lie.
Personally, I think that if Mary Jesus’ mother, asked Jesus, do I look good in this dress, Jesus would have said something like, You’re always beautiful. And He would have meant it. And it would have redirected her thinking, and have done good.
So, simplistically, love God, because his love is limitless and you will be satisfied.
…
Amen
Well, because His goodness is infinite. But yes. Definitely yes.
(crosses off “pears” from tomorrow’s shopping list)
Presumably you’d be paying for them, so . . . no problem.
I would hope I would still have those desires at that age.
This brings to mind Oscar Wilde’s pithy encapsulation of misdirected desire:
The issue with straightforward answers to questions such as ” Does this dress make me look fat?” Is that very often, questions like that are not seeking a factual answer. This is not to say the person asking is trying to be difficult; often we do this without realizing it. Indeed, this sort of question really is “I am older and fatter and no longer feel as attractive as I once was. Do you see past that and love me anyway and still think I am desirable? ”
We do this to each other all the time without understanding what we are really wanting. The biggest lie is the one we are telling ourselves. In this case the lie is “I am ugly and unlovable “. The way for the asked to avoid the white lie is to understand what is actually being asked. That is a challenge, but I find that if I feel I am in a white lie situation, trying to see past the question to the deeper real question helps. The urge to make the white lie itself is a cue for something else.
Now, this also depends on knowing the person. If the question really is just seeking information, then the truth is fine. She can then say , “OK, not this dress then.”
This is very good, bolded especially.
Thank you.
Yes. Exactly. Answer the real question.
If anyone cares, chapter 18 here is one passage. And section 7 here, where he’s pretty nuanced; lies with good intentions almost sound ok.
I wrote this commentary (only in my files):
And then this bit was published here:
I love this insight!
“Does this make me look fat” is less a request for information than a test. It may require what the Jesuits would call a prudent dissimulation as in “Ann Frank and her family here? Nope, not here. Never heard of them, Herr Obergruppenführer.”
Fourth in the series:
Augustine’s Preaching and the Healing of Desire: How Can We Fix Our Desires?
Last in the series:
Augustine’s Preaching and the Healing of Desire: An Integrated Ethics