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“Disordered Loves”
As a nineteen-year-old, Augustine read Cicero’s dialogue Hortensius. This work considered the paradox that every person “sets out to be happy [but] the majority are thoroughly wretched.” Cicero concluded that the extreme scarcity of human contentment might be a judgment of divine providence for our sins.
He counseled his readers not to seek happiness in the pursuit of material comfort, sex, or prosperity but rather to find it in philosophical contemplation. The book was electrifying to the young Augustine. One of his lifelong projects became to discover why most people are so discontent and bereft of joy. He concluded that our discontent has both a functional cause and an ultimate source.
The functional cause of our discontent is that our loves are “out of order.”
Augustine taught that we are most fundamentally shaped not as much by what we believe, or think, or even do, but by what we love. “For when we ask whether somebody is a good person, we are not asking what he believes or hopes for, but what he loves.” For Augustine, what we call human virtues are nothing more than forms of love. Courage is loving your neighbor’s well-being more than your own safety.
Honesty is loving your neighbor’s interests more than your own, even when the truth will put you at a disadvantage. And because Jesus himself said that all God’s law comes down to loving God and your neighbor (Matthew 22:36–40), Augustine believed all sin was ultimately a lack of love. Look at injustice.
You may say that you believe in social equality and justice and think that you do, but if you make business decisions that exploit others, it is because at the heart level you love your own prosperity more than your neighbor’s. In short, what you love most at the moment is what controls your action at that moment. “A body by its weight tends to move toward its proper place... My weight is my love: wherever I am carried, my love is carrying me.” You are what you love.
Augustine did not see our problems as stemming only from a lack of love. He also observed that the heart’s loves have an order to them, and that we often love less important things more and the more important things less. Therefore, the unhappiness and disorder of our lives are caused by the disorder of our loves.
A just and good person “is also a person who has [rightly] ordered his love, so that he does not love what it is wrong to love, or fail to love what should be loved, or love too much what should be loved less (or love too little what should be loved more).” How does this work? There is nothing wrong with loving your work, but if you love it more than your family, then your loves are out of order and you may ruin your family. Or if you love making money more than you love justice, then you will exploit your employees, again, because your loves are disordered.
Excerpt from Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical by Timothy Keller
Reprinted by arrangement with Viking Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, A Penguin Random House Company. Copyright © 2016 by Timothy Keller
As a nineteen-year-old, Augustine read Cicero’s dialogue Hortensius. This work considered the paradox that every person “sets out to be happy [but] the majority are thoroughly wretched.” Cicero concluded that the extreme scarcity of human contentment might be a judgment of divine providence for our sins.
He counseled his readers not to seek happiness in the pursuit of material comfort, sex, or prosperity but rather to find it in philosophical contemplation. The book was electrifying to the young Augustine. One of his lifelong projects became to discover why most people are so discontent and bereft of joy. He concluded that our discontent has both a functional cause and an ultimate source.
The functional cause of our discontent is that our loves are “out of order.”
Augustine taught that we are most fundamentally shaped not as much by what we believe, or think, or even do, but by what we love. “For when we ask whether somebody is a good person, we are not asking what he believes or hopes for, but what he loves.” For Augustine, what we call human virtues are nothing more than forms of love. Courage is loving your neighbor’s well-being more than your own safety.
Honesty is loving your neighbor’s interests more than your own, even when the truth will put you at a disadvantage. And because Jesus himself said that all God’s law comes down to loving God and your neighbor (Matthew 22:36–40), Augustine believed all sin was ultimately a lack of love. Look at injustice.
You may say that you believe in social equality and justice and think that you do, but if you make business decisions that exploit others, it is because at the heart level you love your own prosperity more than your neighbor’s. In short, what you love most at the moment is what controls your action at that moment. “A body by its weight tends to move toward its proper place... My weight is my love: wherever I am carried, my love is carrying me.” You are what you love.
Augustine did not see our problems as stemming only from a lack of love. He also observed that the heart’s loves have an order to them, and that we often love less important things more and the more important things less. Therefore, the unhappiness and disorder of our lives are caused by the disorder of our loves.
A just and good person “is also a person who has [rightly] ordered his love, so that he does not love what it is wrong to love, or fail to love what should be loved, or love too much what should be loved less (or love too little what should be loved more).” How does this work? There is nothing wrong with loving your work, but if you love it more than your family, then your loves are out of order and you may ruin your family. Or if you love making money more than you love justice, then you will exploit your employees, again, because your loves are disordered.
Excerpt from Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical by Timothy Keller
Reprinted by arrangement with Viking Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, A Penguin Random House Company. Copyright © 2016 by Timothy Keller
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About this Plan
Our society places such faith in empirical reason, historical progress, and heartfelt emotion that it’s easy to wonder: What role can Christianity play in our modern lives? In this plan, pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller invites skeptics to consider that Christianity is more relevant now than ever, and provides believers with inspiring reading on the importance of Christianity today. For more on this topic, buy Timothy Keller’s latest book, Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical.
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