Gerber 1

LOVING WHAT OUGHT TO BE LOVED:

AUGUSTINE'S THEOLOGY OF SPIRITUAL FORMATION

By Jacob D. Gerber

Introduction

Christians have never believed that it would be acceptable merely to assent intellectually

to some religious knowledge apart from life transformation, nor have they merely tried to live

well apart from any faith or theological reflection. There can be no Christianity by good works

apart from faith (for we are justified by faith, and not by works, as Paul explains), and there can

be no Christianity unless faith produces good works (for without works, as James explains, faith

is proven to be dead). Still, the fact that Christians have always insisted on the importance of

faith as well as good works does not mean that properly uniting the two is simple; nevertheless,

this unity is the mark of Christian maturity, and the best Christians throughout history have spent

much of their time learning for themselves, and then instructing others, in the art of spiritual

formation. Among them, Augustine of Hippo gives a particularly elegant and simple theological

perspective for spiritual formation that spills over into practical, everyday life: Augustine argues

that the sine qua non of spiritual formation is, quite simply, learning to love what ought to be

loved. In this paper, we will examine what Augustine means by “love,” determine whom we are

supposed to love, and learn Augustine's methods for learning to love what ought to be loved.

Augustine's Theology of Love

To Augustine, love is not simply one aspect of spiritual formation or one virtue among

many; rather, he defines all virtues in relation to love: “Moreover, even in this life there is no

virtue except that of loving what ought to be loved. Good sense consists in choosing that,

courage in allowing no hardships, moderation in allowing no temptations, justice in allowing no

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pride, to divert one from it.”1 To begin our study of Augustine's theology of love and its role in

spiritual formation, we must see that, when Augustine speaks about love, he does not mean that

we are to “feel” a certain way or to “admire” something; rather, for Augustine, to love someone

or something is to choose what is loved over every other choice, allowing neither hardships,

temptations, or pride “to divert one from it.” From the outset of this study, we must understand

that Augustine never uses the word “love” in the sentimental sense that we might use it—“to

love” always means “to choose.”

From this definition of love, it would seem that Augustine might be envisioning an

infinite array of people and things that people might love, and therefore choose. In fact,

Augustine argues that there are only two kinds of love: the love of God (a heavenly love) and the

love of the world (an earthly love). Augustine partially formulates this dichotomy based on a

biblical distinction between loving God and loving the world, most prominently seen in the

writings of John: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world,

the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). He does not, however, cite 1 John only as a

proof-text, because he also develops this distinction on the basis of a more holistic biblical

perspective in his book, The City of God, where he demonstrates how “Two cities, then, have

been created by two loves: that is, the earthly by love of self extending even to contempt of God,

and the heavenly by love of God extending to contempt of self.” 2 The Fall, of course, marks the

beginning of these two cities,3 and ever since the Fall, humanity has been divided according to

the lovers of Jerusalem (the Heavenly City) and the lovers of Babylon (the Earthly City).

1 Augustine, “Letter 155: Augustine to Macedonius (413/414),” in Augustine: Political Writings, edited by E. M.
Atkins and R. J. Dodaro (New York: Cambridge UP, 2001), 96.
2 Augustine, The City of God Against the Pagans, edited and translated by R. W. Dyson (New York: Cambridge,
UP, 1998), Book XIV, Chapter 28, p. 632.
3 Augustine sees the Fall as the beginning of these two cities: see his Literal Meaning of Genesis, 11.15.19-20.
 Gerber 3

For this reason, then, heavenly love (often translated as “charity” in his writings) is the

mark of authenticity that separates those of the Heavenly City from those of the Earthly City:

Love is the only final distinction between the sons of God and the sons of the
devil....But there is nothing to distinguish the sons of God from the sons of the
devil, save charity. They that have charity, are born of God: they that have not
charity are not. There is the great token, the great dividing mark.4

The “sons of the devil” category includes two groups of people: those who completely reject

Christ, but also those who claim to follow Christ, but whose lives do not exhibit charity.

Augustine here echoes James: “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (Jas

2:17). Elsewhere, Augustine more explicitly echoes James: “If faith is devoid of the will to love,

it will equally be devoid of good actions....This deliberate love cannot remain idle.”5

This is the point at which theology moves from theory to spiritual formation—Christians

can talk about love all they want, but there is nothing in mere talk that will “distinguish the sons

of God from the sons of the devil.” Augustine insists that we must not only assent to the idea of

love, but that love must characterize our lives if our salvation is indeed genuine:

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 one who rightly loves without doubt
rightly believes and hopes, and one who does not love believes in vain, even if the
things he believes are true; he hopes in vain, even if the things for which he hopes
are those which, according to our teaching, belong to true happiness, unless he
also believes and hopes that if he asks he may also be given the ability to love.6

Augustine's message still needs to be heard today, especially in Western the church, as so many

identify themselves as Christians but see no need to reform their lives beyond assenting to the

4 Augustine, “Ten Homilies on the First Epistle General of St. John,” in Augustine: Later Works, selected and
translated with introduction by John Burnaby, The Library of Christian Classics, vol. VIII (Philadelphia:
Westminster Press, 1955), p. 298.
5 Augustine, “Exposition 2 of Psalm 31,” in Expositions of the Psalms 1-32, vol. 1, translated by Maria Boulding,
edited by John E. Rotelle (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2000), 366-67, my emphasis.
6 Augustine, The Augustine Catechism: The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love, translated by Bruce Harbert,
edited by John E. Rotelle (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1999), 130.
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idea that Jesus died to forgive their sins. In other words, many self-identified Christians may

“believe” and “hope” correctly, but they believe and hope “in vain.”

Still, we should not misunderstand Augustine's view of two polarized loves to mean that

he thought that we should love God to the exclusion of everyone and everything else. Another

important part of Augustine's theology of love is his belief that, rather than simply doing away

with all loves save one, our loves must be properly ordered: “I am not saying that you should

have no loves; I simply want your loves to be properly ordered. Put heavenly things before

earthly, immortal things before mortal, everlasting things before transitory ones. And put the

Lord before everything, and not just by praising him, but also by loving him.” 7 This conception

of properly ordered loves is a natural outworking of the general principle that we should “love

what ought to be loved.” We ought to love our families; we ought to love the poor; to a certain

extent, Augustine would argue, we ought to love riches: “Surely, if you love your money, you

ought to be careful not to lose it....So put your money where you won't lose it. Before it's

disappeared, store up your treasure in heaven where no thief can enter and no moth will consume

it.”8 The point is not that we devote our love exclusively to God, but that, when we love people

or things, we love them in proportion to their true value:

But living a just and holy life requires one to be capable of an objective and
impartial evaluation of things; to love things, that is to say, in the right order, so
that you do not love what is not to be loved, or fail to love what is to be loved, or
have a greater love for what should be loved less, or an equal love for things that
should be loved less or more, or a lesser or greater love for things that should be
loved equally.9

Again, our contemporary church desperately needs to hear this message. We are all guilty of
7 Augustine, “Sermon 335C: The Sermon of the Blessed Bishop Augustine on the Feast of a Martyr,” in
Augustine: Political Writings, 59.
8 Ibid., 55-56.
9 Augustine, Teaching Christianity (De Doctrina Christiana), translated by Edmund Hill, edited by John E.
Rotelle (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1996), 118.
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compartmentalizing our loves so that, for example, we do not know how to relate our love for

football to our love for Jesus Christ. Augustine would never tell someone not to love something

like football, but only to consider carefully the extent to which football actually deserves love.

Finally, we need to understand Augustine's understanding of the relationship between

love and the commandments. Quite simply, Augustine argues that “charity is the end of every

commandment, that is, every commandment concerns charity.”10 Although theologians often

complicate the relationship between love and law, Augustine's simple approach follows closely

with what Jesus explained when a lawyer asked him about the greatest commandment: “And he

said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with

all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love

your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets'”

(Matt 22:27-40). Therefore, love is a matter of obedience, fulfilling God's commandments.

Indeed, Augustine sees love as non-negotiable for the Christian: “This is our hope, brothers, that

we be set free by the one who is free; and by setting us free, he makes us slaves. For we were

slaves of lust; freed, we are made slaves of love.”11 Thus, love is not merely the goal of spiritual

formation, but it is the requirement that Jesus lays upon those who wish to follow him.

On Loving

True love begins with love for God. In the scheme of properly ordered loves, there can

be no person or no thing more worthy of love than God himself:

What should we choose to love particularly, if not the one thing we can find that
is unsurpassed? This is God; and if in loving anything else we make it preferable
or equal to him, we have forgotten how to love ourselves. The nearer we

10 Augustine, The Augustine Catechism, 133.

11 Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John, 28-54, translated by John W. Rettig (Washington, DC: Catholic
University of America Press, 1993), 143.
 Gerber 6

approach to him, the better it is for us; for nothing is better than him. We approach
him, however, not by moving, but by loving.12

Certainly, no Christian would argue with this doctrine, but what perhaps makes Augustine unique

is his insistence that we love God not because we owe love to him as our Creator, nor even that

we doubly owe love to him as our Redeemer, but that we ought to love God because he is worthy

of love. The former two reasons focuses on our debt and duty to God, but Augustine's

motivation focuses on God's ontological infinite value and worth. Furthermore, Augustine

explains, our loving God for his infinite glory works in our favor: “The nearer we approach to

him, the better it is for us; for nothing is better than him.” Loving God is not a debt that we must

discharge, but it is a joy that we ought to seek.

So, how do we go about loving God? Augustine argues that one of the primary ways that

we love God is that we love other people—that is, we serve other people. Explicitly citing the

answer Jesus gave to the lawyer regarding the greatest commandment, Augustine writes:

Indeed always consider that God and neighbor must be loved, “God with all the
heart, with all the soul, with all the mind,' and 'the neighbor as the self.”...The
love of God is first in the order of commandment, but the love of neighbor is first
in the order of action.13

We are commanded first and foremost to love God; however, if we limit “love” to loving God,

our “love” would be extremely abstract. For this reason, Augustine argues that we love God

precisely by loving our neighbor—loving our neighbor is “first in the order of action,” even if

loving God is “first in the order of commandment.”

Augustine argues this on the basis of his exegesis of 1 John 4:11-12: “Beloved, if God so

loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another,

12 Augustine, “Letter 155,” 96.

13 Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John, 11-27, translated by John W. Rettig (Washington, DC: Catholic
University of America Press, 1988), 116.
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God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” In these verses, Augustine sees motivation for

loving our neighbor as well as the method by which we grow in our ability to love both God and

neighbor:

Now your vision is by faith, then it will be by sight; and if we love while we do
not see, with what ardour shall we embrace when we have seen! But how are our
hearts to be trained? Through love of the brethren. You may say, 'I have never
seen God'; you cannot say, 'I have never seen a man.' Love your brother; in
loving the brother whom you see, you will see God at the same time. For you will
see charity itself, and there within is God dwelling.14

The motivation for love is that we might see God, which, to Augustine, represents the height of

bliss: “Nothing more than that joy [of seeing God] will be needed, because there will be nothing

more that can be desired.”15 The method by which we come to see God, though, is “in loving the

brother whom you see.”

Still, it is important to note that Augustine does not think that our love for God is the

same quality of love that we have for “the brother whom you see.” Augustine is careful to

distinguish the love of enjoyment from the love of use: “Among all the things there are,

therefore, those alone are to be enjoyed which we have noted as being eternal and unchanging,

while the rest are to be used, in order that we may come at last to the enjoyment of the former

sort.”16 For Augustine, only God is to be “enjoyed,” while the rest—people included—are to be

“used” in our attempts to enjoy God. In fact, he strongly condemns any attempt to “enjoy” other

people apart from God's sake: “What I mean by charity or love is any urge of the spirit to find

joy in God for his own sake, and in oneself and one's neighbor for God's sake; by cupidity or

greed any impulse of the spirit to find joy in oneself and one's neighbor, and in any kind of

14 Augustine, “Ten Homilies on the First Epistle General of St. John,” 299.
15 Augustine, The Trinity, translated by Stephen McKenna (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America
Press, 1963), 25.
16 Augustine, Teaching Christianity, 114.
 Gerber 8

bodily thing at all, not for God's sake.”17 By “used,” Augustine does not at all mean anything

like “taken advantage of,” which is sometimes what we mean by the word. Rather, Augustine is

simply trying to show that, because God is “eternal and unchanging,” we can love him

unreservedly, without ever coming to the end of his worthiness. Created beings and things, on

the other hand, are finite, and so they therefore cannot be a source of infinite enjoyment. This

does not, however, detract from the obligation and joy of loving other people, because Augustine

sees the promised reward of seeing God (beyond which “nothing more...can be desired”) as both

the motivation to love “the brother whom you see” as well as the rein to keep us from trying to

find the kind of enjoyment in finite creatures that they cannot possibly give to us.

Similarly, Augustine warns us against loving ourselves, yet his instructions on this matter

are a bit more complicated than we might first imagine. He writes:

But if it should be asked how the world of perdition, which hates the world of
redemption, loves itself, it loves itself assuredly with a false love, not with a true
one. Accordingly it loves itself falsely and hates truly. For 'he who loves iniquity
hates his own soul.' But [the world] is said to love itself because it loves the
iniquity by which it is iniquitous; and again it is said to hate itself because it loves
that which harms it. Therefore it hates its nature, [which is] in it; it loves its fault.
It hates what it was made [to be] by the goodness of God; it loves what was made
in it by free will.18

Augustine, then, understands that there is both a true love of self and a false love of self.

Augustine's assumption in all of this is that God is good, and, therefore, loving God is a good

thing. So, loving iniquity (i.e., hating God) is a bad thing. Those who reject God out of an

unrestrained love for their own desires, pleasures, and values (i.e., out of what they

misunderstand to be self-love) do so to their own harm. Instead, Augustine encourages people to

17 Ibid., 176.
18 Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John, 55-111, translated by John W. Rettig (Washington, DC: Catholic
University of America Press, 1994), 149.
 Gerber 9

love themselves truly by seeking to love God: “For the immortality and imperishability of the

body results from the health of the spirit; and the health of the spirit consists in clinging

unshakably to the one who is more powerful, that is to the unchanging God.”19

Instruction in Spiritual Formation

Although many Christians think and act as though there is a distinction between theology

and spiritual formation, where the latter is purely intellectual and the former purely practical,

Augustine's preaching helps us to see how Christians might effectively blend the two. In

Augustine's preaching, he moves beyond mere biblical commentary and theological explanation

to exhort those under his spiritual care to become disciples in the process of learning to love.

When he exhorts, however, he never browbeats his hearers; instead, his main strategy is to

encourage them to see that to love God and their neighbor would be the highest good that they

could seek for themselves. In his manual on how to instruct people in the Christian faith, De

Doctrina Christiana, he explains his rationale for this belief:

So what human beings have to be instructed in is precisely the way in which we

are to love ourselves so as to benefit from it. But to doubt whether we do love
ourselves and wish to benefit from doing so is simply crazy. We also need to be
instructed how to love our bodies, so as to care for them in an orderly and prudent
manner....So it is no reason to say that people do not value the health and safety of
their bodies, just because there is something they love more.20

In this, there is no hint of asceticism for its own sake, or body-denying Gnosticism; rather, we

see here that Augustine's approach to spiritual formation arises from the belief that people should

love themselves, but that they should recognize that there are better things for themselves and for

their bodies than what their immediate desires, impulses, and temptations might suggest.

19 Augustine, Teaching Christianity, 116.

20 Ibid., 117.
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In one of the sermons that Augustine preached in Carthage, he precisely argues that his

listeners are self-deceived to think that they gain something by following their own desires and

losing something by giving themselves over to God:

After all, why are you afraid to give yourself, as though you may waste yourself?
Rather, it's if you don't give yourself that you will love yourself. Charity herself
speaks through wisdom, and tells you something to save you from panicking at
being told, “Give yourself.”...“Give me your heart,” she says; “let it be mine and
it won't be lost to you.”
...
But you will answer, 'When did I not love myself?' You may be quite sure
you weren't loving yourself when you weren't loving the God who made you.
When in fact you were hating yourself, you imagined you were loving yourself.
Whoever loves iniquity, you see, hates his own soul (Ps 11:5).21

In the first paragraph, he begins by pointing out the real fear that his listeners have: they believe

that, if they give themselves over to God (i.e., if they begin to love God), they will not only lose

control of their lives, but they will lose any hope for a good life. On the contrary, he argues: the

only way that we can gain our lives is by losing them! Then, Augustine exposes our profound

mistake: we hate ourselves when we imagine that loving ourselves requires us to reject God.

By putting his finger on the real concern of his listeners and logically working through

why this such a fear is misplaced, his sermon is all the more effective. Here, Augustine appeals

to both the mind and the emotions of his congregation, appealing to them at a very practical

level: “If you want to love yourself,” Augustine reasons, “then you must first love God.” This

profoundly personal claim resists the possibility of agreeing with it, but not putting it into action.

There are only two choices here: (1) to believe the logic, and therefore to love God first in our

actions; or (2) to reject the logic, and therefore to go on loving—yet actually hating—ourselves.

21 Augustine, “Sermon 34: Sermon Preached in Carthage at the Ancestors,” in Sermons, vol. 2, translated by
Edmund Hill, edited by John E. Rotelle (Brooklyn, NY: New City Press, 1990), 169-70.
 Gerber 11

Next, we should note that Augustine urges his congregation toward true love not only to

convert them to Christian faith (that is, in the process of justification), but also as a way to teach

Christians the general principle for living in a manner pleasing to God (that is, in the process of

sanctification). Augustine proclaims: “Thus a short a simple precept is given you once for all:

Love, and do what you will....Let love's root be within you, and from that root nothing but good

can spring.22 There is no complicated formula—there is only love, and from that single root,

“nothing but good can spring.” There is no other virtue than loving what ought to be loved.

Moreover, love is not useful only in describing what we should do, but also in describing

how we do those things. In another sermon that Augustine preached at the feast of a martyr,

Augustine opens by arguing that his listeners were not different from the martyr, because

everyone goes to extreme lengths to get what he loves, whether for good or for evil:

Reflect on this, then (and see the differences). Think of all the evils that greedy
men are prepared to face. Think how they will put up with hardship, in order to
win the things they are greedy for—things that seem unbearable to people who
don't share their greed. But love makes them brave. Love of evil, though, is
called “greed,” love of good is called “charity.”23

Working on this theme, he shows his congregation that the reason that they themselves do not

live as the martyrs did is not that they are not as motivated as the martyrs were; rather, the reason

is that they do not love what the martyrs loved, and he exhorts his listeners to take up the same

cause that the martyrs did: “Still, my brothers, make the invisible goals of the martyrs your aim.

Love the things they loved. Even though you don't need to endure what they endured, still

prepare your spirits to endure it. Choose your cause first of all, as far as you can.” 24 All humans

naturally suffer for one thing or another, so we must be careful to choose the cause for which we

22 Augustine, “Ten Homilies on the First Epistle General of St. John,” 316.
23 Augustine, “Sermon 335C,” 53.
24 Ibid., 57.
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will suffer. If we suffer for greed, we suffer in vain. If we suffer for charity, however, we will

still suffer, but we will gain the eternal life that the martyrs gained. So, as we try to figure out

how we are to do what we are supposed to do, we must recognize that misdirected motivation—

not any lack of motivation—is our greatest enemy.

The practical applications of this theological perspective are limitless. So many times,

the church implicitly (and sometimes even explicitly!) preaches a message that urges people to

“try harder” to obey God, but such a message ignores the root of the problem: people do not

want to obey God. When a Christian sins, he should not first tell himself that he needs to “try

harder next time”; rather, he needs to realize that his sin is an indication that he loves something

more than he loves God, and his greatest need is to have his loves reordered. This is why

Augustine urges us to “Choose your cause first of all, as far as you can.” But, lest we imagine

that we ourselves can reorder our own loves by the strength of our faith, Augustine explains

clearly that “Faith, then, both in its beginning and in its completeness, is a gift of God.” 25

Therefore, our free will is not capable to choose God (i.e., to love God) apart from God's grace.

Our recourse, then, is not to “try harder,” but to ask and to depend upon God for more grace in

order that we might love him more, and that all our other loves might be more perfectly ordered.

Conclusion

Augustine's theology of love permeates the whole of his understanding of what

Christianity is, from beginning to end. Augustine argues that we are foremost supposed to love

God, but that our love of God consists in loving the people around us and even in loving

ourselves truly. The question Augustine wants always to be in the front of our minds is whether

25 Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints, translated by Roland Teske, S. J. (New York: New City Press,
1999) I/26, p. 162.
 Gerber 13

our loves are properly ordered, that is, whether we are loving everyone and everything in our life

to the proportion to which they deserve our love. In this, Augustine sees no possible distinction

between theology and practice—the most profound theology as well as the most perfect living

consist in seeking, by the grace of God, to love what ought to be loved.

 Gerber 14

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Augustine. The Augustine Catechism: The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love, translated by Bruce
Harbert, edited by John E. Rotelle. Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1999.

Augustine. The City of God Against the Pagans, edited and translated by R. W. Dyson. New York:
Cambridge, UP, 1998.

Augustine, “Exposition 2 of Psalm 31.” In Expositions of the Psalms 1-32, Pt. 3, Vol. 1, translated by
Maria Boulding, edited by John E. Rotelle, 362-87. Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2000.

Augustine, “Letter 155: Augustine to Macedonius (413/414).” In Augustine: Political Writings, edited by
E. M. Atkins and R. J. Dodaro, 89-99. New York: Cambridge UP, 2001.

Augustine. Literal Meaning of Genesis, Vol. 2, translated by John Hammond Taylor, S. J. New York:
Newman Press, 1982.

Augustine. On the Predestination of the Saints, translated by Roland Teske, S. J. (New York: New City
Press, 1999) I/26, pp. 149-87.

Augustine, “Sermon 34: Sermon Preached in Carthage at the Ancestors.” In Sermons, Pt. 3, Vol. 2,
translated by Edmund Hill, edited by John E. Rotelle, 166-70. Brooklyn, NY: New City Press,
1990.

Augustine, “Sermon 335C: The Sermon of the Blessed Bishop Augustine on the Feast of a Martyr.” In
Augustine: Political Writings, edited by E. M. Atkins and R. J. Dodaro, 53-59. New York:
Cambridge UP, 2001.

Augustine. Teaching Christianity (De Doctrina Christiana), translated by Edmund Hill, edited by John E.
Rotelle. Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1996.

Augustine, “Ten Homilies on the First Epistle General of St. John.” In Augustine: Later Works, selected
and translated with introduction by John Burnaby, The Library of Christian Classics, vol. VIII, .
Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1955.

Augustine. Tractates on the Gospel of John, 11-27, translated by John W. Rettig. Washington, DC:
Catholic University of America Press, 1988.

Augustine. Tractates on the Gospel of John, 28-54, translated by John W. Rettig. Washington, DC:
Catholic University of America Press, 1993.

Augustine. Tractates on the Gospel of John, 55-111, translated by John W. Rettig. Washington, DC:
Catholic University of America Press, 1994.

Augustine. The Trinity, translated by Stephen McKenna. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of
America Press, 1963.