Ordered Affections

 There are a lot of things that we love in this life. But as Christians, we have a duty before God to keep our affections (loves) in order.

The Ten Commandments make this clear. The First Commandment teaches us to "have no other gods." And Luther, in the Small Catechism, explains that this means, "we should fear, love, and trust in God above all things."

Luther is describing keeping our loves (affections) in order. God above all. Followed by our neighbor. Indeed, when we speak about "vocation," which is God's calling for our lives, we consider our duty to our neighbor in the various roles that God has given to us. Vocation is more than a "job." It is being a good and faithful spouse, parent, child, employee, boss, etc. It is about loving our neighbor. 

In his book, On Christian Doctrine, St. Augustine speaks to this ordering of loves and describes it as a journey toward our native land (heaven, paradise, the Kingdom of God!). Likewise, ordered affections is the basis for a virtuous life, fixed on things of eternal value. 

He writes,

And thus men are driven back from their native land by the contrary blasts of evil habits, and pursue lower and less valuable objects in preference to that which they own to be more excellent and more worthy. (I.9)

The Kingdom of God is of highest value. It is good and true and beautiful above all things. And the short span of human life is filled with all sorts of good and holy things that we could pursue. But we are constantly assailed by easier, evil ways of life. So we pursue things that are of less value than the Kingdom of Heaven. We spend ourselves on things that are meant to be blessings, but not the objects of our devotion.

Let us look upon this purification as a kind of journey or voyage to our native land. For it is not by change of place that we can come nearer to Him who is in every place, but by the cultivation of pure desires and virtuous habits. (I.10)

This is true sanctification. We pray for God to teach us to love Him and to love (truly love!) what He loves. 

Now he is a man of just and holy life who forms an unprejudiced estimate of things, and keeps his affections also under strict control, so that he neither loves what he ought not to love, nor fails to love what he ought to love, nor loves that more which ought to be loved less, nor loves that equally which ought to be loved either less or more, nor loves that less or more which ought to be loved equally. (I.28)

Here Augustine makes it clear what the order of our loves should be. It should correspond to the ultimate, transcendent reality of things. What we love is not merely a personal choice, or a matter of opinion. We should love God above all and love what He commands in the order that He commands. It is not arbitrary, but rather, it is based upon the very nature of God and the order of creation.  

...there is this great difference between things temporal and things eternal, that a temporal object is valued more before we possess it, and begins to prove worthless the moment we attain it, because it does not satisfy the soul, which has its only true and sure resting-place in eternity: an eternal object, on the other hand, is loved with greater ardor when it is in possession than while it is still an object of desire, for no one in his longing for it can set a higher value on it than really belongs to it, so as to think it comparatively worthless when he finds it of less value than he thought; on the contrary, however high the value any man may set upon it when he is on his way to possess it, he will find it, when it comes into his possession, of higher value still. (I. 42)

Finally, Augustine points out this profound truth that most people have experienced, even if they have not understood it. The lie of temporal desires is that, when we obtain them, we will actually experience substantial satisfaction. But we don't. Sure, the things that we obtain may provide some finite and temporary joy. But the very fact that we always seem to want something else, something more, proves that the promise was a lie. We are like children who have waited for that ONE SPECIAL GIFT on Christmas. We have yearned for it for weeks or months. And we rip open the packaging with such great vigor and joy. But after the newness of possessing it passes, we move on to desiring something else. 

But it is not so with eternal things. It is not so with the Kingdom of Heaven. We can never value God's Kingdom enough. It is always worth more and is more satisfying than we imagine. 

And so, may we all eagerly strive with God's help, for better ordered lives, in which our loves and our values are governed by God's Holy Word and empowered by the love of God in Christ and Him crucified, for us and for our salvation! Amen.

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Quotes from:
Augustine of Hippo. (1887). On Christian Doctrine. In P. Schaff (Ed.), J. F. Shaw (Trans.), St. Augustin’s City of God and Christian Doctrine (Vol. 2, p. 534). Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company.