Augustine on Desire and Music
The role of desire has received much attention in recent Christian thought. Largely this turn stems from James K. A. Smith’s writings. Smith wrote in 2009, “[W]e are primarily desiring animals rather than merely thinking things.”[1] He contends that we are primarily lovers and not knowers, thus churches should aim to shape and form the congregation’s desires by appealing to them. He intends to draw the congregant into a gut-level, subconscious knowledge rather than a purely intellectual understanding of God.[2]
Smith is right to emphasize the deep and abiding role aesthetics play in our lives. However, his model places desire or love at the core of human nature. How consistent is his view with church history? After all, Smith states that he wants to develop a more “robustly Augustinian anthropology.”[3]
The late 4th century divine, Augustine of Hippo (perhaps better known as St. Augustine) long contemplated the proper place of man’s desire. And one of the most interesting angles from which he approached it was worship music. Thus, we’re going to consider Augustine’s approach to desire, its relationship with music, and its role in theological anthropology. We’ll then conclude by analyzing Smith’s contributions.
I Was Enthralled: The Power of Desire
Though raised by a Christian mother, Augustine (354-430) was a rebellious young man. Trained in rhetoric and grammar, he became a widely respected teacher and thinker. After coming to faith in Christ, Augustine developed into the Christian thinker of the ages. Few men outside Scripture have influenced Church doctrine as has Augustine.
Nearing death, Augustine penned his Confessions attempting to disillusion those who idolized him. This work consists of autobiography, spiritual contemplation, and some Biblical interpretation. The autobiography describes the depth of his early sin and salvation, as well as informs his later discussion of spiritual matters. The latter point is important for our purposes.
Confessions contains Augustine’s contemplation on desire mediated through the five senses. Turning to the pleasures of sound he writes, “I was enthralled by them [sounds], but You broke my bonds and set me free.”[4] For Augustine, sound has the power to enslave us through desire. Because of sound’s ability to arrest our conscious thought, he became wary of its power. Deepening his concern, Augustine found that sound’s potency only increases when it’s molded into the medium of music.
As he notes, music is “mysteriously” related to our emotions and thus uniquely affects us.[5] Like other thinkers of the ancient world, Augustine believed that types of music corresponded with particular emotions and attitudes. Accordingly for Augustine music is a medium that strongly affects the communication of words: “[W]hen they are sung these sacred words stir my mind to greater religious fervor and kindle in me a more ardent flame of piety than they would if they were not sung.”[6]
For Augustine, worship music is the “setting for the words” accentuating the meaning and appealing to emotion through “appropriate tune[s].”[7] Because he believed that different types of music affect our emotions and attitudes differently, musical accompaniment must be appropriate to the words and setting of worship.
Augustine reservedly concludes “to approve of the custom of singing in church.”[8] However, his approval of music is limited: “[W]hen I find the singing itself more moving than the truth which it conveys, I confess that this is a grievous sin, and at those times I would prefer not to hear the singer.”[9]
Augustine only considered music as good if it did not captivate his desires or overcome the words it was meant to adorn. In fact, he thanked God for freeing him and giving him the ability to “tear” himself away from its hold on his desire.[10] Music’s ability to access our desires deeply troubled Augustine. Yet why was he so concerned about desire?
An Inveterate Usurper: Desire’s Rebellion Against Reason
According to Augustine, desire is good within its proper place—subordinate to reason.[11] However, he also believed that desire is dangerous insofar as it “paralyzes” our minds. Even more troubling was his realization that desire is an inveterate usurper of reason and must therefore be vigilantly guarded against.
When desire is given control of our actions, it unrestrainedly tries to satisfy its insatiable appetite. Yet we’re called by Paul to produce the fruit of self-control and reminded that the “passions and desires” of the flesh have been “crucified” (Gal. 5:23, 24). Therefore, our desire demands governance from our will and reason through self-control.
Building on this concept, Augustine found self-control a healing force for our relationship to ourselves and with God.
Truly it is by continence that we are made as one and regain that unity of self which we lost by falling apart in the search for a variety of pleasures. For a man loves You so much the less if, besides You, he also loves something else which he does not love for Your sake.[12]
Because desire is undiscerning and immoderate, it leads to disorder within us. The “variety of pleasures” that our desire craves engenders discord, unless self-control restrains and guides it.
Cultivating Desire
Contrast Augustine’s approach with James K. A. Smith’s: “[W]e are fundamentally desiring creatures.”[13] “[T]he way we inhabit the world is not primarily as thinkers,” he argues, “but as . . . embodied creatures who make our way in the world more by feeling our way around in it.”[14] He concludes then that the way to educate and form Christians is by appealing to desire.
Augustine also situates desire as foundational to our humanity especially in City of God. However, Smith diverges from Augustine’s approach to engaging desire as he expresses it in the Confessions. Smith suggests that we should form and guide desire by appealing to it through physical practices, thereby promoting desire over reason.
Augustine did not find desire trustworthy. As desire is fulfilled through the gratification of our senses, it “paralyses” the mind.[15] Scripture guided reason, on the other hand, allows desire to flourish within the bounds of Scriptural commands.
However, when desire is given preeminence it quells any dissent to its insatiable appetite. Augustine found desire always looking to “forge ahead” of reason and not “content to take second place.”[16] He confesses that desire’s usurpation is “sin” which he often is “not aware of until later.”[17] Therefore, desire must be ever-vigilantly controlled by Scripture guided reason. How then do we find the appropriate balance of desire and reason in life and in worship?
Conclusion: If I Am Not to Turn a Deaf Ear to Music
Augustine struggled mightily to find a happy space for desire and reasoned self-control to inhabit together. He realized his love for music could entice his desire into idolatry. “But,” he concluded, “if I am not to turn a deaf ear to music . . . I must allow it a position of some honor in my heart, and I find it difficult to assign it to its proper place.”[18]
Augustine thus determines that reason needs to control and guide desire. In this way we can delight in the gift of music while still holding desire in check. Though Smith tries to associate with Augustine, he can only do so in the most rudimentary of ways. True, Augustine finds desire very important to human nature: “Our hearts find no peace until they rest in You.”[19] Yet Augustine differs with Smith in how to engage desire.
For Smith, desire is best formed and directed toward God by practices which engage the five senses. His return to medieval methods of pedagogy involving architecture, incense, iconography, and liturgy are intended to draw people into a deeper experience of God.[20] However, because desire guides his methods, they are prone to the excesses of desire.[21] Though Smith encourages engaging the revealed means of grace in Scripture, he also embraces extra-biblical practices.
In contrast, Augustine holds that desire should be recognized, but guided by Scripture-informed reason. Augustine’s approach takes into account our inability to serve two masters (Mt. 6:24). Either desire will reign in our bodies, or we will allow God’s Word to guide our reason in its control of desire. When properly channeled and conformed to Scripture, desire develops into a rich full-bodied delight that finds its only satisfaction in God. Smith rightly calls our attention to desire, but perhaps he would be better served by being more Augustinian.
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[1] James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 26.
[2] Ibid., 26 and 28.
[3] Ibid., 46.
[4] Augustine, Confessions 10. 33.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid., 10. 29.
[13] Smith, 40.
[14] Ibid., 47.
[15] Augustine, Confessions 10. 33.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid. 1. 1.
[20] Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 155-159; and James K. A. Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 140.
[21] Smith intends to combat the secular and commercial enticement of our desire by replacing it with godly desires. Yet, appealing to desire (even with good intentions) is problematic, because in doing so the line between godly and worldly desires grows blurry.
March 23, 2015
Excellent Article! Sort of destroys aesthetic relativism that is so prevalent among evangelicals today. Thank you for the timely article.
March 24, 2015
You’re absolutely right Bro. Tim. Both Augustine and James K. A. Smith demand a robust and honest assessment of aesthetics in our worship. I may have differences with both these men in some areas, but on that we agree whole heartedly and may their tribe increase. Thanks, for your readership and kind comment Bro. Tim.
March 26, 2015
Philip, thank you for sharing this. Augustine’s struggle with desire and reason resonated with me, and I’m thankful you shared his conclusion.
March 30, 2015
Thank you for your readership, Rebekah. I’m glad that you found Augustine helpful.