Contemporary Christianity, particularly within Catholic and Evangelical circles, often presents a divided vision of human fulfillment.¹ This division stems from the contrasting legacies of influential theologians, most notably Augustine and Aquinas.² Their differing views on desire, fulfillment, the nature of happiness, and even the ultimate destiny of humanity continue to shape modern debates, impacting how believers navigate their relationship with God, creation, and their own desires.³

This exploration will trace these contrasting views, highlighting how Aquinas's thought, while influenced by Augustine, aligns more closely with a biblically Jewish and New Testament understanding of a holistic, embodied, and creation-affirming eschatology.⁴

The False Choice Between God and Creation

A profound theological error, originating in the philosophical synthesis of Augustine of Hippo, has taken root in contemporary teaching.⁵ This error forces a false choice upon the faithful: one must either enjoy God or enjoy the creation.⁶ It posits that the ultimate purpose of human life is the enjoyment (frui) of a transcendent God, and that all created things must only be "used" (uti) as a means to that end.⁷ This framework, born of a Neoplatonic suspicion of the material world, inevitably leads to a flawed and pastorally damaging definition of idolatry.⁸

When intense love for a spouse, deep grief over a lost child, or passionate ambition in one's vocation is diagnosed as making an "idol" out of a created thing, a deep distortion of the biblical worldview has occurred.⁹ This is not a misapplication of a correct principle, but the logical outcome of a fundamentally incorrect one.¹⁰ This article argues that the Augustinian uti/frui (use/enjoyment) framework devalues creation and pathologizes God-given human affections.¹¹ The true purpose of humanity is not a static, contemplative enjoyment of God, but a dynamic, vocational partnership with God in the stewarding, ruling, and perfecting of His creation.¹²

Deconstructing Augustine’s Neoplatonic Engine

Augustine's influential uti/frui distinction is the mechanism by which Greek philosophy was injected into Western Christian thought, creating a definition of sin and idolatry that is fundamentally flawed.¹³

The Architecture of Use and Enjoyment

In On Christian Doctrine, Augustine establishes a hierarchy of love that has shaped Western theology for centuries.¹⁴ He argues: "To enjoy something is to hold fast to it in love for its own sake. To use something is to apply whatever it may be to the purpose of obtaining what you love, if indeed it is something that ought to be loved."¹⁵ From this, Augustine argues that God alone is the proper object of enjoyment.¹⁶ All other things—including other people—are to be "used" as means to the end of enjoying God.¹⁷ Consequently, sin is fundamentally amor inordinatus—disordered love.¹⁸ To enjoy a created thing for its own sake is, in this system, the very definition of disordered love (cupiditas) and the essence of sin.¹⁹

The Instrumentalization of Creation

This creates a hierarchy where any pleasure or fulfillment found in creation is primarily instrumental—a mere vehicle or a road on a pilgrimage.²⁰ The created order is not our home, but a temporary landscape to be traversed on the way to a non-material destination.²¹ His view that dominion is a form of "use" rather than "enjoyment" reinforces the idea that creation is a tool, its value measured only by its ability to draw us closer to God.²²

The Contemporary Crisis: "Heart Idolatry"

This Augustinian perspective, through its Neoplatonic lens, can lead to an unbalanced view that casts suspicion on natural human desires.²³ This has manifested in contemporary Christian circles as a trend to label any strong desire that leads to disappointment as "heart idolatry," encouraging the suppression of desires rather than their proper ordering.²⁴

The Pathologizing of Grief and Affection

Those who hold to the view that Jesus is the fulfillment of all of our desires will point to feelings of frustration and grief as evidence of "heart idolatry."²⁵ Unlike the natural law approach, which values the development of inherent capacities rooted in the created order, the pietistic solution puts forward Jesus as the spiritual fulfiller of all physical needs.²⁶

Aaron Renn notes that this manifests concretely in both Catholic and Protestant urban churches:

"We see it in how any desire that causes people to become upset can be defined as a form of idolatry. This is true especially for the supposed “idolatry of the family.” A large number of people, especially women, in churches who deeply desired to be married and have children did not. Their grief over this is not evidence of idolatry1 but of legitimate loss2. In essence, to be very hurt or upset by desires unfulfilled is treated as evidence that we’ve put our hope in something other than Christ."²⁷

The result is a system that breeds spiritual anxiety, forcing believers to constantly police their own hearts for feelings that are "too strong."²⁸

The "Buddhist Inflection" and Asceticism

When this trajectory is followed, many arrive at a position strikingly similar to Buddhism because of its negative view of "natural appetites."²⁹ The path to avoiding sin thus becomes the purging of oneself of desires.³⁰ When being devastated by the loss of a child is diagnosed as the sin of idolatry, the only logical path to holiness is to purge the deep attachments that make such devastation possible.³¹ As Renn posits: “The church has gaslit people into believing that if there’s anything you want [and] don’t get it [and then] you feel bad, that’s idolatry. [This] creates a Buddhist inflection to Christianity, where the path to truly being focused on God is to essentially empty yourself of any ordinary human desires.”³²

Spiritualizing the Physical

It sounds appealing to argue that a relationship with Jesus is all anyone needs, and that true contentment in Christ brings joy despite lacking the things for which humans were created to do and be.³³ This Platonic approach often disparages the body at the expense of the spirit. One such influencer, Christopher West, has asserted that sexual desire ultimately is a desire for God and that God is the ultimate fulfiller of sexual desire.³⁴ This perverts our view of the natural created order. As G.K. Chesterton noted, one of Thomas Aquinas’s chief accomplishments was to fight against this Platonic interpretation.³⁵ God created humans with drives to be met through His creation; meeting these needs "spiritually" is not only an affront to God but a perversion of the created order (Romans 1:18–32).

The Thomistic Turn: Affirming the Goodness of Nature

While Augustine’s framework leads to a denigration of the world, Thomas Aquinas provides the tools for its rehabilitation.³⁶

Embracing the Telos of Creation

Aquinas, influenced by Aristotle, presents a vision of the created order as inherently good and imbued with purpose (telos).³⁷ Human flourishing is found when human nature finds the fulfillment for which it was created.³⁸ This includes embracing our desires for knowledge, meaningful work, and loving relationships, seeing them not as distractions, but as integral to our God-given nature.³⁹

Grace Perfects Nature

The fundamental difference lies in Aquinas’s decisive correction: "Grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it."⁴⁰ In this framework, created things are not mere instruments; they possess their own intrinsic goodness, integrity, and reality.

Sin as an Act Against Reason

Aquinas provides a more precise definition of sin. Where Augustine sees "disordered love," Aquinas defines it as an act against right reason.⁴¹ One can love a spouse, children, or work with an all-consuming passion (the material element) without turning one's back on God (the formal element).⁴² Rightly ordered reason understands that such passionate loves are themselves great goods essential to human flourishing (eudaimonia).⁴³

The Biblical Alternative: Vocational Partnership

The biblical worldview stands in stark contrast to the model of world-denial. Humanity was created to partner with God in ruling and cultivating the world.

• The Imago Dei: God's images are not lifeless statues, but living human beings acting as representatives.⁴⁴ This is an active, royal-priestly commission to be fruitful and have dominion (Genesis 1:28).⁴⁵
• Mip’nei Tikkun Ha-olam: Literally "for the sake of the order of the world."⁴⁶ It demands deep engagement with creation. The goal isn't to escape creation, but to perfect it.⁴⁷
• New Creation: Biblical Jewish eschatology presents a vision of heaven and earth united.⁴⁸ The earth will be the dwelling place of God, His temple.⁴⁹

Conclusion: From False Guilt to Vocational Passion

The Augustinian doctrine of uti/frui and the resulting definition of "heart idolatry" is a theological error with grievous pastoral consequences. It devalues creation, pathologizes healthy human emotion, and presents a false choice between loving God and loving His world.

A more faithful theology begins with the biblical affirmation of creation's goodness. Our purpose is not to extinguish our desires, but to channel those passions into our vocations as God's partners in the work of Mip'nei Tikkun Ha-olam.

Pastors must abandon the language of "making an idol of the family" or "the idolatry of career." Instead of policing affections, they must equip the faithful for their divine calling. The goal is not to love created things less, but to love them more effectively, creatively, and justly—as faithful partners of the God who entered the world to make all things new.

Endnotes

1. James K. A. Smith, You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2016), 7.
2. Étienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 364.
3. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007), 63.
4. N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 45.
5. Oliver O'Donovan, The Problem of Self-Love in St. Augustine (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980), 22.
6. Augustine of Hippo, De Doctrina Christiana (On Christian Doctrine), trans. R. P. H. Green (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), I.4.
7. Ibid.
8. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, rev. ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 97.
9. David Powlison, "Idols of the Heart and 'Vanity Fair'," The Journal of Biblical Counseling 13, no. 2 (1995): 38.
10. O'Donovan, Problem of Self-Love, 156.
11. Ibid.
12. J. Richard Middleton, The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2005), 51.
13. Moshe Halbertal and Avishai Margalit, Idolatry (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 3.
14. O'Donovan, Problem of Self-Love, 22.
15. Ibid., 156.
16. Brown, Augustine of Hippo, xix.
17. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), I.i.1.
18. Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, I.4.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid., I.5.
22. Ibid., I.3.
23. Ibid., I.22.
24. Augustine of Hippo, De Civitate Dei (The City of God against the Pagans), ed. and trans. R. W. Dyson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), XIV.28.
25. Augustine, City of God, XIV.28.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid.
29. Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Vol. 2: Medieval Philosophy (New York: Image Books, 1993), 83.
30. Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, III.16.
31. O'Donovan, Problem of Self-Love, 156.
32. H. Paul Santmire, The Travail of Nature: The Ambiguous Ecological Promise of Christian Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1985), 58.
33. Augustine, City of God, XV.2.
34. Ibid.
35. Brown, Augustine of Hippo, 257.
36. Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana, I.22.
37. Brown, Augustine of Hippo, 257.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid., 97.
40. Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Vol. 1: Greece and Rome (New York: Image Books, 1993), 463–75.
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid.
49. Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1988), 233.
50. Ibid.
51. Augustine, City of God, I.praef.
52. Aaron M. Renn, "The Heresy of Christian Buddhism," First Things, May 2021, https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/05/the-heresy-of-christian-buddhism.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid.
55. Halbertal and Margalit, Idolatry, 3.
56. Aaron Renn, "Urban Christian Buddhism #9," The Aaron Renn Show, YouTube video, 25:14, November 19, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ4iix52Z5A.
57. Ibid., 19:45.
58. Edward Feser, Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide (London: Oneworld Publications, 2009), 187.
59. Ibid.
60. Heath Lambert, The Biblical Counseling Movement after Adams (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Publishers, 2012), 73-79.
61. Renn, "Urban Christian Buddhism #9."
62. Ibid.
63. Renn, "Heresy of Christian Buddhism."
64. Ibid.
65. Ibid.
66. Renn, "Urban Christian Buddhism #9," 19:45.
67. Renn, "Heresy of Christian Buddhism."
68. James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 40.
69. Ibid.
70. Christopher West, Theology of the Body for Beginners: A Basic Introduction to Pope John Paul II's Sexual Revolution, rev. ed. (Exton, PA: Ascension Press, 2009), 49.
71. Santmire, Travail of Nature, 10.
72. Chesterton, St. Thomas Aquinas, 25.
73. Feser, Aquinas, 187.
74. Gilson, Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, 359.
75. Ibid.
76. Ibid.
77. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 1947, I-II, Q.3, Art.2.
78. Ibid.
79. Ibid.
80. Ibid.
81. Ibid., I-II, Q.4, Art.7.
82. Ibid., I-II, Q.3, Art.2.
83. Ibid., I-II, Q.5, Art.5.
84. Ibid., I-II, Q.4, Art.7.
85. Ibid.
86. Ibid.
87. Josef Pieper, Faith, Hope, Love (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997), 228.
88. Ibid.
89. Ibid.
90. Feser, Aquinas, 103.
91. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, Q.1, Art.8, ad 2.
92. Ibid., I-II, Q.71, Art.6.
93. Feser, Aquinas, 187.
94. Ibid.
95. Pieper, Faith, Hope, Love, 228.
96. Middleton, Liberating Image, 51.
97. John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 73.
98. Ibid., 74.
99. The Bible Project, "Image of God," YouTube video, 4:58, March 20, 2017, 3:15, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbipxLDtY8c.
100. G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church's Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2004), 81.
101. Middleton, Liberating Image, 221.
102. Jonathan Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility (New York: Schocken Books, 2005), 52.
103. Mishnah Gittin 4:2.
104. Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World, 52–53.
105. Ibid., 93.
106. Ibid.
107. Jon D. Levenson, Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), xi.
108. Ibid.
109. Beale, Temple and the Church's Mission, 81.
110. Levenson, Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel, xi.
111. Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World, 93.
112. Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism: Origins to the Fifth Century (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1991), 231.
113. Ibid.
114. Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World, 52–53, 93.
115. Ibid.
116. Ibid.
117. Wright, Surprised by Hope, 107.
118. Ibid., 45.
119. Ibid., 107.
120. N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God, vol. 1 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1992), 147.
121. Wright, Surprised by Hope, 208.
122. N. T. Wright, Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 212.
123. Feser, Aquinas, 189.
124. Ibid.
125. Ibid.
126. J. L. A. West, "Thomism and the Stewardship of Creation," The Heythrop Journal 58, no. 3 (2017): 416.
127. Irenaeus of Lyons, Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies) 4.20.7, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (1885; repr., Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), 488.
128. Ed Brenegar, “Created to Lead: The Imago Dei and the Telos of Humanity,” Ed Brenegar (Substack newsletter), February 27, 2024, https://edbrenegar.substack.com/p/created-to-lead-the-imago-dei-and.