The cultivation of virtue is unarguably a core objective in the classical vision for education. In contrast to knowledge acquisition or skills mastery, growing virtue in our students is about strengthening their internal moral structure. It is fundamentally a project of formation, changing a person for the good in pursuit of it.
Interestingly, Augustine of Hippo, the great medieval theologian, observed that the lives we live and the things we love are inextricably linked. What we love impacts if, and how, we embody the virtues. In this way, seeking to live a virtuous life is both a moral enterprise and an affective one.
In fact, Augustine defines virtue in one of his writings as the possession of rightly ordered loves. If Augustine is correct, then our classical classrooms are incubators for not only the intellect and conscience, but the heart. Or to put it better, the classroom can be a place where the intellect, conscience, will, heart, and even body can grow into an integrated whole.
In this article, I will examine one key passage in Augustine’s City of God to examine closer his notion that virtue can be understood as rightly ordered loves. Then I will offer some practical takeaways for classical educators today.
Origins of the City
In The City of God Against the Pagans, or The City of God for short, Augustine offers a defense against pagan accusations that the fall of Rome is the poor result of the empire’s conversion to Christianity. This magnificent work, earning its place in the western canon of Great Books, is composed of twenty-two books, the first ten of which critique paganism while the final twelve tell the story of the City of God vis a vis the earthly city.
Augustine begins his account of the City of God with creation and, soon after, the fall. Following a fascinating discussion on angels, he examines the sinfulness of humanity and how death is the consequence for Adam’s sin. Augustine’s writing here will serve as the groundwork for the doctrine of original sin, the idea that all humans are born with a fallen nature.
A Proper Response to Reality
It is within this context that Augustine discusses beauty, the good, and the idea of properly ordered loves. In his explication of the early chapters of Genesis, specifically the Nephilim episode, Augustine writes, “For bodily beauty is indeed created by God; but it is a temporal and carnal, and therefore, a lower, good; and if it is loved more than God is…that love is as wrong as the miser’s when he forsakes justice out of his love for gold” (Book 15, Section 22).
In this quotation, Augustine introduces the idea that within objective Goodness, there are various types of individual goods, each of which fall upon a plane of gradation. In other words, gradations of goodness and beauty are hard-wired into reality. This reality generates particular moral obligations for human desire, namely, that we ought to love these goods in a way that is commensurate with their value.
Considering the example of a miserly obsession with gold, Augustine writes, “The fault here, though, lies not with the gold, but with the man; and this is true of every created thing: though it is good, it can be loved well or ill; well when the proper order is observed, and ill when that order is disturbed.”
Virtue as Properly Ordered Loves
Augustine goes on:
But if the Creator is truly loved – that is, if He Himself is loved, and not something else in place of Him – then He cannot be wrongly loved. We must, however, observe right order even in our love for the very love by which we love that which is worthy to be loved, so that there may be in us that virtue which enables us to live well. Hence, it seems to me that a brief and true definition of virtue is ‘rightly ordered love.’
City of God, XV.22
Augustine makes two important points here. First, he points out that in order to love God well, we must love Him most, more than anything else. To love God second, third, or behind any other good, is to mis-love Him.
Second, after ordering love for God as uppermost amongst our loves, we must properly order our subsequent loves. This affective work, we might call it, will serve as the foundation from which virtues can emerge. If Augustine is correct, then one cannot be truly courageous or just or exhibit any other virtues, without some general proper ordering of loves in place.
Takeaways for the Classical Classroom
Augustine’s words are both helpful and convicting for the classical classroom. We talk often about the pursuit of wisdom and the cultivation of virtue. Here at Education Renaissance, we have written extensively about the role of habit training in the project of moral formation and helping our students grow in virtue. If we can help our students rightly order their loves, I believe we will only grow stronger in these endeavors.
One way we can do this is by weaving questions of love and desire into class discussion. What do the different characters in the literature text we are reading love most? Are any of these desires mis-ordered? How have these mis-ordered desires contributed to the problems the characters face?
We can also take the opportunity outside of class to speak into the lives of our students, asking them questions to help them take inventory of their own loves. This should start with affirmation: “I have noticed that you do really well in x. Tell me more about that. Why do you love it so much?” Through these kinds of conversation starters, we can get to the heart and help students begin to monitor and tailor their loves appropriately.
As teachers seek to build class culture and rightly order loves in their classrooms as a whole, here are some additional questions one might ask:
- Do students love learning for the pursuit of knowledge or for the grade that comes with it?
- Do students serve others out of love for neighbor or from a desire to be recognized?
- Do students pursue mastery of some sport, instrument, or other discipline out of a love for the goodness and beauty they create? Or is their motivation driven by modern notions of success?
For most of these questions, the answer is probably both, just as it is for many of us. The goal is not to expect perfection in this area instantaneously, but to consistently plant seeds over the longterm, challenging students to go deeper and consider how they are growing in virtue as people through the way in which their loves are ordered.
For, as the apostle Paul writes, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:1-2 ESV).
