By IHE Scholar Marcela Duque
In one of his audiences on discernment, Pope Francis delivered a series of remarks on the nature of desire, many of which are similar to those in Plato’s Symposium. The Pope describes desire as “a nostalgia for fullness that never finds complete fulfillment” and “the sign of God’s presence in us.” In Plato’s Symposium, Diotima calls Eros an intermediate spirit between god and mortal, abundance and poverty, wisdom and ignorance. Eros, which can be translated as “desire,” is marked by a perceived lack. The gods don’t desire wisdom because they already possess it, while the ignorant don’t desire wisdom because they don’t realize they need it. As Diotima puts it, “No one desires what he does not think he lacks.” Desire, then, is experienced as an absence, a kind of want (notice the Greek algos, meaning pain or grief, at the root of “nostalgia”) that seeks satisfaction.
The trouble with desire, however, is that we might mistakenly assume that acquiring a good or object will satiate our desires and fulfill us. We know how to satisfy simple physical needs (like thirst and hunger), and we usually can do so. We recognize more complex desires as something other than needs, but we sometimes think of them in the same way: a perceived lack that can be satisfied by a certain object, just as water satisfies thirst. For instance, I might desire a certain job and think satisfaction lies in gaining it, only to realize that I still experience lack after I have achieved that goal. We fail to notice that, as Aquinas puts it, “all things, by desiring their own perfection, desire God Himself” (ST I-I, q.6, a.1). Or as the French philosopher René Girard famously puts it, “All desire is a desire for being.” Desire finds ultimate fulfillment in Being itself — in God.
Moreover, it is also possible to mix ignoble motives with otherwise good desires. For instance, I might find myself pursuing some object or path only to realize that my desire is tainted with pride and vainglory. In retrospect, it is often easy to confuse the object (this particular job) for what the object says about me (the prestige it confers). Another example: I might pursue a life of holiness not for the true good but for the admiration and honor that a saintly life yields. Eventually, as I encounter the inevitable humiliations on the path of holiness, I will find the need to purify my desires.
In realizing the complexity of our desires, what should we do? In the same audience mentioned above, Pope Francis invites us to conduct a thought experiment: “If the Lord were to ask us the question he asked the blind man in Jericho: ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ (Mk 10:51) — how would we answer?” If He were to ask us, “What does your heart desire?” would we know how to respond? His question reveals the vacuity of worldly human desires. We would not want an answer that is less than one of the deepest yearnings of our hearts. And yet, would I know what it is?
In the world, many forces draw our desires down various paths. To find our way, we must be attuned to our most intimate desires. The pain, the sense of lack, that accompanies desire is not a reason to annihilate it, as some philosophies would counsel. On the contrary, the road to eternal happiness requires exploring our deepest and truest desire: God Himself. The Holy Father gives us a prayer that can accompany us along this road: “Give us desire and make it grow, Lord.”
