By Fr. Glenn Jones:
When you watch the fiction of television, you’ll often see portrayals of freedom as being unrestrained license to do anything that passions impel you to do at the moment. Sadly, often tragically, things don’t tend to turn out well when you do that—either for yourself or for those around you. TV is, after all, fiction. How much pain has been doled out because we don’t restrain ourselves when we give in to temptations moving us to do things which are wrong—the tearing apart of families, destruction of financial security, health problems, feuds, and even murder, etc.
Freedom, according to much of Christian tradition, is not found in the unrestrained satisfaction of our desires but in the very mastery over desires. The aphorism, “Freedom is not obtained by getting what you desire, but by controlling your desires,” ostensibly by Greek philosopher Epictetus, encapsulates a deep biblical and patristic truth as well—one that speaks not only to self-discipline but to the very heart of spiritual maturity.
Scripture often warns against the dangers of unchecked desires. St. Paul states, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). This warning is echoed throughout the New Testament, where the “desires of the flesh” are depicted not as mere physical impulses, but as spiritual forces contending for the rule of the heart. Paul had just previously remarked, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1), making it clear that slavery to desire is opposed to the true freedom Christ promises.
The letter of James captures consequences of ungoverned desire: “You desire and do not have, so you kill. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel” (James 4:2). Violence and division that spring from uncontrolled desire reveal that when passions are allowed to direct our lives, we become the servants, not the masters, of our own cravings.
Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount goes to the emotional heart of the matter, as when He says: “Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Our thoughts and “heart” must be formed and tamed lest interior freedom be consumed by a tyranny of animal impulse; we see this all the time in the violence pervading society—abuse, assault, theft, etc.
Early Church Fathers placed emphasis on the necessity and striving of mastering desire, seeing unrestrained passion as a primary obstacle to union with God. St. Augustine remarked in his “Confessions”: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you,” indicating that only when desire is oriented towards God does it find satisfaction and peace.
St. John Cassian, drawing on the teachings of the Desert Fathers, identifies eight principal vices—among them gluttony, lust, and avarice—all distorted expressions of desire. According to Cassian, the discipline of early ascetics and asceticism is precisely the work of reordering desire, not its annihilation: “It is not that desire is evil in itself, but that it must be harnessed and directed toward holy ends.”
The great Christian theologian/philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas taught that controlling the passions is not about suppressing or destroying them but about regulating and directing them according to reason. The key to virtue, according to Aquinas, is bringing passions under the governance of reason so that they contribute to moral good rather than leading to evil. St. Thomas held that the passions are natural and necessary; they are part of being human, morally good when they are ruled and moderated by reason, which acts as a kind of “arbiter and monarch” over the passions so that they do not lead to regret or remorse born from unreasonable impulse. Rather than aiming for self-denial that rejects natural urges, the goal is to cultivate and train the passions so that they support the whole person and the pursuit of virtue.
In Aquinas’s view, moral virtue perfects the will and helps direct passions toward appropriate objects in the right measure, at the right time, and with the right intention. For example, temperance is the virtue that moderates desires for bodily pleasures, while meekness moderates anger. Virtue does not eradicate passions; instead, virtue refines and integrates the passions into a rational, ordered life. This fosters a state where temptations lose their overwhelming power, and the passions more naturally serve the good of the person.
The Church Fathers insist that reason, illumined by faith and grace, must govern the passions. Fallen humanity experiences a rupture between reason and desire, a tension St. Paul describes as “the law in my members waging war against the law of my mind” (Romans 7:23). They champion practical steps: prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and vigilant examination of conscience. St. Basil the Great would write, “A person is truly free who does not sink under the bondage of his passions,” and St. Gregory of Nyssa: “The one who conquers himself is the greatest victor.”
Yet the discipline of self-control is not rooted in stoic suppression but in orienting the heart towards what is most worthy—God and virtue. Christianity teaches that the ordering of desires is achieved not simply by negation but by the attraction of a greater good. “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4)—not because God fulfills every passing urge, but because in Him desire is purified and directed to what truly satisfies. The struggle to master desire is thus the path along which freedom is won: not freedom as license, but as the capacity to choose the good. Only then is the heart free to love, to rejoice in the fullness of life for which it was made.
“Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.” (Proverbs 16:32)
Editor’s note: Rev. Glenn Jones is the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and former pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Los Alamos.