Resisting Idolatry and Instrumentalisation in Loving the Neighbour: The Significance of the Pilgrimage Motif for Augustine’s Usus–Fruitio Distinction

Abstract

This article addresses Augustine’s distinction between usus and fruitio—and O’Donovan’s critique of it—in order to consider the dangers of disordered love in the forms of idolatry and instrumentalisation in neighbourly relations on earth. Examining the christological heart of the pilgrimage image as articulated in De doctrina christiana addresses O’Donovan’s critique that the pilgrimage image instrumentalises one’s relationships to others in the progress of one’s own journey to God. In fact, this image presents a christological dialectic that establishes the continuity of earthly and eschatological neighbour-love and thus protects the neighbour from being made either idol or instrument by securing their right place in the order of love.