Rediscovering Holy Eros

Today on Ascend: The Great Books Podcast, Deacon Garlick invites you into a rich, methodical exploration of eros: the primal desire to satiate in beauty and be happy.

What if the restlessness in your soul—the endless craving for more beauty, more fulfillment, more rest—is not a curse but a divine gift?

Reclaiming Holy Eros https://www.theascent.io/p/reclaiming-holy-eros

Women as Icons of God, Beauty-itself https://www.theascent.io/p/the-beauty-of-woman-as-an-icon-of

Porn as a Poor Expression of Eros https://www.theascent.io/p/the-poor-erotics-of-porn

Far from the pornographic or puritan distortions that dominate modern thinking, this ancient concept runs like a golden thread through Homer, Hesiod, Plato’s Symposium, the Old and New Testaments, the Church Fathers, Dante, and even Pope Benedict XVI’s Deus Caritas Est. Deacon shows how eros is the very question of the human condition—an upward call that moves the soul from lesser beauties to greater ones until it finds rest in Beauty itself.

Drawing on his own spiritual labors, the host walks listeners through Plato’s ladder of love, the marital imagery of God’s covenant with Israel, the Song of Songs, Christ’s union with the Church, and the harmony between erotic ascent and the self-giving love of agape. Along the way he recovers a lost grammar of desire that is both natural and supernaturally elevated by grace—one that produces virtue, fecundity, and genuine theosis. The result is not abstract theory but a living path: a latticework upon which your own understanding of restlessness, happiness, and the call to become more Christlike can grow.

Whether you have wrestled with the restlessness of the heart, wondered how pagan wisdom and Christian revelation speak to one another, or simply want a deeper vision of love that orders the soul toward God, this conversation offers something rare: a beautiful, coherent tradition that answers the deepest questions of what it means to be human. Listen, and begin the ascent.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Eros and its significance in Christian spirituality

01:54 Eros in Homer, Hesiod, and the primordial cosmos

07:12 Plato's Symposium and the ladder of love