Hyeong Rae Jo
This article retrieves Wilhelmus à Brakel’s theology of desire as a Reformed account of dependent flourishing. Set against the commercial expansion and moral anxieties of the Dutch Golden Age, it argues that à Brakel understood human beings as desiring creatures whose fulfillment rests not in accumulation, comparison, or self-assertion, but in communion with God. His treatments of covetousness, contentment, and self-denial show how fallen desire becomes restless when detached from God, and how grace redirects desire through the Spirit’s work of mortification and vivification. In dialogue with Aristotle and Aquinas, the article clarifies à Brakel’s continuity with classical teleological accounts of flourishing while highlighting his distinctively Reformed emphasis on dependence, affective renewal, and cruciform self-denial. It further shows how this theology became practically operative in economic life, where possessions, vocation, stewardship, and generosity served as concrete arenas for the reordering of desire. À Brakel’s vision offers a timely resource for addressing late-modern consumer anxiety and self-constructed visions of the good life.