Christian Hedonism is a much-maligned doctrine, and John
Piper takes a lot of criticism over it. However, when properly understood, it
is not some unorthodox heresy or dangerous new teaching, but a wonderful way of
perceiving the same Gospel that we have been presented from the beginning.
Sadly, many fail to understand it, and thus consider it anything from a little
off to downright heresy. In order to help clarify the beauty of this
understanding, then, I will try to answer two of the common objections to
Christian Hedonism. If you are unfamiliar with the concept, I would suggest you
read the article “Christian
Hedonism” or the free e-book, When
I Don’t Desire God by John Piper.
Foundation: Everything Everyone Does is What Pleases Him Most
This is an epiphany I had before I even reached high school.
I reasoned that no one does anything unless they want to do it more than they
want to do something else. Whatever someone wants to do is what they take
pleasure in. If you have no pleasure in something, you don’t want to do it.
That’s common sense. “But wait!” you say. “People do things they don’t want to
do all the time! What about a kid cleaning his room or a man acting under
duress?” This sounds like a good argument at first, but it breaks down quickly
on examination. When a kid cleans his room on command, he does it because he
takes more pleasure in cleaning his room and not getting in trouble than he
would take in not cleaning it and being punished. For a man under life-threatening
duress, he follows the orders because he takes more pleasure in doing so and living
than defying the orders and dying.
Here’s the real shocker: even agape love is about what pleases you most. “What? I thought the
whole point of agape was that it didn’t
care how you felt? It’s sacrificial love, right? No one takes pleasure in
sacrifice!” Not exactly. Imagine a man giving up his life to save his wife. Why
does he do this? Because he takes more pleasure in his own death than hers. It
would be less pleasurable to live without her than it would be to die so she could
live.
The key to understanding this kind of psychology (which I
call total hedonism, although it
probably has a real name) is to realize that this includes temporary
displeasure for delayed greater pleasure. Imagine a woman is on a diet. She would
take great pleasure in losing weight to have a healthier and more attractive
body. Yet she is displeased by refraining from her eating what she likes and
exercising. Yet when she takes on those displeasures in order to pursue a healthier
and more attractive body, is she not still pursuing pleasure? Of course she is!
She takes greater pleasure in the result of the diet than she does the act of
the diet, but she is willing to perform the act for the sake of the result.
Objection: Our Highest Calling is to Obey God, not Pursue Pleasure
This is a common statement, and is expressed in many ways.
Regardless, those making the objection tend to draw a strong distinction
between the two. Here is my counter question: “What were the Pharisees doing?”
The Pharisees obeyed the Law very well. They followed every statute and more.
Where did they fail? Love. They were excellent law-abiding Jews without, but
wicked within. They had no love for God or others, thus violating the two most
important commandments.
“So,” you say, “there’s the problem! They weren’t following all of the commandments.” The question
is, what does it mean to love God, then? The general response by people who say
these things is to make a commitment to follow and obey Him. Yet the Pharisees
were obeying all the commandments except to love God and others. How does that
work? If loving God means merely obeying Him, then how can someone be obeying
all of His commandments except to love Him? If they were obeying them all,
would they not be loving God?
The greatest commandment to love God is not only about
obeying His commands. To demonstrate my point, I will quote a website that was
attacking Christian Hedonism. It says that the best thing we can do is to “focus
the whole of our energy first on our obligation as children: love our Father
with all our mind, body, and strength.” This is obviously intended to be a reference
to the greatest commandment, but something seems missing here. Let’s look at
the real version:
“You
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and
with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”
Ah, there’s the missing word: “heart.” What does it mean to
love God with your heart? It can’t mean “obedience” again for multiple reasons.
For one, the will (soul) was already mentioned, and the will is the place where
the decision to obey must be made. Another reason is that the Greek word for “heart,”
which is used figuratively for desires and affections. That’s right: the Pharisees
were faulted for not takes pleasure in God. What else was left? They had the
doctrines right (love with mind) and followed the law (love with will). They
failed to love with their hearts. They didn’t enjoy God. God didn’t make them
feel good. In fact, they hated God with their hearts, and because of that they
killed Him!
The greatest commandment is to love God with your heart,
soul (will), and mind. This is a tripartite command: to believe God’s truth, to
follow God’s laws, and to take pleasure in God. The first two parts also relate
to the third. Even the demons believe in God’s truth, but they hate it. They’d
rather it be false. To love God with our minds includes taking pleasure in God’s
truth. We should like what we know about God, His plans, His works, and His
blessings. As well, obeying God is not full without pleasure. You can obey a
cruel tyrant without loving him with your will. Plenty of people in history
have done so. To love God with the will is to obey His commands because you
enjoy pleasing Him. If you don’t enjoy pleasing Him, you aren’t loving Him with
your will. We don’t have to enjoy the individual acts of obedience as themselves,
but enjoy the fact that the acts please God. For example, no husband will let
his wife spend the money he’s been saving for a new shotgun if he doesn’t like
making her happy and he doesn’t like giving away money, but he will still let
his wife spend that money if he enjoys making her happy and doesn’t like giving
away money. To summarize, then, the highest calling is to obey the greatest
commandment. The greatest commandment is founded on finding your pleasure in
God.
Now, let me make an important point here. The pleasure is not
the goal. Christian Hedonism doesn’t just mean that our goal is to give
ourselves pleasant sensations. That is the goal of a secular hedonist. Our goal
is to pursue God, and the pleasures of His glory are the most straightforward way
to find Him. C. S. Lewis used the analogy of blessings as beams of light. These
beams are beautiful, but they are not the most valuable thing. The valuable
thing, the sun, from which the beams proceed, is where the true glory lies. In
the same way, the pleasures of God’s glory are not the truly valuable things,
but the God who radiates them is. Our hedonistic pursuit of pleasure is more
precisely described as a pursuit of the God who inevitably radiates pleasures
through His glory.
Objection: We Are Called to Deny Ourselves, Not Seek Our Pleasure
It is quite true that we are called by Jesus to deny ourselves.
Fortunately for my tired typing hands, I have already provided the analogy that
demonstrates how this does not conflict with Christian Hedonism. I will repeat
it with copy-and-paste, but this time read it in the context of how denying
yourself for Christ is compatible with seeking pleasure in Him.
Imagine a woman is on a diet. She would take great pleasure in losing
weight to have a healthier and more attractive body. Yet she is displeased by
refraining from her eating what she likes and exercising. Yet when she takes on
those displeasures in order to pursue a healthier and more attractive body, is
she not still pursuing pleasure? Of course she is! She takes greater pleasure
in the result of the diet than she does the act of the diet, but she is willing
to perform the act for the sake of the result.
The woman on a diet denied herself much good food and rest,
but she was into the self-denial for the sake of the pleasures of being slim.
In the same way, we can deny ourselves and give sacrificially of our time and
money and comfort, even to suffer martyrdom, on earth by seeking the pleasures
of God we are confident are to be found in Heaven. Suffering for Christ is the
highest form of hedonism, for it trades “light momentary affliction” for the
endless satisfying pleasures of the Most High God!
Conclusion
I realize that there is much more to be said for and against
Christian Hedonism, and I will say right now that I don’t agree 100% with every
word that proceeds from the mouth of John Piper. However, I believe that he is
a brilliant man with a great relationship with God, and I believe that he has
found a beautiful, entirely orthodox truth of the Gospel. I believe that God is
most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him, as DesiringGod.org
proclaims, and I believe that the greatest proof of our satisfaction in God is
the willingness to count all things as loss for the sake of the Gospel of the
glory of Christ, to suffer affliction and persecution with our eyes fixed on a
heavenly home, to obey Jesus in all that He commands for the sake of His glory.
Amen.