Joy & John Piper...

This is in response to my earlier post, in which I seem to have waded too deep into the theology of Christian Hedonism without realising! But here is a good little post from John Piper about the subject, and arguing against the view that Joy/etc is not to be sought.

He says it much better and with a much clearer structure than I have. Basically, a part of what I was thinking is this > *

I would really like to see JP and CSL have a discussion about this.

I have put a few things I find interesting in Italics...

We Want You to Be a Christian Hedonist!
By John Piper August 31, 2006

What Is Christian Hedonism?
My shortest summary of Christian Hedonism is: God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

We all make a god out of what we take the most pleasure in. Christian Hedonists want to make God their God by seeking after the greatest pleasure—pleasure in him.

By Christian Hedonism, we do not mean that our happiness is the highest good. We mean that pursuing the highest good will always result in our greatest happiness in the end. We should pursue this happiness, and pursue it with all our might. The desire to be happy is a proper motive for every good deed, and if you abandon the pursuit of your own joy you cannot love man or please God.

The Difference Between Worldly and Christian Hedonism
Some people are inclined to believe that Christians are supposed to seek God’s will as opposed to pursuing their own pleasure. But what makes Biblical morality different than worldly hedonism is not that Biblical morality is disinterested and duty-driven, *but that it is interested in vastly greater and purer things. Christian Hedonism is Biblical morality because it recognizes that obeying God is the only route to final and lasting happiness*. Here are some examples of this from the Bible:

Luke 6:35 says, "Love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great." It is clear when Jesus says “expect nothing in return” that we should not be motivated by worldly aggrandizement, but we are given strength to suffer loss by the promise of a future reward.

Again, in Luke 14:12-14: "When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor . . . and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just." That is, don't do good deeds for worldly advantage; rather, do them for spiritual, heavenly benefits.

Should Duty Be Our Main Motivation?
But some will say, "No, no. These texts only describe what reward will result if you act disinterestedly. They do not teach us to actually seek the reward."

Two answers to this objection:

1) It would be foolish to say, "If you take this pill, I’ll give you a nickel," if you expect the desire for the nickel to ruin the pill. But Jesus was not foolish. He would not offer blessing to those who obey him and then hold it against us if these blessings motivated our obedience.

2) Even more importantly, there are texts that not only commend that we do good in the hope of future blessing, but command it.

Luke 12:33 says, "Sell your possessions, and give alms; provide yourselves with purses that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail." The connection here between alms and having eternal treasure in heaven is not a chance result—it is the explicit purpose: "Make it your aim to have treasure in heaven, and the way to do this is to sell your possessions and give alms."

And again, Luke 16:9 says, "Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon, so that when it fails they may receive you into eternal habitations." Luke does not say that the result of using possessions properly is to receive eternal habitations. He says, "Make it your aim to secure an eternal habitation by the way you use your possessions."

Therefore, a resounding NO to the belief that morality should be inspired more by duty than delight.

Don’t Be Too Easily Satisfied
Hebrews 11:6 teaches, "Without faith it is impossible to please [God]. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” You cannot please God if you do not come to him looking for reward. Therefore, faith that pleases God is the hedonistic pursuit of God.

As Christian Hedonists we know that everyone longs for happiness. And we will never tell them to deny or repress that desire. It is never a problem to want to be satisfied. The problem is being satisfied too easily. We believe that everyone who longs for satisfaction should no longer seek it from money or power or lust, but should come glut their soul-hunger on the grace of God. We will bend all our effort, by the Holy Spirit, to persuade people that they can be happier in giving than receiving (Acts 20:35); that they should count everything as loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus their Lord (Philippians 3:8); that the aim of all of Jesus' commandments is that their joy be full (John 15:11); that if they delight themselves in the Lord he will give them the desire of their heart (Psalm 37:4); that there is great gain in godliness with contentment (1 Timothy 6:6); and that the joy of the Lord is their strength (Nehemiah 8:10).

We will not try to motivate anyone with appeals to mere duty. We will tell them that in God’s presence is full and lasting joy (Psalm 16:11) and our only duty is to come to him, seeking this pleasure.

(Adapted from John Piper’s article, Christian Hedonism: Forgive the Label, but Don't Miss the Truth.)

Surprised By Joy...

What I picked up for some light reading has in fact turned out to be something far deeper and thoughtful than your everyday testimony. In this autobiography, Lewis talks you through his early life and later his philospoical thoughts in his typically clear and descriptive way, leading to the point where:

"You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England."

Surprised By Joy

It is not hard to see from his account of his life in the early chapters, how Lewis was able to have such a clear grasp of Philosophy/Theology to come to this point, and reading this book makes me mourn the lost of the culture Lewis grew up in, when reading books -in particular what we ignorantly now call 'the classics' without any idea what they are (I speak for non-English Lit students!)-, learning Greek and Latin, reading and knowing Plato, Homer and a whole trail of ancient writers, not only in English, but the original, as Lewis did with the 'Great Knock' around chapter 9. Surely we have lost a great deal in this day and age with such learning replaced with Gameboys and televisions.

The main theme, or to be more accurate -'thread'- throughout the book is his 'experience' and search -that is "enjoyment" & "contemplation" (Pg 174)- of 'Joy'. Instead of reviewing it any further though -you may aswell go and buy it on the cheap from Amazon or somewhere like I did. Instead there a few things I wish to comment upon after reading this and having my mindset turning...

One relates closely to what Lewis' purpose is in writing this: Joy, and how it is found.Lewis throughout the story (please do read it for yourselves to fully understand what he means by 'Joy') discovers that:

"Only when your whole attention and desire are fixed on something else -whether a distant mountain, or the past, or the gods of Asgard -does this 'thrill' arise. It is a by-product. Its very existance presupposes that you desire not it but something other and outer"

Pg 136

Joy is a 'by-product' of seeking something else. It will not come if we seek the thing itself. We won't find it if is the very thing we pursue. When you are completely unaware or unconcerned by attaining it, focusing instead upon "something other and outer".

Now, again, Lewis describes the siginificance of this further in the book. But what strikes me about this point, this observation of pursuit of a thing, is that it seems (as far as I can tell, while also being aware of the over-simplicity of such analogies) that this is very similar to our own relationship with God and our experience of Him. We so often search for an 'experience' of God, going to church, praying and worshipping through music/singing, and want to 'feel' God's presence, or somehow 'experience' Him. I struggle to find the words to describe what we look for, but maybe you know know what I mean. This experience of God is not a bad thing -God in his gracious nature does give us this, gives us the Holy Spirit. I won't go into examples now, but again I'm sure you get my side-point. But in my own past, and through talking with and observing others, this is what happens. We want to get this feeling from interaction with God and church, and without realising this becomes our aim each week or even day, and when -unsurprisingly- we don't find it often, and increasingly less so, we find ourselves struggling with our faith. People I have recently talked this through with seriously doubt their faith, and worry they have completely backslidden. There are of course many reasons and other helpful advice that comes with this, but Lewis gives us a extremely helpful insight into how we can avoid this -one I myself have unconciously taken at some point in my last four years of seriously persuing God.

The only ways we will 'experience' God are firstly- by God's grace, unconditional on our spiritual condition. Secondly, which comes from Lewis' observations, if we persue God himself, and not any experience of our own or benefit for ourselves.

"I have never seen how a preoccupation with that subject at the outset could fail to corrupt the whole thing. I have been brought up to believe that goodness was goodness only if it were disinterested, and that any hope of reward or fear of punishment contaminated the will"

Pg 185

Lewis laments the fact that so often a faith is shipwrecked by a preoccupation with a reward, namely that of Heaven, or 'experience'. If we want an 'experience' of God, then we shouldn't go looking for that, in the same way that Lewis writes we cannot find Joy if that is what we are seeking -it is merely a sign post to something better. We need to focus ourselves entirely on God's glory, not our pleasure. We need to worship Him in church not with the thought in our mind we might feel good if we do. We need to read our Bible cover to cover, not just looking for verses that talk about about experiencing God, looking to pursue holiness in all areas. If you are struggling with a lack of 'experience' of God, then leave this worry behind and seek to glorify Him more and more in your worship of Him, and don't worry about yourself. He will take of that.

It's kind of like this...

"But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."

Matthew 6:33

Jesus says it best as always. If we seek Him first, His glory, His way in our life without regard for ourselves, then He of course will pour out blessings upon us. If we want closeness with Him, we must seek Him entirely, not anything for ourselves. We know that He is gracious, so surely we can do this with confidence!

Thats what the Bible does tell us, God is gracious, longing to bless us and to gloryfy himself, and point to and admire our great Heavenly Father.

1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters.

3 He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil, for you are with me;

your rod and your staff,

they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil;

my cup overflows.

6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

all the days of my life,

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Psalm 23