6 Issues That Christian Hedonism Is and Is Not

God’s Actuality

Many objections rise in folks’s minds after they hear me discuss Christian Hedonism. Maybe I can defuse a number of the resistance upfront by making a number of transient, clarifying feedback.

First, Christian Hedonism, as I exploit the time period, doesn’t imply God turns into a method to assist us get worldly pleasures. The pleasure Christian Hedonism seeks is the pleasure that’s in God himself. He’s the top of our search, not the means to some additional finish. Our exceeding pleasure is he, the Lord—not the streets of gold or the reunion with family or any blessing of heaven. Christian Hedonism doesn’t scale back God to a key that unlocks a treasure chest of gold and silver. Quite, it seeks to remodel the center in order that

the Almighty might be your gold
     and your valuable silver. (Job 22:25)

Second, Christian Hedonism doesn’t make a god out of delight. It says that one has already made a god out of no matter one finds most pleasure in. The aim of Christian Hedonism is to search out most pleasure within the one and solely God and thus keep away from the sin of covetousness—that’s, idolatry (Col. 3:5).

Third, Christian Hedonism doesn’t put us above God once we search him out of self-interest. A affected person isn’t higher than his doctor.

Fourth, Christian Hedonism doesn’t argue that an act is true as a result of it brings pleasure. There’s a sort of hedonism that claims that.¹ That’s not what I’m saying. My purpose is to not determine what is true through the use of pleasure as an ethical criterion. My purpose is to come clean with the wonderful and largely uncared for incontrovertible fact that some dimension of pleasure is an ethical obligation in all true worship and all virtuous acts. I’m not saying that loving God is nice as a result of it brings pleasure. I’m saying that God instructions us to search out pleasure in loving him: “Delight your self within the Lord” (Ps. 37:4). I’m not saying that loving folks is nice as a result of it brings pleasure. I’m saying that God instructions that we discover pleasure in loving folks: “[Let] the one who does acts of mercy [do so] with cheerfulness” (Rom. 12:8).²

I don’t come to the Bible with a hedonistic idea that claims we determine what is true by whether or not it offers pleasure. Quite the opposite, I discover within the Bible a divine command to be a pleasure seeker—that’s, to forsake the two-bit, low-yield, short-term, never-satisfying, persondestroying, God-belittling pleasures of the world and as a substitute to promote every part with pleasure (Matt. 13:44) in an effort to have the dominion of heaven and thus “enter into the enjoyment of your grasp” (Matt. 25:21). Briefly, I’m a Christian Hedonist not for any philosophical or theoretical cause however as a result of God instructions it. The label Christian Hedonism is mine. The truth is God’s!

The pleasure Christian Hedonism seeks is the pleasure that’s in God himself.

Fifth, I don’t say that the connection between love and happiness is that “true happiness is the results of loving God and loving folks.” That’s an oversimplification that misses the essential and defining level. The distinguishing characteristic of Christian Hedonism isn’t that pleasure is the results of advantage however that advantage consists basically, although not solely, in pleasure. I do know that may take some explaining and biblical help.

The rationale I got here to this conclusion is that I’ve to come back to phrases with biblical instructions which don’t merely say that pleasure is the byproduct of advantage however that it’s a part of advantage. For instance, the Bible instructions us

• to “love mercy,” not simply do it (Mic. 6:8 KJV),
• to do “acts of mercy, with cheerfulness” (Rom. 12:8),
• to “joyfully” endure loss within the service of prisoners (Heb. 10:34),
• to be “a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:7),
• to make our pleasure the enjoyment of others (2 Cor. 2:3),
• to have a tendency the flock of God “willingly” and “eagerly” (1 Pet. 5:2), and
• to maintain watch over souls “with pleasure” (Heb. 13:17).

While you replicate on such wonderful instructions, the ethical implications are gorgeous. Christian Hedonism makes an attempt to take these divine instructions with blood earnestness. The upshot is piercing and radically life altering: the pursuit of true advantage consists of the pursuit of pleasure as a result of pleasure is a vital part of true advantage. That is vastly completely different from saying, “Let’s all be good as a result of it’ll make us pleased,” as if God have been detached to the state of your coronary heart whereas your physique went via the movement of excellent deeds.

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Sixth, Christian Hedonism isn’t a distortion of historic Reformed catechisms of religion. This was one of many criticisms of Richard Mouw in his ebook The God Who Instructions:

Piper would possibly have the ability to alter the primary reply within the Westminster Shorter Catechism—in order that glorifying and having fun with God turns into glorifying by having fun with the deity—to go well with his hedonistic functions, however it is a bit more tough to change the opening strains of the Heidelberg Catechism: That I, with physique and soul, each in life and demise, am not my very own however belong unto my devoted Savior Jesus Christ.³

The exceptional factor in regards to the starting of the Heidelberg Catechism isn’t that I can’t change it for hedonistic functions however that I don’t must. It already locations the complete catechism underneath the human eager for “consolation.” Query 1 asks, “What’s your solely consolation in life and demise?” The urgent query for critics of Christian Hedonism is Why did the unique framers of the four-hundred-year-old catechism construction all 129 questions in order that they’re an exposition of the query “What’s my solely consolation?”

Much more exceptional is to see the priority with “happiness” emerge explicitly within the second query of the catechism, which supplies the outlines for the remainder of the catechism. The second query is “What number of issues are vital for thee to know, that thou on this consolation mayest dwell and die fortunately?” Thus, the complete catechism is a solution to the priority for the best way to dwell and die fortunately.

I’m puzzled that anybody would suppose that Christian Hedonism must “alter the opening strains to the Heidelberg Catechism.” The actual fact is, the complete catechism is structured the way in which a Christian Hedonist would construction it. Subsequently, Christian Hedonism doesn’t distort the historic Reformed catechisms. Each the Westminster Catechism and the Heidelberg Catechism start with a priority for man’s enjoyment of God or his quest to “dwell and die fortunately.” I’ve no want to be doctrinally novel. I’m glad that the Heidelberg Catechism was written 4 hundred years in the past.

This text is customized from Wanting God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist by John Piper.

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