In the first part of this series I said that my biggest problem with John Piper’s philosophy of Christian Hedonism lies in how he connects it to salvation. At the beginning of Chapter 2 in Desiring God he makes the following statement:
The aim of this chapter is to show the necessity of conversion and to argue that it is nothing less than the creation of a Christian Hedonist. I don’t mean you have to use this phrase, or even like this phrase. I mean that no one is a Christian who does not embrace Jesus gladly as his most valued treasure, and then pursue the fullness of that joy in Christ that honors Him. (p. 54)
I believe that Piper has good intentions when he says this. He is concerned that by merely telling someone “believe in Christ and you will be saved,” that that person might be lulled into a false sense of security – likely due to the fact that many equate “believing in Christ” with merely believing certain facts about Christ, or with merely praying a sinner’s prayer – neither of which necessarily involve repentance from sin.
The problem is this: in his zeal to avoid false converts, Piper ends up taking a fruit of faith – love and affection for God – and making it a condition for salvation (though this love/affection is itself a gift of God). According to Piper, I am ultimately saved not through repentance from sin and trust in Christ, but through my love and desire for God. Repentance and faith in Christ are fruits of this love, not the other way around.
The pursuit of joy in God is not optional. It is not an “extra” that a person might grow into after he comes to faith. It is not simply a way to “enhance” your walk with the Lord. Until your heart has hit upon this pursuit, your “faith” cannot please God. It is not saving faith (p. 73)
So at what point do I know if my heart has truly “hit upon this pursuit?” To know whether I have true saving faith, I am asked to look within myself to see if God has created this love and desire for Him in my heart. Not whether I simply trust in the words and promise of Christ, but whether I possess a certain feeling, or whether I have attained a level of obedience/surrender that proves that I truly love God.
What happens when I look inside myself and see nothing but sin and corruption? What happens when I see even my good works tainted and soiled with sin? What if I look within myself and find that my heart is horribly cold toward God, that I desire everything BUT God? What then?
The answer is not to conclude “I must not really have saving faith yet.” The answer is to repent and believe that Christ died even for those sins. Then my love for God WILL increase – but as a fruit of faith, not as a condition for faith.
Does God forgive me because of something He sees in my heart – even if it is something He created Himself – or for the sake of Christ alone? Can I not love God BECAUSE He saved me from hell? Did not Martin Luther hate and rail against God in despair until he discovered the Gospel that we are justified through faith alone – wherein there was hope that even a sinner like him could be saved?
Part 3 will deal with confusion of Law and Gospel in Christian Hedonism.
Dawn,
Piper is a neo-legalist. I used to be a fan when I was in evangelia. I blogged about why I am not a Christian Hedonist. It is pure enthusiasm. He likes Jonathan Edwards a lot, which Luther would dub as Schwaermer.
Unfortunately the truth is slow to catch up with Evangelicals, that is why he is still gushed and idolized.
LPC
Dawn,
Good assessment. I have also been reconsidering “Christian Hedonism” in light of the Law and Gospel distinction. I believe that this philosophy is the Law in disguise. It seems to be the Law-made-easy.
James
Would you please tell me what you think of this? I just wrote it out, trying to figure out why I’m so uncomfortable with Christian Hedonism.
Okay, I reread some things from the site http://www.desiringgod.org/ , and two interesting things happened: one, I first felt, “Well, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying God. Thing I thought, “Wait. There’s a grammatical shift taking place here. To enjoy is different… from “enjoying,” and Piper uses the word, “And” to suggest we’ve achieved a level of relationship with the Lord that, in fact, we have not.
To”enjoy” something is to have the benefit of; to be blessed by, or reaping the benefits of something given and received. The use of “And” in the “glorify God and enjoy Him forever” establishes the relationship between the provider(God) and the one provided for(Man). One is giver, the other receiving. The benefit of that relationship in this case is in the receiving of something that we’d otherwise not have access to – in this case, we have received the Spirit of Truth to guide us;” the enjoyment of the Father as “Father,” the expection of one day being with Him as the guiding hope that keeps us moving forward in our journey.
In this sense, “and” is the operative word here, the conjunction defining the spatial relationship of God and Man, Father and child, Deity and creation. It also sets the guidelines on how we relate to each other now, as well as what to expect eternally. I “enjoy” the revelation of “knowing” Him.
So, when I read that the chief end of man is to “glorify God and “enjoy” Him forever,” I’m thinking, I’ve been given the opportunity to partake in something I could have never obtained on my own, by someone who came from “up” to “down” in order to accomodate my spiritual desire for wholeness (Only the shedding of Christ’s blood could have made this possible).
“Enjoying” on the other hand, cannot be possible as we are now, because it expresses the fullness, or the totality of a relationship that will only be realized when we are “One With the Father.” It is that day that we wait for…when we stand before Him, seeing Him as He is, and seeing ourselves as He sees us in all His glory. Enjoying in this sense, is an eternal state attained once we are face to face with Him.
Piper’s definition and modification of the phrase “The chief end of man” suggests a symbiotic relationship, or the coming together of two different organisms, but seems to be building the argument as the Spirit operates within us today on earth, suggesting that we have already achieved a level of relationship, that we have not. He totally overlooks 1Cor 13:12, which states:
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I
have been fully known.
Now, I submit that if 1Cor 13:12 is true, then Piper’s reworking which states “To Glorify God and Enjoying Him” is not possible, and creates an environment where the Christian strives for something that cannot be achieved, making his assertion “law” and not “grace.” Striving in this case looks very much like what we see today in some evangelical churches, where people are hearing, seeing, saying and doing things, in the name of the Lord, when in fact, all biblical evidence points to the cessation of all these events.
People keep trying to boil done God’s formula to make it easier for people to understand, relate to, embrace, but God makes it very clear that it’s HIS Spirit that will bring us into ALL truth – not our feelings or experiences (enjoying). That’s what Piper’s writing suggests in a very roundabout way, and what concerns me more than anything is that alot of African Americans are responding to the “and enjoying” and not the “and enjoy” of God. One acknowledges His sovereignty and the other asserts that “we” are sharing in it.
Piper’s formulation is “The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever” (as opposed to the WSC’s “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever”).
The shift really lies in the fact that in Piper’s formulation, the way one glorifies God is by enjoying Him. Thus if you are not enjoying God (which for Piper really is a matter of emotions and feelings) you are not glorifying God. Whereas in the WSC formulation glorifying God and enjoying God are not necessarily the same thing.
I’m not sure that the difference lies in “enjoy” vs. “enjoying.” The operative word is “by” which makes enjoying God THE means of glorifying God rather than acknowledging that glorifying God and enjoying God may possibly be two separate things. As fallen humans we won’t enjoy God fully until the world to come, which is what the WSC formulation seems to imply.
I hear what you’re saying, but I also think he uses the word “enjoying” in such a way as to suggest it’s something that can be done here and now on earth, when in faith this state will be a reality only after we have “loosed the mortal coil.” What he suggests is not only inaccurate but an impossibility is what I was trying to show.
On my part I am not exactly confident that the WFC is a straight through Biblical formulation anyway. It Book of Concord sense, the language of WFC there is rather an interpretation of the whole relationship of God with man. Notice that it puts the emphasis on man to do or to pursue. Rather, in the Garden, it was God who was happy with his creation, it was Him who was enjoying our presence and company etc. So I won’t even say I can accept the WFC formulation without hesitation.
Piper is an Enthusiast. An Enthusiast in Lutheran talk is someone who believes that God acts on man immediately, i.e., not mediated by God’s chosen means.