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Is it possible to be an Arminian Christian hedonist?

Christian hedonism is a banner that I’m not real eager to have preserved as a movement with a name on it, because names are ambiguous and you can’t tell what people believe when they just give you a name. So if somebody said to me, “Hi, I’m a Christian hedonist,” I wouldn’t know what to think. I would ask them some questions to draw them out.

What I mean by the term is that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. It is learning the genius of God’s creation to make himself supreme while satisfying us in that supremacy, so that the best of both worlds—my happiness and his glory—do not compete. Because my happiness is in his glory, and being in his glory makes his glory look really glorious.

Now, the only reason I would say an Arminian would have a hard time with that is because we’re not seeing the glory of God exactly the same. Arminians love the glory of God, and they want to glorify God; but we see wherein that glory consists differently.

So structurally the answer is, yes, an Arminian can be a Christian hedonist. I would just say that they’re going to be lamed a little bit—or a lot, depending on how careful they think.

Because I think God’s glory consists very much in his sovereign grace to conquer my fallen rebellious dead sinful heart, and irresistibly compel me and bring me into the kingdom. Whereas an Arminian believes that God overcomes my original sin, makes me able to choose, and I then cast the deciding vote.

I don’t think that’s a distortion of the way it really works in Arminianism: that is, that sovereign grace is necessary for everybody, and it conquers the deadness and inability of the human heart and sets a person in the position where, as they act with their will to believe, then grace plus their will saves them.

Now I don’t think that is a faithful, biblical rendering of the glory of God in my salvation; and therefore, I don’t think the structural “yes” to this question is a practical “yes” to this question. In other words, yes, there can be Christian hedonists who are Arminians, but they won’t flourish to the degree that they should as Christian hedonists because they won’t see the glory as fully as I wish they would.

Used with permission. John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

I know that both types of groups read my blog, so what are your thoughts to this?

Daily Life on July 1st, 2009 by Kenny Wilson | No Comments »

I can’t really say it much better than this short paragraph from C.S. Lewis. He nailed it right on and I am reposting only one paragraph in hopes that you will read this and allow this seemingly hidden truth to transform how you read the Bible, interact with others, and ultimately how you live your life.

If you asked twenty good men to-day
what they thought the highest of
the virtues, nineteen of them would
reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked
almost any of the great Christians of old he
would have replied, Love. You see what
has happened? A negative term has been
substituted for a positive, and this is of
more than philological importance. The
negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with
it the suggestion not primarily of securing
good things for others, but of going
without them ourselves, as if our
abstinence and not their happiness was the
important point. I do not think this is the
Christian virtue of Love. The New
Testament has lots to say about self-denial,
but not about self-denial as an end in itself.
We are told to deny ourselves and to take
up our crosses in order that we may follow
Christ; and nearly every description of
what we shall ultimately find if we do so
contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks
in most modern minds the notion that to
desire our own good and earnestly to hope
for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I
submit that this notion has crept in from
Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the
Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the
unblushing promises of reward and the
staggering nature of the rewards promised
in the Gospels, it would seem that Our
Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but
too weak. We are half-hearted creatures,
fooling about with drink and sex and
ambition when infinite joy is offered us,
like an ignorant child who wants to go on
making mud pies in a slum because he
cannot imagine what is meant by the offer
of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily
pleased.

Ponderings on June 29th, 2009 by Kenny Wilson | No Comments »

A story on CNN Monday morning,

“This seems to confirm the unanimous and undisputed tradition that these are the mortal remains of the Apostle St. Paul,” Benedict said in Sunday’s announcement.

The tomb also holds “traces of a precious linen cloth, purple in color and laminated with pure gold, and a blue colored textile with linen filaments,” the pope said.

I don’t know about you, but simply because you find bones that were suppose to belong to someone of the “first or second century” doesn’t confirm “unanimous and undisputed tradition.” Either they know a lot more about what they found than they told or the people in Rome are looking for a quick buck in tourism.

Also, considering the life and sacrifice of Paul this “precious linen” doesn’t help with the confirmation to me, unless they’re assuming that Paul’s exocutioners felt bad after they murdered him and made up for it by placing a purple linen laminated with gold on his body.

Even if it is Paul, why does it matter? Paul wouldn’t want you to go to Rome to stare at his bones. Use the money that you would spend to go to Rome and give it to frontier missions. That’s what Paul was all about.

Daily Life on June 29th, 2009 by Kenny Wilson | No Comments »