(John Piper has captivated the imagination of much of the evangelical world with his treatise on “Christian Hedonism.” In it he tries to establish that because God desires for us to be happy, seeking happiness while serving God is true “Christian Hedonism.” He claims that Jonathan Edwards would agree with this hypothesis, contrasting the writings of Edwards with those of German philosopher Immanuel Kant.
David Brand, retired CCCC pastor, has written a careful analysis of this concept, including reference to Kant’s and Edwards’ writings. Here we print a synopsis of Brand’s conclusions. To read the entire paper Click Here.)
John Piper’s “Christian Hedonism”
In defense of his doctrine of “Christian Hedonism,” John Piper claims the support of Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), America’s first philosopher. Yet he either overlooks or ignores the foundational principle in Edwards’s Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, Part III, Section II:
The first objective ground of gracious affections is the transcendently excellent and amiable nature of divine things, as they are in and of themselves; and not any conceived relation they bear to self, or self-interest.
So adamant is Piper in denying this “first objective ground” that he takes issue with eighteenthcentury philosopher, Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), for excluding self-interest from his famous Categorical Imperative, as though Kant rather than Edwards said it first.
Does Piper simply ignore the following caution from America’s first philosopher?
They whose affection to God is founded first on his profitableness to them, begin at the wrong end; they regard God only for the utmost limit of the stream of divine good, where it touches them, and reaches their interest. They have no respect to that infinite glory of God’s nature, which is the original good, and the true fountain of all good, and of loveliness of every kind.
Citing Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:46, Edwards noted:
Sinners love those that love them; even the publicans, who were some of the most carnal and profligate sort of men.
”Christian Hedonism” based upon “self-love” is biblically unreliable as an ethical foundation, though Edwards acknowledged that self-love may function as a “superstructure” upon the proper foundation: “the first objective ground” of which Edwards spoke.
If after a man loves God, it will be a consequence and fruit of this, that even love to his own happiness will cause him to desire the glorifying and enjoying of God; it will not thence follow, that the very exercise of self-love went before his love to God, and that his love to God was a consequence and fruit of that. Something else, entirely distinct from self-love, might be the cause of this, viz. a change made in the views of his mind, and relish of his heart; whereby he apprehends a beauty, glory, and supreme good, in God’s nature, as it is in itself. This may be the thing that first draws his heart to him, and causes his heart to be united to him, prior to all considerations of his own self-interest or happiness, although after this, and as a fruit of it, he necessarily seeks his own interest and happiness in God.
David C. Brand
E-mail: dcbrand@dcbcom.org
Sources
Brand, David C. 1991. Profile of the Last Puritan: Jonathan Edwards, Self-Love, and the Dawn of the Beatific. The American Academy of Religion. Academy Series. Edited by Susan Thistlethwaite. Atlanta: Scholars Press
Edwards, Jonathan. 1879. The works of Jonathan Edwards, A.M., rev. & ed., Edward Hackman, 2 vols. 12th edition. London: William Tegg & Co.
Piper, John. “Christian Hedonism.” Online article. http://www.desiringgod.org/resource/christian-hedonism
