Holy Hedonism

"You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore" (Psalm 16:11).

Many, many years ago a young philosopher-friend of ours was reading to our son Josh who was, at the time, about three years old. The book they were reading contained the phrase,"fun is good and good is fun." Jack read the line and said by way of commentary, "Josh, that's hedonism!" The critique was profound, but Josh was unmoved, as far as I could tell. 

Indeed the pursuit of pleasure as the highest good and as a philosophy of life, is hedonism, but today I would have to say that, though not all fun is good, I do believe that good is fun in the sense that pursuing the highest good will always give us the 

highest pleasure. "Happiness happens not by denying our desires and eschewing pleasure but by understanding our desires and turning them in the correct, God-focused direction" (Richard Baxter). 

Put another way, while I do not think we should pursue happiness as a goal, I do believe it¡s a good thing to pursue goodness with the goal of being happy, and, as far as I know, nobody doesn't want to be happy! 😆 

To go further, I would say that the pursuit of God and his goodness produces a happiness unlike any other.. C.S. Lewis wrote, in an oft-quoted passage, "If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and to earnestly hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I suggest 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" (The Weight of Glory).

Emmanuel Kant, as you may know, was a dour old German philosopher who believed that the only truly good acts are done from duty and not because they give us pleasure. Kant was a stick in the mud.

David Roper

1.15.19