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Christian hedonism is a controversial Christian doctrine current in some evangelical circles, particularly those of the Reformed tradition. Christian Theology is discourse concerning Christian faith Christian theologians use biblical Exegesis, rational analysis and argument Evangelicalism is a theological movement tradition and system of beliefs most closely associated with Protestant Christianity, which identifies with the Gospel Calvinism (sometimes called the Reformed tradition, the Reformed faith, or Reformed theology) is a theological system and an approach to the The term was coined by Reformed Baptist pastor John Piper in his 1986 book Desiring God. The name Reformed Baptist refers both to a distinct Christian denomination, and to a description of theological leaning John Stephen Piper (born January 11, 1946, Chattanooga, Tennessee) is a Reformed and Baptist Theologian Year 1986 ( MCMLXXXVI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar) Piper summarises this philosophy of the Christian life as "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. "

Contents

Doctrine

The Westminster Shorter Catechism summarizes the "chief end of man" as "to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. The Westminster Shorter Catechism (also known simply as the Shorter Catechism hereinafter referred to as the WSC) was written in the 1640s " Piper has suggested that this would be more correct as "to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. " Many Christian hedonists point to figures such as Blaise Pascal, Jonathan Edwards, and C. S. Lewis as exemplars of Christian hedonism from the past, before the term was current. Blaise Pascal (blɛz paskal (June 19 1623 &ndash August 19 1662 was a French Mathematician, Physicist, and religious Philosopher This article is about the theologian (b 1703 for other uses of Jonathan Edwards see Jonathan Edwards. Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963 Jeremy Taylor once said that "God threatens terrible things if we will not be happy. Jeremy Taylor ( 1613 - 13 August, 1667) was a Clergyman in the Church of England who achieved fame as an author during The Protectorate "

Christian hedonism was developed in opposition to the deontology of Immanuel Kant and the Objectivism of Ayn Rand. Deontological ethics or deontology (from Greek grc δέον deon, "obligation duty" and grc -λογία -logia) is an Immanuel Kant (ɪmanuəl kant 22 April 1724 12 February 1804 was an 18th-century German Philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg Ayn Rand (ˈaɪn ˈrænd &ndash March 6 1982 born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum (Алиса Зиновьевна Розенбаум was a Russian born American Piper himself supported Rand's attack on Kantian altruism:

An action is moral, said Kant, only if one has no desire to perform it, but performs it out of a sense of duty and derives no benefit from it of any sort, neither material nor spiritual. Altruism is selfless concern for the welfare of others It is a traditional Virtue in many cultures and central to many religious traditions A benefit destroys the moral value of an action. (Thus if one has no desire to be evil, one cannot be good; if one has, one can. )

Lewis, in an oft-quoted passage in his short piece "The Weight of Glory," likewise objects to Kantian ethics:

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 around 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. [1]

Piper later disagrees with Randian Objectivism and argues:

But not only is disinterested morality (doing good "for its own sake") impossible; it is undesirable. Objectivism is a Philosophy developed by Ayn Rand in the 20th century that encompasses positions on Metaphysics, Epistemology, That is, it is unbiblical; because it would mean that the better a man became the harder it would be for him to act morally. The closer he came to true goodness the more naturally and happily he would do what is good. A good man in Scripture is not the man who dislikes doing good but toughs it out for the sake of duty. A good man loves kindness (Micah 6:8) and delights in the law of the Lord (Psalm 1:2), and the will of the Lord (Psalm 40:8). But how shall such a man do an act of kindness disinterestedly? The better the man, the more joy in obedience.

Criticism

Some evangelical Christians object to Christian hedonism's controversial name. It has little historic commonality with philosophical hedonism, however; Piper has stated that a provocative term is "appropriate for a philosophy that has a life changing effect on its adherents. Hedonism is the Philosophy that Pleasure is of ultimate importance, the most important pursuit " Critics charge that hedonism of any sort puts something (namely, pleasure) before God,[1] which allegedly breaks Ten Commandments' first order: "You shall have no other gods before me. The Ten Commandments, or Decalogue, are a list of religious and moral imperatives that according to Judeo-Christian tradition were authored by God and given " In response, Piper states in Desiring God that to find anything more pleasurable than God is sacrilege, and elsewhere that "By Christian Hedonism, we do not mean that our happiness is the highest good. " [2]

Notes

  1. ^ Lewis, 1–2.

References

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