Christian Hedonism, I guess

The degree to which simple pleasures can be corrupted into harmful evils is constantly shocking to me. I often wonder, “How could such a good thing be so wrong?” A harmful action tends to always have some innocent goal. Even serious offenses like murder, rape, and insulting words can all be motivated by a natural and good desire to experience peace and happiness. To hunger for love, happiness, and peace cannot be bad because they are features of the Creator that command desire. Since God created all good things, and us in His likeness, can we not say He also created in us a divine desire for those things? Conversely, there is no good thing that can be manufactured from the sources of Hell. In and of itself, there is nothing even tempting about Hell. But tragically, it only takes a simple enjoyment of pleasures at the wrong time, in the wrong way, or in the wrong place that can turn them into devilish actions. Worse still, people frequently make such mistakes and turn them into habits. It is quite sad, really, because it seems so simple to just enjoy pleasure purely.

In fact, it is the strongest pleasures, like love, which can do the most damage. As we know, we often hurt the ones we love the most, I know I do. But why? Even in simple friendship, which is probably the easiest of relationships to keep unscathed, we still betray trust and offend each other. Is this really necessary? None of it is ill motivated. There must be some inherent flaw in the system of individuals and each other that trips up our God-given desires. It is this constant transition between goodness and evil that supports my belief in Satan as a fallen angel, obedience as a process, and Jesus as a way to salvation.

The good news, the greatest news, is that no true pleasure can be spawned from pure evil. Everything that feels good, brings happiness, or satisfies is inherently from God, and God's pleasures are more powerful than any cheap imitation. Mercy triumphs over judgment, love covers sin, and a well-placed compliment can make a bad day into a great one. Like a waterfall constantly flowing over a cliff, pleasure purely enjoyed can be cleansing from evil and it is constantly being created, like time itself.

I guess this is why vulnerability and forgiveness are such powerful actions. They are the catalysts for changing pride and conceit into humility and love, and thus any harmful action into a healing one. The most frightening part of this change is the approach or process we must go through in order to pursue it, and thus, do the right thing. We must go through a stage where two irreconcilable thoughts are present in our minds, like the justification for revenge and the reasons for reconciliation, and one must win. We simply cannot stay in this state for long.

It is here where our pursuit of joy is the most practical, most right thing we can do. The desire for love, companionship, friendship, and comfort both given and received can overpower any evil because they are divine desires themselves. We must think of the highest rewards, meditate on them, even dream of them so that we feel a love for them so strongly that they begin to define us. The only failures and hurts I have caused in my life, which there are many, have come when I have stopped pursuing my most satisfying dreams.

"If there lurks in most modern mind 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." --C.S. Lewis