{"id":413,"date":"2005-10-11T09:47:55","date_gmt":"2005-10-11T17:47:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/?p=413"},"modified":"2005-10-11T09:49:07","modified_gmt":"2005-10-11T17:49:07","slug":"pleasure-as-an-intrinsic-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2005\/10\/11\/pleasure-as-an-intrinsic-good","title":{"rendered":"Pleasure As An Intrinsic Good"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my most recent ser\u00admon at Chi Alpha<\/a> I made a state\u00adment in the Q & A time that \u201cplea\u00adsure is an intrin\u00adsic good.\u201d<\/p>\n

At least one stu\u00addent has been think\u00ading about what I said and sent me an email: <\/p>\n

I was read\u00ading Boethius\u2019s The Con\u00adso\u00adla\u00adtion of Phi\u00adlos\u00ado\u00adphy and a com\u00adment remind\u00aded me of some\u00adthing you said last week at XA. You said some\u00adthing to the effect of plea\u00adsure in and of itself is intrin\u00adsi\u00adcal\u00adly good. Now I total\u00adly under\u00adstand what you were say\u00ading and what you weren\u2019t say\u00ading. But I was won\u00adder\u00ading if you could shoot me some Bible vers\u00ades to back it up. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So I wrote up a reponse which I thought might be of gen\u00ader\u00adal inter\u00adest:<\/p>\n

First, the Bible nev\u00ader explic\u00adit\u00adly teach\u00ades that plea\u00adsure is an intrin\u00adsic good. The Bible does\u00adn\u2019t real\u00adly deal in such philo\u00adsoph\u00adi\u00adcal cat\u00ade\u00adgories. Rather, the notion of plea\u00adsure as an intrin\u00adsic good is a pre\u00adsup\u00adpo\u00adsi\u00adtion through\u00adout.<\/p>\n

Vers\u00ades that occur to me in this con\u00adtext:<\/p>\n

Deut 14:22\u201327, where cel\u00ade\u00adbra\u00adtion is pic\u00adtured as wor\u00adship (see also Nehemi\u00adah 8:10 where cel\u00ade\u00adbra\u00adtion is por\u00adtrayed as more appro\u00adpri\u00adate response to God than fast\u00ading)
\nPsalm 104:14\u201315, where God cre\u00adat\u00aded some things in the world for the sole pur\u00adpose of plea\u00adsure
\nThe book of Eccle\u00adsi\u00adastes in gen\u00ader\u00adal. Espe\u00adcial\u00adly a few pas\u00adsages like Ecc 11:7\u201310 and Ecc 9:7\u201310, where the Teacher encour\u00adages us to enjoy life. As with every\u00adthing in Eccle\u00adsi\u00adastes you\u2019ll have to spend some time study\u00ading to make sure you feel that he\u2019s endors\u00ading plea\u00adsure in the con\u00adtext of the whole book (the Teacher is con\u00adfus\u00ading, to put it mild\u00adly).<\/p>\n

And I see strong hints that plea\u00adsure is an intrin\u00adsic good in that joy is a Bib\u00adli\u00adcal virtue (Gal 5:22, Neh 8:11), that many pas\u00adsages pre\u00adsup\u00adpose (or com\u00admand) our delight in God (John 15:11, Psalm 1:2, Philip\u00adpi\u00adans 4:4), and that plea\u00adsure is a short\u00adhand for the good\u00adness God offers us (Psalm 16:11).<\/p>\n

In fact, there is a whole host of pas\u00adsages that com\u00admand or pre\u00adsup\u00adpose our joy: Deut. 28:47; 1 Chr. 16:31,33; Ps. 32:11; Ps. 33:1; Ps. 35:9; Ps. 40:8,16; Ps. 42:1\u20132; Ps. 63:1,11; Ps. 64:10; Ps. 95:1; Ps. 98:4; Ps. 97:1,12; Ps. 104:34; Ps. 105:3; Isa. 41:16; Joel 2:23; Zech. 2:10; Zech. 10:7; 2 Cor. 9:7; cf. Acts 20:35; Philip\u00adpi\u00adans 3:1. Heb. 10:34; Heb. 13:17; 1 Pet. 5:2.<\/p>\n

That lat\u00adter list, inci\u00adden\u00adtal\u00adly, was most\u00adly lift\u00aded from some essays by a pas\u00adtor and the\u00adolo\u00adgian named John Piper. He has writ\u00adten exten\u00adsive\u00adly on \u201cChris\u00adt\u00adian Hedo\u00adnism\u201d and these two brief essays are excel\u00adlent intro\u00adduc\u00adtions to the sub\u00adject: We Want You To Be A Chris\u00adt\u00adian Hedo\u00adnist<\/a>, Broth\u00aders, Con\u00adsid\u00ader Chris\u00adt\u00adian Hedo\u00adnism!<\/a><\/p>\n

And to clar\u00adi\u00adfy, the fact that the plea\u00adsure of even a sin\u00adful action is intrin\u00adsicly good does not make the action itself good. Nor does it even make the fact that you derive plea\u00adsure from it good (con\u00adsid\u00ader, for instance, laugh\u00ading at a per\u00adverse joke or the less com\u00admon case of necrophil\u00adia). All that I assert is that plea\u00adsure is intrin\u00adsicly good and that we need to appre\u00adci\u00adate that fact. Some Chris\u00adtians treat plea\u00adsure as some\u00adhow bad for you and are instant\u00adly sus\u00adpi\u00adcious of any\u00adthing fun or enter\u00adtain\u00ading. That\u2019s just bad the\u00adol\u00ado\u00adgy. The fact that some\u00adthing pro\u00adduces plea\u00adsure should cause us to give it the ben\u00ade\u00adfit of the doubt rather than assume it guilty until proven inno\u00adcent. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This has been a pub\u00adlic ser\u00advice announc\u00adment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my most recent ser\u00admon at Chi Alpha I made a state\u00adment in the Q & A time that \u201cplea\u00adsure is an intrin\u00adsic good.\u201d At least one stu\u00addent has been think\u00ading about what I said and sent me an email: I was read\u00ading Boethius\u2019s The Con\u00adso\u00adla\u00adtion of Phi\u00adlos\u00ado\u00adphy and a com\u00adment remind\u00aded me of some\u00adthing \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cPlea\u00adsure As An Intrin\u00adsic Good\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-of-random-interest"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-6F","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}