John Piper: Desiring God or Desiring Desire?

1.
2.
3.
4.

1. Watching Volver, at midnight, with the whole theatre to ourselves, meant we could put our feet up on the row in front without kicking the backs of people's heads and chatter all the way through with such inane comments like "Eeeee. Pedro Almodovar is so humsup" (even though he's professedly gay) and "If Raimunda's mom is a ghost, why can't she just appear in Madrid instead of being stuck in a car boot?", and also, "Is Sole a very bad actress or is she just meant to portray awkwardness?" and then, towards the end of the show, "Eh. Why is there a man in white standing behind us?"

2. Completely cool geek t-shirt spotted after service. Ultimate was ultimately scuttled by rain, but some painting, baking (edible) cookies to use up soon-to-expire stuff and giving the old piano ivories a bit of a run wasn't half bad. Thank God for pottering.

3. Finally. A dry evening! Not time enough, though, for a Singapore Biathlon pitch. Time, however, collapsed and compressed, for a half-hour run round the Singapore Botanic Gardens before dinner. Nifty Nike Frees, fresh air, fecundity of flora and fauna, Lesser Whistling Ducks ducking. The next evening: underwater hockey scuttled by thunder and lightning. Sub-aqua ice hockey soon perhaps? Singapore Ironman 70.3 Triathlon in September 2007. Pwnage.

4. At the Gingers': crowding round some good curry, tandoori and prata and tossing about really bad jokes:

"Would you prefer prata or naan?"
"Ah, the naan that begot Joshua?"
"..."
"You know, Joshua - son of Nunn?"
"........"

We had a listen to a scrap of their impressive collection of John Piper's sermons and a good chat about his Christian Hedonism.

*Off-the-cuff Stuff*

Even without toe-dipping into discussions about classical philosophical definitions of the term "hedonism", it appears slightly worrying that Piper has built his whole ministry around this idea of Christian Hedonism.

The gist of Mr. Piper's argument seems to be:
Premise I: Obligation of a human is to seek one's own pleasure.
Premise II: The greatest pleasure is to be found in God.
Conclusion: Therefore, obligation of a human is to find pleasure in God.

While the conclusion may seem biblical:
1. Syllogisms can sometimes be used invalidly, eg:
Premise I: God is love.
Premise II: Love is blind.
Premise III: Stevie Wonder is blind.
Conclusion: Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.

2. In Piper's case, the fundamental premise itself is fallacious: the primary obligation of a human is not the seeking of our own pleasure or the fulfilment of our desires. It is to seek God and his pleasures and desires.

3. Just because God has designed us to find greatest pleasure and satisfaction in the worship of him does not mean that we should conflate the two. Our motivation for worshipping God is not to the end of gaining self-centred pleasure but for God himself: because of who he is, his all-encompassing power, authority, compassion, mercy and love etc. Our pleasure is not God; only God is God.