God is Not a Cosmic Killjoy: A Brief Defense of Enjoying the Good World
When God created the world, he called it “good.” It makes sense, then, that one of the things Satan has been doing ever since is calling it “bad.”
In 1 Timothy 4 Paul warns Timothy about the “teachings of demons.” What kind of gross heresy deserves that label? Certainly, demonic doctrine must be some full-frontal assault on Christ’s person and work?
Actually, no. The doctrines of demons that Paul mentions are not about Christ, but about creation. He says the false teaching is about forbidding marriage and certain foods - both gifts given to mankind by God in Genesis 1-2.
God made pleasure to be a gift to mankind. According to Genesis 2:8, he made the garden “pleasant to the sight and good for food” (Gen. 2:8). God made sights and sounds and tastes and smells, and then gave humanity capacities to find pleasure in them.
God wants us to receive these gifts with gratitude, not reject them. Our God is fundamentally about delight and overflow, bounty and generosity, feasting and plenty. The devil is about petty restrictions.
A few weeks ago I picked up Ashley’s copy of My Dear Hemlock off her end table and opened it randomly to the middle of the book. I was intrigued by a chapter called “On the Abstention Bias.” In it, author Tilly Dillehay makes an astute observation. She says that we are prone to think that abstaining from a pleasure is more virtuous than enjoying it.
Test yourself. You and your two friends are offered a giant cookie ice-cream sandwich. Your first friend refrains because she’s on a diet, the other refrains because he’s doing a no-sugar month, and you indulge. Do you feel guilty?
That’s false guilt - feeling guilty for something that is not sin. And false guilt is insidiously dangerous because it leads to false righteousness. If Satan can convince you of false guilt when you enjoy legitimate pleasures, he’s already won a double victory. First, you’ll begin to think you’re being righteous by your man-made regulations; and second, you’ll stop seeing God’s good gifts as gifts, but rather as temptations to avoid. And this will, over time, warp your view of God. No longer will he be the giver of all good delights, but the withholder of all pleasures - the cosmic killjoy.
So when it comes to enjoying legitimate earthly pleasures - an ice-cream cone, a day at the lake, a romp on the dance floor - don’t fall prey to the abstention bias. To abstain from pleasure is not better than the enjoyment of pleasure. This demonic doctrine is a long-term strategy for neutering the gospel.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Christians must be wise, exercise wise restraint, self-discipline, and be careful not to be mastered by our pleasures. That’s important.
But we also must learn to enjoy God’s creation. To receive good gifts with gratitude to God. To laugh, to rest, to feast, to sing, and do it all without guilt, for the glory of God.
