Eat, Drink and Be Merry: A Bittersweet Tribute to Anthony Bourdain

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  2018-06-14 11:17:28

  Owen

  Doug, I really appreciate your statement here concerning the world as gift. That idea has so much theological and practical import, helping us to re-imagine our role in the world as the cosmic priests God intends us to be. We receive the world as his gift and then offer it back in grateful praise. That picture certainly highlights creation’s goodness! Even for the materially impoverished, God promises to give the enjoyment of “daily bread” to those who ask. I do wonder, though, if Qoheleth’s words in Ecclesiastes aren’t spoken in a more exploratory mode, rather than a, “Thus sayeth the Lord.” In other words, I think he is basically saying, “If I think about everything under the sun, that is, from a purely horizontal perspective, here’s what seems best…” Wine, women, and song (i.e. sex, drugs, and rock and roll) seem best from a purely under-the-sun vantage, and this is the life in which Qoheleth dabbled (Eccl 2.1-11). I’m not at all saying you see things from a purely horizontal perspective, since a theology of gift has a strong vertical element (James 1.17). But, if all we had is the horizontal life, our life under the sun, then logically, all we should do is “eat, drink and be merry.” I think that’s Qoheleth’s point. Maybe a robust theology of fasting and detachment would balance this picture out. After all, Qoheleth also says this: “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone….The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure” (Eccl 7.2, 4). This statement points to how easily earthly pleasures can distract us from the most important things, those realities that should be somberly considered: “Fear God and keep his commandments….For God will bring every deed into judgment” (Eccl 12.13-14). St. Paul also takes this eschatological perspective: “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’” (1 Cor 15.32). So, we fast and deny ourselves earthly pleasures, not in order to reject enjoyment, but instead to train our hearts for something better, to enjoy a richer spiritual union with God. The telos of worldly detachment should always be divine enjoyment. Sorry for the long response. Would love to hear your thoughts on this. Owen

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    2018-06-14 16:13:39

    Doug Ponder

    Hi, Owen. Thanks for your encouragement! I agree that seeing the world as ‘gift’ is an incredibly fruitful concept. In fact, that idea is central to the thesis I’m writing for my ThM at SEBTS. Maybe I can send it to you when the first draft is done. You strike me as a thoughtful reader, and I’d appreciate another set of eyes. (I know that’s a lot to ask, so feel free to decline. If you are interested, however, look me up on Twitter and send me a DM.) As for your question, let address the points you raise in turn. First, I understand the interpretation of Ecclesiastes that you refer to, namely, that Qoheleth is largely (that is, from chapter 2 until nearly the end of the book) offering exploratory comments on the nature of life apart from God, that is, “the horizontal life,” as you put it. However, I no longer believe this is the best way to interpret the book for several reasons. First, the most recent commentaries broadly agree that the main purpose of Ecclesiastes is a meditation on the brevity of life, the elusiveness of satisfaction, and the inevitability of death. These are realities that ring true for believers and non-believers alike. Second, the phrase “under the sun” is likely not used to refer to a secular, “horizontal-only” perspective. David Gibson (among others) makes this case on p.27ff of his book ‘Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End’ (Crossway, 2017). Essentially, he argues that the phrase “under the sun” is a temporal marker, since in Scripture the sun is almost always a marker of time, not place or perspective. The phrase, then, would refer to a period of time (now) instead of a perspective on life. Third, the meaning of the Hebrew word ‘hevel’ isn’t “vanity,” or worse: “meaninglessness.” Rather, it’s best translated as ‘fleeting.’ Again, this is a temporal term. This also makes better sense of Qoheleth’s comment throughout the book that “the same event [death] happens to all," which would be an odd thing to say if he were talking about things are only true if you live without a ‘vertical perspective.’ Instead, I think Q is saying that this is the way things are for all finite creatures with a temporal existence. Far from making life in the present pointless, though, the shortness of life and inevitability of death thereby transform all that we do now, ‘under the sun.’ That is, accepting our finitude and the reality of death changes us from people who want to control life (including what happens after we die) into people who seek to find deep joy by receiving life as a gift. So, then, the main message of Eccesliastes would be something like: life in God’s world is about gift, not gain. As Doug Wilson says in his commentary on Ecclesiastes (‘Joy at the End of the Tether’), “The gift of God does not make [hevel] go away; the gift of God makes this [hevel] enjoyable.” In view of all this, Qoheleth seems to mean precisely what he says in Eccl 2:24-25. Indeed, it is worth noting that this is his first mention of God since the opening of the book. It is his commentary and critique on Solomon’s quest for satisfaction *in* earthly things instead of finding the joy that comes *through* earthly things when received as gifts. Hence, “I saw that this too was from God’s hand, for who can eat and enjoy life apart from him?” Gibson summarizes: “Some say ‘eat, drink, and be merry’ because that’s all there is; the Preacher says ‘eat, drink, and be merry’ because that’s *what* there is. God has given the good things of the world to us, and they are their own reward” (Living Backward, 45). In other words, when we accept that life is short, that death is inevitable, and that satisfaction is elusive [because we were made for 'another world', as C.S. Lewis says], then we can stop expecting too much from all the good things around us. Instead, we can learn to pursue them for what they are in themselves instead of pursuing them as *what we need to make us happy.* Thus God gives us the enjoyment, since no created thing (be it wine, women, or song) has power in itself to satisfy. *Yet* the way God gives enjoyment is not apart from his gifts, as if created things were optional, but *through* them. Indeed, Gibson argues that this idea (of joy through gift) is so central that in chapter 11 of Ecclesiastes, before Qoheleth ends the book, he gives us a command concerning the enjoyment of God’s world that is to be included among the conclusion, “Fear God and keep his commands.” Qoheleth writes, “However many years anyone may live, let them enjoy them all. But remember the days of darkness, for there will be many. Everything to come is 'hevel'. You who are young, be happy while you are young, and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth… but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment” (Eccl. 9:8-9). Gibson convincingly argues that Q is not saying, "Go have fun, but remember your curfew because God is gonna judge you!" Rather, he means that our enjoyment of God's world, or better: our gratitude for what God has given, will in some since be called into account in God's final reckoning. On this point Gibson approvingly quoates C. L. Seow’s commentary: “Human beigns are supposed to enjoy life because that is their divinely assigned portion, and God calls one into account for failure to enjoy…. Enjoyment is not only permitted, it is commanded; it is not an opportunity, it is a divine imperative” (Seow, ‘Ecclesiastes,’ New York: Doubleday, 1997, p. 371). Natural law also teaches us this much, does it not? When a child willfully refuses to enjoy a great gift that a parent has lavished on them, it is a refutation of the parent’s love and a natural offense to the parent. (You buy your child a car that they might drive it.) All this is true because the Giver-Recipient relationship involves recognizing the benevolence of the Giver and the goodness of the gift. Moses seems to make a similar argument when he tells God’s people that they will be judged “because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, even though you had an abundance of everything” (Deut. 28:47). In other words, the curses of the covenant are in some way intensified by their failure to *joyfully* serve God *in the midst of abundance.* Commenting on this verse, Gibson writes, “Not to live gladly, joyfully, and not to drink deeply from the wells of abundant goodness that God has lavished on us, is sin, and it is a sin because it is a denial of who He is” (Living Backward, 138). Concerning Qoheleth’s comments about going into a house of mourning, do not overlook that in the prior verse Q says the day of one’s death is better than the day of one’s birth (Eccl 7:1). How can this be so? It is not because death is better than life, but because, when it comes to the 'hevel' of life, a coffin is a better teacher than a crib. Qoheleth extends this idea into verse 2, which you cited, by telling the reader to consider how a funeral has more power to make one thankful for the gifts of life than a party. The answer is paradoxical, in that a funeral has the power to make you enjoy the rest of life more than any one particular party ever could. In other words, we are back to where we started: life is short, satisfaction is elusive, and death is inevitable; therefore, enjoy the gifts of God while you can in this life, giving thanks "always and for everything" (Eph 5:20) *as gifts* *from God.* As for fasting, sure. I think there is room for fasting in the picture I have tried to paint. But the point of fasting is that one would feast again with even greater enjoyment the next time around. It’s not that one would get all somber and penitential and think that they have, by virtue of the fast itself, somehow attained to some “heavenly bliss” that is quasi-gnositc in its half-hearted contempt for our physical existence. (I'm not saying you are guilty of this, of course! Just trying to speak to an extreme example.) I think the logic of fasting is from food is similar to the logic of fasting from sex (1 Cor 7). We fast for a brief time, not because the fasting from a gift is better than enjoying a gift, but because fasting from any gift reminds us that God himself is the greatest gift, and all his earthly delights are thin soup in comparison to what he has in store for us (1 Cor 2:9). Finally, as for Paul’s use of the famous “eat, drink and be merry” formula, I do think in that context Paul is referring to a horizontal-only perspective of life, unlike the author of Ecclesiastes. Thus, I do not think Paul was making a connection to Ecclesiastes but to Epicureanism, with its materialistic nihilism. Although, even here, it is ironic that the Epicureans were a little closer to the right perspective about pleasure than someone like Immanuel Kant, whose ghost still haunts the church at large. (Indeed, John Piper’s magnum opus is nothing if not a rejection of the Kantian distinction between the pursuit of happiness and moral goodness.) Anyway, that was a longer response than you probably expected or wanted. If you desire, feel free to respond at your leisure. Thanks again for the conversation, - dp -

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  2018-06-15 06:32:04

  #FaithandCulture Reading: Domestic Abuse, #MeToo, Anthony Bourdain, Graduates, Refugees | Intersect

  […] “Our souls need so much more than food, money, and grand experiences,” writes Mike Cosper at The Gospel Coalition as he reflects on the life of Anthony Bourdain. […]

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  2018-06-15 15:38:59

  Owen

  Doug, thank you for the very generous response. And I thought my comments were long! :) You’ve made some helpful clarifying points here, and I think we agree more than we differ. But I’ll add a few more of my own thoughts, since these topics touch the heart of some of my own current interests. Let me first say that one of those interests is *not* keeping abreast of current scholarship on Ecclesiastes. But it seems that you’ve done excellent work in this area! I did take a book study in college on Ecclesiastes, so I’m generally familiar with the conversation surrounding its interpretation. The debate over “hebel” seems never-ending, particularly in the modern period. I’ve heard it translated as “absurd,” “meaningless,” “useless,” “vanity” (of course), and “enigmatic.” Some of these glosses are more epistemologically oriented, and some more ontological. The temporal sense, “fleeting,” stands as another example. I actually like the idea of transience as a running theme, but I do wonder how well it compliments hebel’s parallel phrase, “a striving after wind.” This phrase seems less to denote transience (passing away) than it does elusiveness (difficult to grasp). Thus, the “wind” of life’s meaning is constantly slipping through Qoheleth’s epistemological fingers, making life under sun seem absurd, and even meaningless. I don’t completely discount the theme of temporal transience in the book, but I believe it’s only a supporting idea for “hebel.” The fact that life is fleeting is just another piece of evidence which adds to Qoheleth’s mounting frustrations over life’s general absurdity, causing him to make the larger, overarching claim, “All is vanity!” I think we’d both agree that Qoheleth is difficult to interpret. And it matters who we choose as our interpretive guides. I assume you’ve read more broadly, but I noticed all the books you quote are by late 20th- and early 21st-century commentators. My approach generally follows the patristic and medieval reading, following the likes of Origen, Jerome and Bonaventure. So there may be presuppositional differences in the way we read the book. One of these is a certain theology of creation. As I’m sure you know, the church fathers shared an outlook of contemptus mundi. They did not deny the world was a gift of God, but simply (and rightly, I think) relativized its goodness within an hierarchical ontology, meaning that, for example, the spiritual is better than the physical, heaven is better than earth, the soul is better than the body, the eternal is better than the temporal, the new covenant is better that the old covenant, etc. In the attempt to always ascend this hierarchy, to ascend to deeper union with God, worldly goods were always put in their proper place. Contempt for the world means that it’s always *better* to depart this world and be with Christ. Within this framework, I don’t think God ever commands us to "eat, drink, and be merry," to enjoy earthly things as if they were their own reward. Rather, we’re to set our minds on things above, not on the things of the earth, namely because we are way too apt to make our belly into God (Col 3.2; Phil 3:19). It’s hard for a rich, well-fed, earthly-pleasure-pursuing man to enter the kingdom (cf. Matt 19.24). I think, however, this does bring us to a point of agreement. Even though God doesn’t command us to enjoy earthly things for their own sake, we are to enjoy him *through* these things. The spiritual ascent through the hierarchical ontology I briefly traced above is now seen as a sacramental ontology. But the sacrament is not the thing itself. We enjoy the heavenly reality through the earthly sacrament. In comparison to the transcendent reality, the sacrament is nearly nothing (“thin soup” as you said). But we are so prone to treat earthly goods as goods in themselves, that we need spiritual training (i.e. asceticism; Greek: askesis, “training,” from askein “to exercise”), as any successful athlete does. This is why St. Paul says, “I discipline (lit: beat, batter) my body and make it my slave” (1 Cor 9.27). The intellectual/spiritual is better than the bodily, and the former is meant to rule over the latter. When that hegemony is reversed, which happens very easily, we become no better than beasts which instinctually follow their appetites in order to survive. The church has always understood the answer for this problem to be detachment from the world, even though the world is good (relatively speaking). The purpose of fasting, for instance, is not so that “one would feast again with even greater enjoyment the next time around.” It is rather so that one can train their appetites by forcefully telling them “No!”, even in regard to licit earthly goods (like delicious food or conjugal relations). That way, when an illicit temptation stirs up the appetites, the body has been well-trained to obey its master, the mind—the same mind which we are to renew in order to be spiritually transformed (Rom 12.2). When pursue earthly pleasures for their own sake, we set our minds on things below. All this is to say that philosophical and theological presuppositions greatly influence our respective readings of Qoheleth. My reading, I think, coheres with New Testament emphases: not to actively pursue enjoyment in pleasurable earthly goods, but to spiritually ascend to God through earthly things, guarding ourselves from their allurement, whether we receive pleasure “here and now” or not. I am all for eating, drinking and having a good time (seriously), but the pursuit of these things is just not the main emphasis of the Christian tradition. The thickest tradition stemming from the New Testament up to the present emphasizes fasting and prayer, spiritual training for the purpose of godliness, and a sacramental ontology that subordinates the earthly to the heavenly, even to the point of detachment from the world for the goal of eternal beatitude in God. Within this matrix, earthly pleasures can certainly be a wonderful *by-product* as we run this race. But I just don't think God every commands their consumption for Christians, and I don't think Qoheleth does either.

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    2018-06-19 15:39:21

    Doug Ponder

    Hi, Owen. Thanks for continuing the dialogue. I think these are some points of agreement: 1. The relative difficulty of interpreting Ecclesiastes / Qoheleth, including his use of the word hevel [or hebel] 2. The inescapable and impactful nature of presuppositions, in general 3. The patristics as an invaluable resource, in general 4. The sacramental nature of God’s gifts, which he does *not* intend for us to enjoy for their own sake, but gives as a way for us to enjoy him *through* the gifts he has given 5. The necessity of fasting, self-control, and the so-called “spiritual disciplines” for the Christian life 6. The reality and gravity of worldliness, including sinful self-indulgence Corresponding to the points of agreement above, here are some points of disagreement: 1. The *source* of interpretive difficulty of Qoheleth: Perhaps part of the reason Qoheleth seems so difficult to interpret for many Christians is precisely because his point (on my reading) is one that does fit into the “matrix” that you mention, which emphasizes prayer and fasting, spiritual training, and the heavenly over the earthly (sometimes to the point of disdaining the earthly altogether). In other words, Q may only *seem* difficult because his rather straightforward statements about life as a gift from God do not easily squire with a tradition that so heavily emphasizes detachment from the world. 2. The particular presuppositions we hold: Here is my starting place: We worship a God whose original plan for making new worshippers was not evangelism, but orgasm (Gen 1:28). We worship a God who says he has “pleasure at his right hand forever” (Psalm 16:11). We worship a God who created a physical world and called it “very good” (Gen 1:31). We worship a God who commanded only *one* day of fasting in the old covenant, while making all the other religious holidays festival feasts (Passover Feast, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feat of the Firstfruits, the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Trumpets, and the Feast of Booths). We worship a God who told his people that the right response to the Book of the Law was not mourning, but feasting and rejoicing (Nehemiah 8:9-12). We worship a God who, though he suffered terribly and called us to imitate his example and take up our cross daily (Luke 9:23), nevertheless most frequently used the imagery of a party as his favorite metaphor for the kingdom life (Matt 24:42-51 / Luke 12:35-48; Matt 25:1-13; Matt 22:1-14 / Luke 14:15-24, as well as Revelation 19:6-9 and Isaiah 25:6-9). We worship a God who says he created “wine to gladden the heart of man” (Psalm 104:15). We worship a God who consumed sufficient quantities of food and drink to make plausible the (false) accusation of his enemies that he was a glutton and a drunkard (Matt 11:9). We worship a God who fixes problems with parties (Luke 15:21-32). We worship a God who says our future is “the joy of [y]our Master” (Matt. 25:21, 23). In this “matrix,” I think Q’s message makes a good deal of sense! Eat, drink and enjoy the gifts of God, acknowledging them all as grace upon grace. As Q says, all this is “from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or have enjoyment?” (Eccl. 2:24). 3. The limited value of the patristics on this matter, in particular: Let me restate my love for the patristics (and the medieval minds). In fact, I named my firstborn Athanasius. But I do *not* think that ‘older = better,’ as if proximity to the time of the NT were, by itself, a safeguard against misinterpretation. Of course, nor do I think that ‘newer = better,’ as if we are always progressing and never faltering or forgetting. Rather, all ideas must be evaluated on their own merits, regardless of their age. I think in some ways we have not given enough consideration to how differently the patristics saw the world than we moderns do, and it is vital that we read them regularly. However, I also think we have (praise God) developed beyond the patristics in some areas, since many of them held strange views about the nature of women, about the purity of marital sex and the goodness of sexual pleasure, and about the value of living on a pole or as a hermit in the desert—to name a few well-known examples. So mark me down as appreciative-yet-critical of the patristics (and medievalists). I think that contemptus mundi is one of their unfortunate blind spots, which smacks more of neoplatonism than of the New Testament. I think the church has moved on from this blind spot in important ways, rejecting their contempt of God’s earthly world in favor of a view that treats the physicality of God’s creation as a meaningful good. (In particular, N.T. Wright has been of great help on this point.) 4. The proper way to engage God’s varied gifts: You are quite right that the sign is not the thing signified. This is as true of the eucharist it is of earthly pleasure. Hence C. S. Lewis’ famous passage in ‘The Weight of Glory’ about the ‘inconsolable longing’ for a far off country, and the “dumb idols” that break the hearts of worshippers who mistake the sign for the Thing itself: “These things are good images of what we really desire… [but] they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.” So let us never treat the gift as if it were on par with the Giver. That is, let us not re-commit the fundamental sin of idolatry, which is to ‘worship and serve the creation instead of the Creator’ (Romans 1:25). But God forbid that we reject our physical nature, as if it were nothing but a shell or prison for the soul (hello again, neoplatonism). God forbid that we reject the physical gifts of the God “who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment” (1 Tim. 6:19). So then, let us learn to neither to reject them as nothing (like the esoterically religious), nor worship them as ultimate (like materialistic Pagans), but rather let us learn to receive—and enjoy—all good things as gifts from God, which is what they are (James 1:17). Let us strive that that adoration-filled gratitude that says not only, “How good of God to give me this apple,” but “What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!” Thus does one’s mind run back up the sunbeam to the sun (cf. C.S. Lewis, ‘Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer’ and Eph 5:20; Col 3:17). 5. The particular purpose of fasting: In the Old Covenant, God commanded only *one* day of fasting (Lev 16:19-21; 23:26-32; Num 29:7). All the remaining required religious observances were feasts and festivals (the Passover Feast, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feat of the Firstfruits, the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Trumpets, and the Feast of Booths). If it was this way for God’s people in a time of less light and grace than the incarnation of the Son of God (Heb 1:1-2), how much more then should the New Covenant feel like life that has seen God’s fullness and received his “grace upon grace”? Nowhere in Scripture is fasting *explicitly* mentioned as a practice to be employed for the effect it has on one’s body, as if learning to say no to licit desires will train us to say ‘no’ to illicit desires. If anything, Paul seems to say the opposite in Colossians 2:21-23, when he warns that manmade religious disciplines are “of no value in curbing the indulgence of the flesh.” Instead, the Scriptures only ever connect fasting to “humbling the soul” and/or posturing oneself receive the favor [grace] of the Lord (Ps 35:13; Ezra 8:21-23; Isa 57:15; 66:1-2). While later church tradition may have developed or discovered a different purpose for fasting, may be fair to say that a tradition which emphasizes an act not commanded in the NT for a purpose not explicitly mentioned in either the OT or the NT is quite possibly a tradition that is misguided on this point. Positively stated, I double-down on what I said in my first response: I think the purpose of fasting is to increase our hunger for God himself, to remind us that he is greater than his gifts, and to increase our enjoyment of God through his gifts when we return to them. One fast, seven feasts. Let us take our cue from the ancient calendar of God’s people! 6. Concerning the reality and gravity of worldliness, including sinful self-indulgence: I agree that worldliness is a major problem the NT intends to guard us against. But I do not agree that the way to guard us against this error is to place us in a ditch on the other side of the road. That is, the New Testament is equally—if not more!—concerned with guarding us against a kind of manmade religious self-denial. For we are no better off if we fail to enjoy God as the ultimate Giver than we are if idolize the gifts over the Giver. The first is the way of religious duty without joy, a hellishly fundamental misunderstanding of who God is and the grace he has given. The second is the way of materialistic consumerism, an equally hell-bound road that sees all things only as ends in themselves to be consumed at will by the god of Self. Apart from these paths God offers us a third way, which leads us to receive earthly things *as gifts* *from God* who “richly provides us with all things for our enjoyment” (1 Tim 6:19). In the end, God is far more joyful and generous than religious persons suppose, and he is far grander and more glorious than any pagan can conceive. He is the God who gives freely to all, without price. “Listen carefully to me,” he says. “Eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food” (Isaiah 55:2)—these words are a metaphor for salvation, yes, but they *work* as a metaphor because God has created a world in which rich foods actually exist, and a world in which human tongues can actually taste and delight in such things—all to the glory of God. Selah.

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  2018-06-17 13:39:11

  Meridith Berson

  Great article. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

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  2018-06-22 10:19:19

  Owen

  Doug, it seems that we’ve come to more of a consensus during the course of this thread, and I’m very glad! I originally posted a comment which sought a bit more balance than I perceived in your original piece. It seems to me that more biblical/theological balance has emerged throughout our discussion. We agree that earthly goods are not to be enjoyed for their own sake, but that God is to be enjoyed through them. My initial comment proposed fasting as a time-tested method of reining in the passions of the flesh in order to enjoy God more fully. I think we’ve come to a place of somewhat greater agreement on this point too. If I may, I’d like to make a few more comments on several of your last statements. I’ll probably bow out after this. So please feel free to have the last word in the discussion. You said, "Here is my starting place: We worship a God whose original plan for making new worshippers was not evangelism, but orgasm (Gen 1:28)." If you mean that humans are built for the bliss of eternal beatitude in God, then I completely agree. Human sexuality as it is expressed in the sacrament of marriage is a beautiful thing; but it’s a picture of something else, namely, union with God. Both Jesus and Paul actually think it’s better not to get married, especially in this present eschatological moment (Matt 19.10-12; 1 Cor 7.25-40). Not everyone is spiritually cutout for a life of celibacy (1 Cor 7.9), but it’s a higher calling to devote oneself completely to God in this way. A single life of celibacy is a sacrifice of physical pleasure in this world in order to gain the far-better spiritual pleasures of God, experienced now but especially experienced in the hereafter. In fact, the union of marriage itself is not even “about” our physical pleasure. It's “about” the union of Christ and the Church: “‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery—but I am talking *about* Christ and the church” (Eph 5.31-32). Likewise, the Song of Songs celebrates marriage, but the “more real” reality it celebrates is God's spiritual union with his people. I hear you emphasizing the joys of physicality. My burden is to emphasize the joys of spirituality. Our views aren’t radically different, I don’t think, but a certain direction of emphasis defines a teaching ministry. The physical is good and real, but the spiritual is better and more real. This seems to be the New Testament perspective and the emphasis of the great tradition. You said, "We worship a God who commanded only *one* day of fasting in the old covenant, while making all the other religious holidays festival feasts…" Concerning the feasts of the Old Testament, the NT is always our guide for understanding their Christian importance. The NT gives us an inspired hermenuetic for reading and applying Old Testament realities in the Church. Paul tells us (in good Platonic fashion!) that these OT feasts were shadows. Yes, they were good; yes, they were given by God as gifts; yes, they were historically real. But the true reality – the really real – is found in Christ (Col 2.17). Those OT institutions which you seem to interpret according to the letter are actually meant to be interpreted according to the spirit. In other words, they sacramentally point beyond themselves to something better, something more real and substantial, the heavenly reality of Christ and his mystical Body. In the hierarchical ontology which I traced in my previous comment, we could add this point: the spirit is better than the letter (2 Cor 3.6). The physical description of earthly joys in the OT (the letter) must ultimately give way to a richer, Christological understanding of spiritual feasting (the spirit). We will always “keep the feast” as embodied creatures (cf. 1 Cor 5.8), but bodily pleasures are insubstantial shadows in comparison to the spiritual substance found in the joyful “partaking of” God himself in Christ. You quote Lewis approvingly, but it seems that your interpretation of Ecclesiastes calls Christians to do the very thing Lewis urges against: “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex…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” (“The Weight of Glory”). Like St. Paul, Lewis was a good Christian Platonist. Doesn’t the literal application to Christians of the statement “eat, drink, and be merry” embody the very attitude which Lewis chides? His point is that our desires should indeed be strong, but they must be aimed like a laser toward the divine. In general, the satisfaction of desire through pleasure isn’t evil at all. But our desires must be properly directed, and this is one benefit of fasting. Lewis is helpful here as well: “When you are training soldiers in maneuvers, you practice in blank ammunition because you would like them to have practices before meeting the real enemy. So we must practice in abstaining from pleasures which are not in themselves wicked. If you don’t abstain from pleasure, you won’t be good when the time comes along. It is purely a matter of practice” (God in the Dock). We employ a habitual regime of abstinence regarding our fleshly appetites, even in lawful matters, so that when unlawful pleasures tempt us, we “naturally” (because of long-time habituation) choose to take pleasure in God instead. You said, "We worship a God who consumed sufficient quantities of food and drink to make plausible the (false) accusation of his enemies that he was a glutton and a drunkard (Matt 11:9)." The table fellowship Jesus had with sinners is meant to teach us something important. But is the point of his frequent meals that we as Christians ought to celebrate eating and drinking? In the sense of eating earthly food, I don’t think that’s the moral of the stories. As you pointed out, these are *metaphors* for the kingdom. Just as Jesus used words to teach in parables, his incarnate actions also stand as living parables for us. The parabolic point of Jesus' table fellowship is the reality of our communion with God in Christ by the Spirit. Jesus himself is the food from heaven that gives life to the world. The meals of Jesus symbolize our eternal fellowship with the Father, and the Father gives us his Son to eat – he is the Bread if life. Christ says, “I have food to eat that you do not know about,” (Jn 4.32) and, “You are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you” (Jn 6.26-27). I'm very happy to say that Jesus attended parties, and would even “spike the punch” on occasion, but the true “life of the party” was eternal life. The celebration always pointed beyond itself to a deeper mystery; these things were “signs” of salvation (Jn 2.11). Again, I do think our differences are a matter of emphasis. I want my emphases to line up, as much as possible, with scripture and tradition, with good reason and lived experience. I want to give priority to the heavenly and relativize the earthly, directing my desire to the former without discounting the latter. Again, as Lewis says, “Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth ‘thrown in’: aim at Earth and you will get neither” (The Joyful Christian). If we had the time and energy, there are other applicable themes we could explore, like, for example, St. Augustine’s theory of signs (especially his uti/frui distinction), as well as the implications of a thoroughgoing metaphysics of participation as it relates to the goodness of creation. But alas, I must return to working on my own ThM. :) Looking forward to further conversation. Owen

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    2018-06-26 11:23:24

    Doug Ponder

    Hi, Owen. Thanks again for continuing the dialogue. This will be my last post as well. (Allow me also to say that I appreciate your kindness to let me have the last word on my article.) Concerning balance: I’m glad you think we have “come to more of a consensus during the course of this thread” regarding the lack of balance you perceived (rightly or wrongly) in my original piece. Perhaps I could have been more clear, but I do think this balance is present in the original piece in principle, if not in emphasis. I stated, “Secular hedonists devour the goods of the world without regard for the Giver who gave them all. This, in effect, expects too much of the good things we pursue and places on them a burden that they can never bear. (“I can’t get no satisfaction” isn’t just a classic rock lyric.) Yet too many Christians fall into a ditch on the other side, supposing God to be a cosmic killjoy who gave us physical appetites only for the purpose of renouncing them. They feel guilty about enjoying God’s gifts, and they could never imagine God watching one of Anthony Bourdain’s food-and-travel shows with anything other than a look of grumpy disapproval: “What is the meaning of all this gluttony, this waste, this self-indulgence?” But that quote isn’t from God. It’s from the White Witch of Narnia.” Two ditches then: materialistic hedonism, on the one hand, and quasi-gnostic spiritualism on the other. Concerning physical pleasure: I said in my last response, “We worship a God whose original plan for making new worshippers was not evangelism, but orgasm (Gen 1:28).” This is not a statement that denies the sacramental nature of marriage—about which I entirely agree. Rather, this is simply an observation that God seems more committed to the good of physical pleasure than many of his worshippers imagine to be the case. He made a world where people come into existence through orgasm, yet did not have to do this. Thus, he wanted things to be this way, and that reality means something. I take it to mean that God actually wants his children to enjoy him by enjoying his world as a gift from him, all done with worshipful gratitude. As G.K. Chesterton has said, “I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” So that’s thanks *for* the gifts, and thanks *to* the Giver, whose grace we receive with gladness and wonder. Excursus on marriage: I take issue with the interpretation of 1 Corinthians 7 that you have offered here. I do not think that Paul’s statements regarding singles and marriage are universally true claims. For one thing, this would seem to undermine the created order of God’s world in the beginning—something Paul would never do. Secondly, and more immediately apparent, is that Paul adds a temporal qualifier to what he is saying: “I think that in view of the *present distress* it is good for a person to remain as he is…. This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short” (1 Cor 7:26, 29). It is consensus among most scholars today that Paul was referring the persecution of Christians and Jews and/or the impending destruction of Jerusalem—about which Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24. Therefore, Paul’s comments in 1 Cor 7 about “those with wives living as though they had none” is not a gnomic proverb with a one-to-one application in all times and places. (You can find some excellent Scripture-interpreting-Scripture type exegesis on this point here: https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/27331/what-is-the-present-crisis-in-1-corinthians-7). Furthermore, Jesus’ comments in Matthew 19 do not say that singleness is better than marriage, but only that some will make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom. This is true, of course. Yet in context, it was the difficulty of marriage—not singleness—and the need to receive marriage as a gift that Jesus’ discipleships were reacting to! Concerning the OT feasts: Perhaps I was very unclear on this point, because I was/am not at all suggesting that we take up the feasts according to the letter of the law. Rather, I was/am making an a foriori argument: if the Old Covenant emphasis was one of feasting over fasting at the rate of seven-to-one, how much more should the New Covenant emphasis, with its repeated claims that we have received even more grace, be an emphasis that embodies the *spirit* of feasting even more? It would be quite queer to maintain that we somehow celebrate the spirit of feasting by means of stricter fasting. I cannot even imagine what that statement would look like in practice! Concerning Lewis: Quoting Lewis against Lewis was a brilliant move, and it brought a smile to my face. It would seem that he had blind spots too, just as you, me, and the patristics all do. To wit: Lewis says in one place that God is a hedonist far more committed to physical pleasure (as a sign of the true source of all joy) than his creatures would ever imagine, while he says in another place that we fool about with drink and sex when something greater is offered us. And again he says that we must practice fasting from licit pleasures in order to strengthen our will against illicit ones, while in another place he says that fasts are but a façade and the real heart of God is a sea full of pleasure. These can be synthesized without much work. Indeed, I suspect you probably are familiar enough with Lewis to know that he when he warned us against “fooling about with drink and sex” he did not have in mind anything like a gnostic rejection of physical pleasure. Rather, he was speaking of the pursuit of these things as ends in themselves, “apart from God,” which, as I showed in my article, is precisely the point Qoheleth is trying to make. You cannot fully enjoy these things apart from enjoying them consciously as gifts *from God* (Eccl. 2:24-25). Concerning Jesus’ eating and drinking: The main *purpose* of Jesus’ table fellowship with sinners is not in doubt: I agree with that you said on that point entirely! However, this was not the argument I was/am making. I was/am not speaking of with the purpose of his feasting but of one of its *results.* That is, I’m not saying that Jesus ate and drank in order to show us that these are acceptable. (Indeed, he did not need to do this, given the rhythm of the OT, his first miracle at Cana, God’s commands in Deuteronomy to feast before him, the metaphor of salvation as a feast, etc.) Rather, I’m saying that Jesus’ feasting was of such abundance and frequency that the *effect* or *result* is that it made Pharisees quite nervous, much as it still afflicts those with gnostic and/or teetotaler tendencies today. Concerning the matter of emphasis: Perhaps you are right that we are closer than we are apart, the difference being mostly a matter of emphasis. But I would take issue with the claim that your emphasis is one that “line(s) up, as much as possible, with scripture and tradition, with good reason and lived experience,” as if my emphasis did not. This is the crux of the debate, isn’t it? :) For one thing, I love the Wesleyan quadrilateral as much as the next man. As for Scripture: I think you’ll find that the Scriptures mention the call to feast and enjoy far more often than they call us to fast and deny. As for tradition: I grant that the patristics seemed to have largely missed the boat on this one. They were but men, and they can err. Yet Calvin and Luther talked a great deal about the goodness of physical pleasure as a (sacramental) gift of God is a modern emphasis. Furthermore, history is still being written, and it may well be that the ‘modern’ emphasis proves a corrective from God concerning this patristic blind spot. Indeed, it is likely that ten thousand years from now the church will call the 1500s-1900s “the latter early church,” with the likes of Calvin, Luther, Chesterton and Lewis (et al.) placed right alongside Origen & Co. At that time, if the Internet still exists, this conversation will seem silly, since the patristics will include two thousand years (or more!) of church scholars. As for reason and experience: I maintain that a God who tells us that he made wine to gladden the hearts of man, who commanded multiple feasts for every one fast, and who chose orgasm as his plan for the multiplication of worshippers (before the additional need for evangelism after the fall) is a God who thinks more highly of pleasure than many human beings do. This is not to say that it should be enjoyed as an end itself—a point I have repeatedly made—but God’s world is so beautiful and so tasty that it would be difficult to conclude via reason and experience anything other than that God wants us to enjoy him by enjoying what he has made as a gift from him. If you are interested in reading further on where I’m coming from, the following works have been helpful in this regard, in addition to all the commentaries on Ecclesiastes I quoted above. - Angels in the Architecture: A Protestant Vision of Middle Earth, by Douglas Jones and Douglas Wilson (and here recommended by Douglas Ponder) - The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts, Joe Rigney (foreword by John Piper), cf. especially the section on Biblical Self-Denial - Lewis on the Christian Life: Becoming Truly Human in the Presence of God, also by Joe Rigney; cf. especially ch. 10, “Christian Hedonics: Beams of Glory and the Quest for Joy” Blessings to you, friend. Hope we can make coffee happen in Wake Forest real soon. - dp -

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