Depravity & Desire
Mon, 2010-02-15 14:57 — Lane Bowman
“About this time began the great noise, in this part of the country, about Arminianism, which seemed to appear with a very threatening aspect upon the interest of religion here.”
—Jonathan Edwards, in Iain H. Murray, Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography, pg. 109
It’s quite interesting to note that one of the battles Jonathan Edwards fought most fiercely was on the doctrinal grounds of the nature of man. His discourse, On the Freedom of the Will, is his main defense for the biblical doctrine of Total Depravity. In a day like ours, in which John Eldridge is the expert on desire, it would be profitable to ask, “What does depravity mean for desire, especially when we desire good things?”
The evangelical world I came to faith in had an answer for that, and it went something like this: You’re lonely. You desire a friend. Jesus wants to be your best friend. Receive Him as your best friend and you won’t be lonely anymore. (I know it’s simplistic, but most of evangelicalism really can be summarized by the teaching found at a youth group retreat.) Now of course, everyone desires friendship; it’s not a bad thing. And evangelicalism teaches that Jesus should fill that friend-shaped hole in your heart, just like He should fill the God-shaped one, too. This kind of makes sense, right? I mean, Augustine did say that our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Him. And so isn't our problem just that we go about getting what we want—friendship—in the wrong way? Looking for love in all the wrong places, you might say.
Sure, that’s true, and I would agree that we go about getting what we want wrongly. But I would also say that what we want is wrong. Hear me out on this. They wouldn’t have called it Total Depravity if our desires were good and we just dropped the ball on how to fulfill them. John Calvin put it this way:
“We teach that all human desires are evil, and charge them with sin—not because they are natural, but because they are inordinate.”
David Powlison comments on this, noting that “the evil in our desires often lies not in what we want but in the fact that we want it too much” (Seeing With New Eyes, pg. 149). Applying this to our lonesome friend, we find that his loneliness is actually lust. His desire for camaraderie rules him, causing jealousy, control, and hatred towards those who might befriend him. Now, can Jesus fulfill his bottomless lust? And is this the Gospel?
No and no. The Gospel is this: your loneliness is lust, and turn from your sin by being forgiven and freed of it through Jesus Christ, your Savior and Lord. On the other hand, evangelicalism’s gospel is this: You’re depressed, come to Jesus. He’ll make you happy. You’ve had a bad day, come to Jesus. He’ll give you comfort. You’re poor, come to Jesus. He’ll make you rich. You’re single, come to Jesus. He’ll be your boyfriend. In other words, Jesus will fulfill your natural desires.
Now, some might argue I’ve simplified evangelicalism’s gospel too much, but isn’t this what you hear? Every day the evangelical world tells you that Jesus came to give you a happy life. But what you don’t hear is this: You’re dead, come to Jesus. He’ll make you alive. Or this: you’re an enemy of God, but He’ll make you a son. So those who might have been questioning earlier, “But isn’t God our portion forever?” can now see how He is, and how He is not.
Taking a natural, sinful desire and trying to redirect and fulfill it in God is a deadly approach. Trust me, this is what we try to do. Otherwise, James wouldn’t say,
“You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”
Scripture in every place testifies that we are to die to sin, kill sin, and flee from it, not redirect our natural lusts. The second chapter of Calvin’s Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life describes self-denial as “the very excellent key principle” to direct men. Action verbs like neglect, flee, surrender, discard, forget, die, leave, exclude, banish, and subject are used in the first few pages in regard to “the self.” It is clear that our desires, whether for good things or evil, cannot simply be fulfilled in God. Our lusts must be mortified as well.
So, what does this look like? Death. Death to your lusts, whether they be for wicked aims or for gifts from God’s good hand. This is Calvin’s theology. And Edwards’s. And, of course, Jesus’ teaching. So, unless your desires are in full accord with God’s will, both in their matter and in their manner, you must kill them.
Comments
D.M. Lloyd-Jones says, "I
D.M. Lloyd-Jones says, "I have almost come to the conclusion that the acid test to apply, to know whether a preacher is evangelical or not, is this: observe what he does not say!"
Such a person who does not reveal the entire truth is not truthful. He cannot be given the benefit of being called an evangelical as Lloyd-Jones says in his book "What is an evangelical?" True evangelicalism tells the whole truth, otherwise it is not evangelicalism. Acts 20:26-27 says, "I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God." That's an evangelical.
Dear Phil, It is difficult to
Dear Phil,
It is difficult to speak of "evangelicalism" today, isn't it? Sometimes I find myself wanting to defend words by their true and proper meaning, while at the same time not wanting to redefine them every time I speak. The truth is the whole truth, and those who do not declare it shouldn't be given the respect of being called "evangelical."
Absolutely, Lane. It is
Absolutely, Lane. It is extremely difficult. Especially your last line, "shouldn't be given the respect of being called 'evangelical'" with which I heartily agree. God help me to be more faithful.
The mortification of our
The mortification of our inordinate and perverse lusts is an explicit command in Scripture, we are to "make no provision for the flesh". Any gospel that skips over sin to me-centeredness is a false gospel. Nevertheless, I think you've made an error is saying that our desires themselves are wrong, or at least that you've wrongly conflated lust and desire into one and the same thing.
Augustine teaches that virtue is Ordo Amoris, the order of the affections (lit. "loves"). It is not the affections, or in the epistle of James, the desires, that are wrong. The desire for friendship, riches and love (as well as sonship and new life) are good, as can be seen in Mark 10 where Jesus promises his disciples who left everything that they, "shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life." ...here it sounds like Jesus will fill our "natural desires".
Or in Deuteronomy 12 "...thou mayest kill and eat flesh in all thy gates, whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, according to the blessing of the LORD thy God which he hath given thee"
As Calvin says, the inordinate nature of our desire that makes them lusts, it is our failure to give thanks.
C.S. Lewis is oft quoted: "The notion that to desire our own good and to earnestly hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I suggest 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 around 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."
"At thy right hand are pleasures forevermore"
To sum up, if you are going
To sum up, if you are going to run from somewhere you have to run to somewhere else. The essence of Repentance is redirection.
Dear Mick, No, I am not
Dear Mick,
No, I am not saying that lust and desire are "one and the same thing."
But yes, I am saying OUR desires are wrong, every last one of them. I have conjoined lust and desire into the same thing because our hearts, which are the fountain of our desires, are corrupt. Never do we have a desire that is not inordinate, and therefore, each one is bound up in lust. Let me give you the full context of the Calvin quote I used:
"It may seem absurd to some that all desires by which man is by nature affected are so completely condemned--although they have been bestowed by God himself, the author of nature. To this I reply that we do not condemn those inclinations which God so engraved upon the character of man at his first creation, that they were eradicable only with humanity itself, but only those bold and unbridled impulses which contend against God's control. Now, all man's faculties are, on account of the depravity of nature, so vitiated and corrupted that in all his actions persistent disorder and intemperance threaten because these inclinations cannot be separated from such lack of restraint. Accordingly, we contend that they are vicious. Or, if you would have the matter summed up in fewer words, we teach that all human desires are evil, and charge them with sin--not in that they are natural, but because they are inordinate. Moreover, we hold that they are inordinate because nothing pure or sincere can come forth from a corrupt and polluted nature."
"Nor does this teaching disagree as much with that of Augustine..."
- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Battles translation, page 604
(The last sentence is a teaser, and Calvin goes on to address the James passage you quoted in the next section...)
Let me first note that in this section of the Institutes, Calvin is writing about sin in the life of the believer. He brings up what I think is a similar objection to yours, and says, in Eden, yes, these desires were given by God. However, now, all our desires are tainted with lust and never in perfect submission to the will of God. This is why I ended with, "So, unless your desires are in full accord with God’s will, both in their matter (object) and in their manner (degree), you must kill them." It binds all of us to put to death only those ever-inordinate desires, or in other words, all of them. Maybe the best way to continue is to ask, "Have you ever had any perfectly righteous desire in your life, one that honored God for all He is and gave due respect to all men? If not, why do you speak as if lust and desire are somehow bifurcated in us?"
"I have the desire to good
"I have the desire to good but not the ability to carry it out"
Rom. 7:18
In this passage Paul clearly shows that the desires of the inner man are not wrong. It is the deeds of the flesh that must be put to death.
To mortify all desire is the central goal of Buddhism and has nothing to do with the Christian faith.
Mick, This is a very
Mick,
This is a very difficult topic that you have brought up and is a good discussion to sharpen us all. I can't say I can confidently or even correctly articulate my thoughts or what Scripture says about it but I would like to enter the debate with you.
As you quoted Lewis above, our desires are "weak." They are not enough. They are imperfect. We do not desire enough the riches of God and His Glory. Our desires are incomplete. Even our desires for the things that are good are tainted by our sin.
Now, it seems that you are saying that desiring for something that is good is inherently a good desire, since you quoted the Apostle Paul in Romans above. But I believe Lane is saying, as I am thinking, that the desire we have, even for that thing which is good, is tainted with our sin.
With love,
Philip
Reading back over what I've
Reading back over what I've written I think I haven't been either sufficiently clear or respectful, please forgive me. Here's what I ought to have said:
First, I agree with the majority of your post and I'm sorry for attacking what is, in large part, an excellent point.
Second, the distinction I'm drawing is in no way merely theoretical; I believe that there is an important pastoral application. The issue is with the words mortification and repentance. Mortification is for the deeds of the flesh, which include unlawful desires (i.e. the desire for sex outside of marriage) and unlawful actions (i.e. fornication). Repentance is the reordering, redirecting action of putting desires (i.e. the desire for sex) and putting them to action in a way that is proper and honoring to God (i.e. sex within the covenant bonds of marriage). As I understand it (thanks to Phil) there are two different Greek words translated as "desire" one of which is wanting and the other is wanting of something that is forbidden.
My fear is that by saying "Taking a natural, sinful desire and trying to redirect and fulfill it in God is a deadly approach." you've eliminated the distinction and prescribed mortification as the cure for both sorts of desire. This is the sort of formula that leads to asceticism, which has been and remains a real danger to souls. I know we live in an indulgent and decadent culture that says "If it feels good, go ahead and do it" but I don't want us to fall off the other side of the horse either. To put it another way, Christianity is a religion of both feasting and fasting.
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