Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Originally posted by KenPierce
Mr Lewis,
YOu are defining hedonism differently than Piper does. Piper is very careful to deny pursuing pleasure for the sake of pleasure: indeed, one might argue his point is that we ought to desire God for the sake of God! And, in doing so, we find our God-shaped void filled.
PPiper wants to show that God does not profit by us --stressing his aseity. He is not served by human hands as if he needed anything. We do not add to his glory (WCF 2.2) when we glorify him.
Rather, he calls upon us to find our rest in him (Augustine). There can be no greater glory accorded to God than to seek him for who and what he is.
PPiper's point is that we ought to take all our delight in glorifying God, and not for any extrinsic reward apart from him. I make this point to my people all the time: the reward of Christianity is not eternal life (that is a byproduct), but the grand covenantal promise that God has promised to be our God. In short, the reward of faith is God himself. That, I take it, is PPiper's point.
But, he also goes to great lengths (indeed wrote a book about it) to stress that we ought to serve God wholly even when such does not delight us. PPiper, who is himself a rather remarkable ascetic, certainly does not eschew self-denial. Far from it: he calls upon us to lose our lives that we might find it in Christ.
I don't think one can really understand Desiring God without reading The Pleasures of God.
What is so good about Piper is that he is able to take the theocentric nature of the Reformed faith and, like any good puritan, apply it to Christian experience. What Sproul has done for solid orthodox doctrine, PPiper does for experimental puritan piety. PPiper is not above critique, certainly. He thinks Future Grace is his best book; I fervently disagree. But, that is not to detract at all from the enormously beneficial character of his public ministry.
Originally posted by Draught Horse
While I am not a "Piper-ite," he is a student of Jonathan Edwards and has spent hundreds upon hundreds of hours reading Edwards. If, as Piper maintains, he is simply following and applying Edwards, would the above critique apply to Edwards as well?[/quote
Here I would need to plead ignorance. I'm still wading through the monumental mountain of Edwardsian material I began to collect 10 years ago. It is a good question.
Blessings!
Originally posted by Draught Horse
Sure. I am not really a defender of either (but have profited from both). I guess my question is more broad as to the direct influence of Edwards on Piper.
Originally posted by armourbearer
R. L. Dabney's Sensualistic Philiosophy, chapter 12, provides a refutation of all utilitarian schemes of ethics, including Edwards' "least obnoxious" Benevolence scheme. Dabney argues that it makes man himself a part of his chief end, and hence "a part of his own God." Edwards' view is brought out clearly by his disciple, Samuel Hopkins, who concluded that self-interest must remain practically each man's immediate guide. A Holy Spirit guided reading of Deuteronomy will serve as a useful medicine to counteract this poison.
Originally posted by Draught Horse
While I am not a "Piper-ite," he is a student of Jonathan Edwards and has spent hundreds upon hundreds of hours reading Edwards. If, as Piper maintains, he is simply following and applying Edwards, would the above critique apply to Edwards as well?
Originally posted by JOwen
Yes, it is a good chapter for sure. It ws you post a while back that prompted me to purchase the book form Naphtali. Dabney's is a great reftation of hedonism.
OK with all due respect Dr. McMahon and Mr. Aitken, if you are saying that every Christian needs to read Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and Edwards in order to understand Christianity I think you are wrong. They are very helpful but certainly not something that is needed.
Originally posted by Draught Horse
Also, worst of all, Ligon Duncan had no problem doing a conference with him.
Originally posted by KenPierce
Jerrold,
I will read your blog as it becomes available. I am curious as to Piper's "pot-shots" at the Standards --I haven't seen them. His suggested "improvement" to WSC 1 is not a contradiction of its original intent, but rather an expansion of it.
As to those who imply that Piper (PhD, U Munich) is not scholarly, I would suggest reading The Justification of God. We could debate, ad infinitum, the status of Piper's puritan card. For those who are interested in so doing, I would encourage the reading of Wm. Still's The Work of the Pastor, especially the chapter on being contemporary. And, to say that Piper gives 30 second sound bites for the Reformed faith, this is what is known as a cheap shot, and has no place in Christian
discussion.
Sproul is easy-to-read, and most of his books are very concise. He, like all men, has feet of clay, too. For instance, some of his book, Chosen By God, is very inadequate, especially the chapter on Double Predestination. Yet, very few, if any, would doubt his contribution to the Reformed faith. But, Piper is different than Sproul. Sproul is more of an objective theologian, in the vein of Dabney or Hodge. Piper is more of an experiential preacher, in the vain of Lloyd-Jones. Frankly, I am thankful for both.
We ought to take seriously the Biblical command, "who are you to judge another man's work? To his own master, he stands or falls." If Piper is serving the Lord, and bringing many to an appreciation for the whole counsel of God, and the sovereignty of God in salvation, then we ought to be grateful for him.
Anyone who accuses Piper of reducing sound theology into a Thirty Second Jingle are performing a character assasination on him and a slander against him.
Originally posted by Founded on the Rock
OK with all due respect Dr. McMahon and Mr. Aitken, if you are saying that every Christian needs to read Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and Edwards in order to understand Christianity I think you are wrong. They are very helpful but certainly not something that is needed.
I understand this might not be exactly what you are trying to say but it seems like Reformed believers have a tendency to look down on those who are un-educated as if we are more spiritual because simply by virtue of reading the Reformers.
I think that Piper does a very good job of giving people good, concise theology. Does it need to be expanded upon, YES! We need to be relational in the way that we interact with other believers and non-believers. Not all Christians are academic and Piper is excellent at speaking theological truths to them. He certainly isn't perfect and I would agree that he is not as close of a disciple of Edward's as he would like to think (though he has read Edwards MUCH more than I have), but I think that Piper does something that many Reformed people do not do and that is make theology understandable for the laity.
I understand that theology is vitally important but when pastors are verbose and too deeply theological, it turns off the people who are not academic. For example, my girlfriend and her family are from Egypt. Her mother is a believer but she feels so uncomfortable in a Reformed church because they all use lofty words and theological concepts and she is just not there yet (and her English is not perfect either). Should the pastor encourage study outside the church, YES! Should pastors seek the stretch and grow their congregations by giving good, Biblical, systematized theology like the Purtians, absolutely. But if your criticism of Piper is that he is not academic enough, I think your idea of academic is beyond what it ought to be.
Originally posted by KenPierce
Piper is more of an experiential preacher, in the vain of Lloyd-Jones. Frankly, I am thankful for both.
quote]
If God wanted us to think about the Christian life inside of a jingle, he would have given us the written worrd on a fortune cookie.