Restitutio 103 The Kingdom Is Too Hedonic (Kingdom of God 12)
Last time we saw that some influential Christians rejected the biblical teaching on the kingdom because the idea of living on earth forever seemed crude to them. This time, we look at how the ancients thought about bodies and bodily pleasures. As it turns out, from (at least) Plato onward, many philosophers tended to embrace a very negative view of pleasure, arguing that the truly enlightened person should exercise abstinence and discipline as much as possible. This idea flourished among the Stoics and Neo-Platonists and infiltrated Christianity from the second century onward. Consequently, the biblical descriptions of feasting in the kingdom with the patriarchs in resurrected bodies seemed to demand reinterpretation. Additionally kingdom deniers labelled kingdom advocates hedonists, as if their uncontrollable desire for pleasure motivated their belief in the kingdom.
This is lecture 12 of the Kingdom of God class, originally taught at the Atlanta Bible College. To take this class for credit, please contact ABC so you can do the work necessary for a grade.
Notes:
ἡ ἡδονή (e edone): pleasure, enjoyment, delight
- hedonism, hedonist, hedonic
- hedonism: belief that pleasure is life’s goal
Our Plan
- show you that some Christians rejected the kingdom belief because it was too hedonic
- explain why they had such an ascetic bias (ascetic means anti-pleasure)
- Greco-Roman background
- how this infiltrated Christian thinking
- biblical view on bodily pleasures
- how this affects us today
Quotes showing rejection of the kingdom on the charge of hedonism
Gaius (early second century)
“But Cerinthus also, by means of revelations which he pretends were written by a great apostle, brings before us marvelous things which he falsely claims were shown him by angels; and he says that after the resurrection the kingdom of Christ will be set up on earth, and that the flesh dwelling in Jerusalem will again be subject to desires and pleasures. And being an enemy of the Scriptures of God, he asserts, with the purpose of deceiving men, that there is to be a period of a thousand years5 for marriage festivals.” (H.E. 3.28.2)
Origen (early third century)
Certain persons, then, refusing the labour of thinking, and adopting a superficial view of the letter of the law, and yielding rather in some measure to the indulgence of their own desires and lusts, being disciples of the letter alone, are of opinion that the fulfilment of the promises of the future are to be looked for in bodily pleasure and luxury; and therefore they especially desire to have again, after the resurrection, such bodily structures as may never be without the power of eating, and drinking, and performing all the functions of flesh and blood (De Princip. 2.11.2)
“And even as those who because of the fact that they do not interpret the prophecies allegorically suppose (that) after the resurrection we will eat and drink bodily food and drink, since also the words of the prophetic writings embrace such as these, so also what has been written concerning marriages of both men and women, keeping to the literal and supposing (that) we will take part in intercourse then, on account of which it is not even possible to have time for prayer when being in (a state of) defilement and uncleanness partaking in sexual pleasures.” (Commentary on Matthew 17.35)
Dionysius (mid third century)
“For the doctrine which he [Cerinthus] taught was this: that the kingdom of Christ will be an earthly one. And as he was himself devoted to the pleasures