Christian Desire

A common critique of Christianity is that it takes away all our fun. Many would associate a devout christian life with an absence of most of the things one would commonly do to have a good time. Over and over again, we are told to resist the flesh, which means the passions. A quiet life of prayer and selfless giving seems to be the ideal we should strive for. It is shocking then, that C. S. Lewis states, in The Weight of Glory, that, “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.”

Having been told that our desires and passions are what drive us to sin, it seems strange for Lewis to say that God would find them too weak. He explains his position more by saying “We are far too easily pleased.” Lewis' position on the struggle against sin is this: We naturally desire God, so our passions would pull us towards Him, but because of the fall, we accept cheap substitutes rather than wait for our desires to be fully fulfilled by Christ. In his own words, “We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire.” Our desires for money, sex, power, and intoxication are not evil in themselves, but have become twisted and have lost their true object. He compares our sinful state to “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.” There is self denial required of the christian, but it is only so that we will have infinitely greater joy in the future.

There is one objection to his position that Lewis mentions, which should be addressed; that is, the accusation that he is making christianity into “a mercenary affair”. This comes from the belief that “that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing”. Emmanuel Kant was one of the greatest proponents of this view. Kant argued that to do anything that is good, one must do it simply because it is good and not for any benefit to oneself, including the enjoyment of doing good. The desire to to do good for its own sake is the only virtuous desire.

Lewis responds to this criticism by saying there are two types of rewards for an action. One is a natural reward, the other as no natural connexion to its action. Money is not naturally associated with love, so “we call a man mercenary if he marries a woman for the sake of her money.” Marriage is the natural reward for love though, so we would not condemn a man for marrying for the sake of love. Lewis argues that the rewards that a christian looks forward to are the natural rewards of following Christ, so it is not mercenary.

As christians, we should strive to cultivate and strengthen our desires so that they pull us toward their true object. “Meanwhile the cross comes before the crown and tomorrow is a Monday morning. A cleft has opened in the pitiless walls of the world, and we are invited to follow our great Captain inside. The following Him is, of course, the essential point.” Let us desire that.

All quotes are by C. S. Lewis from The Weight of Glory.