Out of Egypt:

Piper treads into dangerous waters?: a surprising parallel with Quietism (also a great quote from St. Bernard)

I know this post is long. I got carried away. Essentially it divides into three parts: I. Summary of the Original Post, II. My Reflections, including a Parallel with Quietism, and III. A Possible Solution: St. Bernard of Clarivaux's On Loving God If you just want to get past this whole post to see the rest of my blog, click here.

I. Summary of the Original Post

Michael Spencer (iMonk, as he's otherwise called) has a review of a new book by John Piper called God is the Gospel which sounds largely like its making an excellent point: evangelicalism today is way too focused on us and what we get out of God, how Christ is the answer to "felt needs," when really we need to focus on getting aligned with God's priorities and learning to see His glory as the purpose and delight of our lives. But it sounds like there are some problems here, too - pretty major ones.

Near the beginning of his review, Spencer notes that Christian hedonism has sometimes tended to underrate the value of vocations other than missionary work and the like. However, he says that this book "deals with the reflected value that come to us in our creation," giving value to "the 'ordinary' Christian life." If so, I like that, though I myself wonder sometimes whether if our commitment to Christ were stronger we wouldn't have a more explicitly missional focus reflected in the way we spend our time.

The real problem, for Spencer and myself, comes later, when Piper says, in essence, if someone comes to Christ wanting anything more than he wants Christ and His presence - salvation from Hell, deliverance from a particular sin, guilt, a sense of emotional well-being - that person has not believed the Gospel as Scripture presents it. And so, consequently, that person is not saved.

Spencer quotes Piper on this:

We are making it plain that there is no salvation through the Gospel where the best and highest and final good in the gospel is not seen and savored. That good is the glory, the worth, the beauty, the treasure of Christ himself who is true God and true man. (168)

That quote itself may not seem so bad, but it takes away the entire possibility of growth in grace, such that one could come to Christ truly for the wrong reasons and later grow into an appreciation of Him for who He is in Himself. Ultimately, it seems this would mean we have to be sanctified all at once - not in our patterns of life, perhaps, but in our minds. That's a concept of regeneration that some Calvinists might be OK with, but I doubt that Luther or the Lutherans would. As Spencer writes,

Does God not save those who come to him with some other benefit, besides God himself, at the forefront of their desires...even if they trust all they know of Christ? Do the Gospels, in their focus on healing and exorcism miracles particularly, underline Piper and Edwards, or do they suggest that God receives sinners graciously even if they are still on the way to treasuring Christ above all?

II. My Reflections

I'm worried, like Spencer is, about making salvation, and more specifically assurance of salvation, too inward, too much a matter for our speculation. All along in Calvinism - in the days of the Remonstrants and the Canons of Dordt and in the time of Jonathan Edwards and the Great Awakening, especially - this has been a danger. This is why we need to focus on the objective covenant - on seeking God's grace in the sacraments and on doing the works that flow from faith - not on wondering whether we really love Him for the right reasons and thus are really regenerate. Dare I say it, this is perhaps where Piper's Reformed Baptist tradition leads him astray? According to Spencer, "Piper believes that the seed of all true faith is an immediate and supernatural valuing of Christ." But this is the kind of thing that we can't really know about, so if we try to see if we have it, then we'll only run into trouble. Ultimately that introspection can lead us away from the sufficiency of Christ's grace, as we look instead to our own deceitful hearts whose depths we can never truly plumb.

The introspection to which Piper's teaching here would lead reminds me a little of what I've read on quietism, as it was practiced by Francois Fenelon and Mme. Guyon. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia,

According to Fénelon, there is an habitual state of the love of God which is wholly pure and disinterested, without fear of punishment or desire of reward. In this state the soul loves God for His own sake -- not to gain merit, perfection, or happiness by loving Him; this is the contemplative or unitive life (props. 1, 2). In the state of holy indifference, the soul has no longer any voluntary deliberate desire in its own behalf except on those occasions in which it does not faithfully cooperate with all the grace vouchsafed to it. In that state we seek nothing for ourselves, all for God; we desire salvation, not as our deliverance or reward or supreme interest, but simply as something that God is pleased to will and that He would have us desire for His sake (4-6). The self-abandonment which Christ in the Gospel requires of us is simply the renunciation of our own interest, and the extreme trials that demand the exercise of this renunciation are temptations whereby God would purify our love, without holding out to us any hope even in regard to our eternal welfare. In such trials the soul, by a reflex conviction that does not reach its innermost depths, may have the invincible persuasion that it is justly reprobated by God. In this involuntary despair it accomplishes the absolute sacrifice of its own interest in regard to eternity and loses all interested hope; but in its higher and most inward acts it never loses perfect hope which is the disinterested desire of obtaining the Divine promises (7-12).

That's not the same thing as what Piper's talking about, or Edwards before him, primarily because of this teaching's Catholic-mystical coloration, but it does have some affinities. The problem with this is that it's a counsel of perfection, and a kind of perfection that one gets by retreating within, not by active participation in the sacramental life of the Church and in following the commands of Scripture. Indeed, it could even lead away from that insofar as one thinks that one is doing these things for the wrong reasons: i.e., to gain favor with God, and escape Hell, rather than for the sake of God's glory alone.

That's why I think we must focus on telling people to believe in Christ, yes, because of who He is, but to seek Him always to the best of their abilities, knowing that however much they are able to turn from the state of being "curved in on self" that Luther called the essence of sin, they know that that is the work of God in them. Perhaps it's not always good for us to consider our final end, as if salvation were the work of a day - rather we should seek more of Christ now.

III. A Possible Solution

I like what St. Bernard of Clairvaux says in his work On Loving God (the translation is not particularly good; if someone has a better online please tell me). He speaks of four stages of love: in the first, which is purely natural, one loves oneself for the self's sake. In the second, one loves God for the self's sake. In the third, one loves God for God's sake. In the fourth, one loves even the self for God's sake - but this, he says, is perhaps not found until the resurrection, except maybe in brief moments of spiritual communion. I like this idea of stages because, as also in his work The Steps of Humility and Pride, he shows how there is a progression in the spiritual life. Though St. Bernard knew the heights of love to which God calls us, he also knew the path by which we come.

This quote from earlier in On Loving God perhaps makes a good stopping point:

I have said already that the motive for loving God is God Himself. And I spoke truly, for He is as well the efficient cause as the final object of our love. He gives the occasion for love, He creates the affection, He brings the desire to good effect. He is such that love to Him is a natural due; and so hope in Him is natural, since our present love would be vain did we not hope to love Him perfectly some day. Our love is prepared and rewarded by His. He loves us first, out of His great tenderness; then we are bound to repay Him with love; and we are permitted to cherish exultant hopes in Him. 'He is rich unto all that call upon Him' (Rom. 10.12), yet He has no gift for them better than Himself. He gives Himself as prize and reward: He is the refreshment of holy soul, the ransom of those in captivity. 'The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him' (Lam. 3.25). What will He be then to those who gain His presence? But here is a paradox, that no one can seek the Lord who has not already found Him. It is Thy will, O God, to be found that Thou mayest be sought, to be sought that Thou mayest the more truly be found. But though Thou canst be sought and found, Thou canst not be forestalled. For if we say, 'Early shall my prayer come before Thee' (Ps. 88.13), yet doubtless all prayer would be lukewarm unless it was animated by Thine inspiration. (emphasis mine)

Truly it seems St. Bernard echoes Piper's concern (or should I say it the other way around?) for the glorification of God and the love of Him alone. But he seems to be saying also that God first gives us gifts, by which we come to love Him, first for the gifts' sake, then for the Giver's. His name be praised.

(This is a comment I posted over there, after I saw how discussion was proceeding. It kind of summarizes the epic post.)

As you all (Josh S. and Eric Phillips at least) were writing this, I wrote a rather long post on the subject on my blog. Now perhaps what I've said is a little out-of-date. Anyway, I think Josh's point is well-taken and much more succinct than my post is. "our tears need to be washed; we need to repent of our repenting" - as someone once said. After all, our affections are stained with sin even as our actions are, perhaps more so because of their very interiority and existence often beyond our awareness and control.

Eric's point develops that, and goes along with the quote from St. Bernard of Clairvaux at the bottom of my post. We need knowledge of an objective work of God for us before we can know that He is God for us and love and have faith in Him. So we have the Cross - God in Christ saying, "This is how I love you." That, not a supernatural moment of regeneration, not our affections, should be our focus and our solid ground.

Ultimately, yes, God will be all in all. But we're not there yet. I like what you said, Michael, about Christ's interactions with sinners in the Gospels. We need, more and more, to learn how to let stories like that shape our theology, devotion, and ministry.

I can only hope we're all misreading Piper, and that people are not being misled by perfectionist teaching.