Day 259 – Is there a problem with pleasure?
“Everything is permissible.”
1 Corinthians 6:12
I once had a friend quote this from the Bible as a means to explaining that they could do anything they wish to their good pleasure, disposition, and wanting.
They didn’t finish the sentence, let alone the verse or context of the words which explain:
“Everything is permissible for me–but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible for me–but I will not be mastered by anything.”
1 Corinthians 6:12
In recent years, I’ve wondered if there is a problem with ‘pleasure.’
The question of pain, hurt, suffering, and loss has been a consistent query in theology and philosophy for all time.
The question is often phrased simply as: why suffering? OR discussed under the title: The problem with pain and suffering.
The answers that have emerged often fail to satisfy people’s perceptions, but the central answer I’ve discovered is that we’re in a fallen, broken, cursed world with fallen, broken, cursed people.
We have inherent issues of selfishness, pride, ego, and fear that create pain and suffering.
Due to this ‘default’ setting of brokenness, to understand the greater spiritual truths of this world, the more profound issues of the soul, and the great mysteries of the human condition, God utilises the unpleasant byproduct of pain and suffering to bring us to increasing understanding of faith.
The more we learn and digest faith, the more we can see victory over pain and suffering, or a more sound handling of the ordeal.
One of the most popular debates about Christian theology reads like this:
If the Judeo-Christian God is indeed loving and good, why is there suffering in this world?
There is an abundance of books about this subject.
Throughout my reading list last year (2019), I purposely delved into this issue to aid my development toward a mind of clarity, cleanliness, and soundness.
I questioned my own personal circumstances where I’d faced ‘unfair’ situations; moments where I’d given my best efforts toward an anticipated outcome and subsequently, entertained failure.
But in coming to a greater understanding with my own pain and suffering–whether in childhood or currently–the books led me to a new query; the problem with pleasure.
I’d read how pain and suffering really served as a POWERFUL transformer to create the epitome of good within a person.
But I’d also realised how much pleasure obstructs this transformation.
Simply put, we don’t learn or grow from temporary hits of pleasure.
When we’re in the gym, it’s the excessive force of duress that allows our muscles to develop or shed fat.
The same methodology applies to the soul of a person.
We don’t want the pain. We don’t ask for it. But it comes and in dealing with it correctly, we grow to greater levels of selflessness and faith than ever before.
Of course, pain and suffering can take a person in another direction where their heart hardens and they decide to live by survival, logic, rationale, physical evidence, love of money, and/or chance.
But I ask you, is there a problem with pleasure in our world today?
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