Ever Expanding Pleasure

In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began (Tit. 1:2)

            When Paul writes and preaches God’s word, he does so with an eye, with an aim, with a target on eternity. He writes in hope of eternal life.  For Paul, a temporary life is never enough. There is not enough time in this life to satisfy his hunger for God. Without eternal life, people are, at best, pitiful creatures with infinite and eternal desires. If there is no eternity, then our desires can never be anything but unsatisfied.

            Our loves, desires, and passions are unmanageably large. The more we find our desires fulfilled, the bigger our desires get. The more we find pleasure, the greater our capacity for pleasure becomes. It has been noted, at least back to the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BC), a disciple of the presocratic philosopher Democritus, that pleasure seems to be affected by a law of diminishing returns. A particular experience brings pleasure, but the next time we have the same experience, we find less pleasure in it, and the next time even less. The pleasure of an experience shrinks and shrivels the more often we have that particular experience.

            Epicurus' conclusion was to reject pleasurable experiences and find pleasure in the rejection of pleasure. But others before him and after him have tried instead to experience as much pleasure as they can, seeing the dissatisfaction as something to be overcome with energetic embrace of newer, faster, and bigger experiences of pleasure. But I do not believe in the law of diminishing returns. In fact, I believe it should be rejected out of hand. Heat the tar and rip open the down pillows. The law of diminishing returns is heathenish nonsense.

            It is not the pleasure that changes. It is we ourselves that are changed by the pleasure. Our desires and our capacity for pleasure stretches and grows whenever we enjoy ourselves. When our desire is fulfilled, it is the desire that grows. A pleasure that once filled a desire to overflowing seems thin because the desire has grown, not because the pleasure has shrunk.  This is why attempts at detachment make sense if there is no God. Experiencing pleasure makes us want pleasure even more. If pleasure is limited, then experiencing pleasure is a dangerous game.

            If there is no eternity, and if there is no infinite God, then humanity is a terrible joke. There is nothing but dissatisfaction, because every satisfaction that we find in the world will only grow our capacity for satisfaction. The world is not growing in its ability to satisfy. So even if we are satisfied by the world at the moment, there is nothing but dissatisfaction in our future.

            If, however, there is eternal life with an infinite God, at whose right hand there are pleasures forevermore, who can satisfy us with the fatness of his house, then being human is not some cosmic prank. Satisfaction is a possibility. There is a well deep enough to quench the infinitely expanding capacity for pleasure. And that satisfaction is at the right hand of God, seated on the great white throne. That satisfaction is in Jesus.

Because eternal life is spent with the incarnate, infinite, and eternal God-man Jesus, we can find satisfaction. Because eternity is truly spent with the infinitely beautiful and good God, who created and redeemed us, we can find satisfaction. Our capacity for pleasure will continue to grow, but it will never outgrow the infinite God.