John Piper’s Christian Mysticism 1
By E.S Williams
Piper at Passion 2020
John Piper’s address at Passion 2020, entitled “Live for Your Greatest Desire — Jesus,” illustrates the central role that “desire” plays in his ministry. He mentions the word over 90 times, concluding with the idea that the awakening of a supreme desire in God opens the pathway to the new birth. He explains his view of the new birth as follows: “To be born again is to taste that God is more to be desired than anything; that’s what it means to be born again. The creation of a desire for God greater than the desire for anything else, is to be a Christian.” The concept of a “supreme desire for God” is an inner subjective emotion, which lies at the heart of Piper’s message.
Eastern Religion
Desire is central to Buddhist teaching. “All phenomena, the Buddha once said, are rooted in desire. Everything we think, say, or do — every experience — comes from desire. Even we come from desire. We were reborn into this life because of our desire to be … The path that takes you to nirvana is rooted in desire — in skilful desires … Basic in everyone is the desire for happiness.”
The Buddha “imagined the ultimate happiness — one so free from limit and lack that it would leave no need for further desire — and then treasured his desire for that happiness as his highest priority.” The noble truths of Buddhism give two roles to desire, depending on whether it’s skilful or not. Unskilful desire is the cause of suffering. “Skilful desire undercuts unskilful desire, not by repressing it, but by producing greater and greater levels of satisfaction and well-being so that unskilful desire has no place to stand … The desires he recommends really do produce a happiness that can give you the strength to keep on choosing the skilful path.”[i]
Sadhguru is a Hindu mystic with a worldwide movement. He designed and built the massive 112 feet high Adiyogi statue of the Hindu God Shiva. Sadhguru refers to “desire” as a wonderful vehicle for making contact with The Ultimate. He teaches that the third eye, the gateway to the inner realms of higher consciousness, opens the way to mystical experiences.
So, in the teachings of John Piper, and the Buddha, and the Guru, “desire” plays a central role. Piper teaches that “supreme desire” in God awakens the new birth. The Buddha teaches that “skilful desire” produces happiness and strength to choose the skilful path. The Guru teaches that “desire” is a wonderful vehicle for contacting The Ultimate.
In New Age spirituality, the third eye often symbolises a state of enlightenment. New Age teaches that a divine spark, which burns within every man, is indicative of man’s potential to be one with God. This unity with God is always achieved by an awakening of the light within. The mission of the New Age movement is to share light and love with others on the planet, empowering them toward their own paradigm shift and spiritual awakening.
The purpose of this article is to show that mysticism is an essential element of John Piper’s philosophy of Christian Hedonism.
Defining Mysticism
Encyclopaedia Britannica defines mysticism as “the sense of some form of contact with the divine or transcendent, frequently understood in its higher forms as involving union with God.”[ii]
In his book Faith Misguided: Exposing the Dangers of Mysticism (1988), Professor Arthur Johnson shows how “many truths of Scripture are being distorted by the philosophy of mysticism which places experience and emotion above the inerrant Word of God. Unfortunately, the misunderstandings spawned by mysticism have gained respectability among the evangelical community.”[iii]
Johnson contends that mysticism is both anti-scriptural and a contradiction of the evangelical view that the Bible is the one and only ultimate criterion of truth about God and our relation to Him.[iv] He is concerned that some evangelical Christians look with favour on forms of mysticism that are dangerous. “When we speak of a mystical experience, we refer to an event that is completely within the person. It is totally subjective … It is this claim that mystical experiences are ways of knowing truth that is vital to understanding many religious movements we see today.”[v]
One such religious movement is Piper’s Desiring God organization that propagates the philosophy of Christian Hedonism. His best-selling book “Desiring God,” first published in 1986, with many subsequent editions, teaches that “the ultimate ground of Christian Hedonism is the fact that God in uppermost in His own affections: The chief end of God is to glorify God and enjoy Himself forever.” He says that because God employs all His sovereign power and infinite wisdom to maximise the enjoyment of His own glory, “we have a foundation on which to stand and rejoice.”[vi]
Johnson says mystics claim that truth and knowledge are attainable through mystical experiences. Hence, all truth is to be tested by inner, subjective impressions. A Christian mystic equates his inner subjective states with the voice of God. He claims to have experienced God; he tends to believe that the activity of the Holy Spirit within is expressed primarily through emotions; this may take the form of a feeling of “union with God.”[vii] Some mystics, like Piper, claim, as we see in this article, that God has revealed Himself directly to them — they have heard the voice of God speaking personally to them.
Johnson writes: “Mysticism, as I have defined it, has as its essential element a certain deep trust in inner, subjective feeling states, which are seen as both good and valuable in themselves and as truth-bearing .. [viii] I have also argued that the Christian should reject mystical experiences, because God has chosen to relate to man by means of man’s mind, not through his emotions … to be a mystic is itself an open door to false doctrine.”[ix]
Piper’s Awakening
As a young man, Piper was awakened to the “truth” of Christian Hedonism by his mentor, Blaise Pascal. When he discovered his “truth” that “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him,” Piper says he was freed from the unbiblical bondage of fear that it is wrong to pursue joy. His overwhelming quest for happiness is not just permitted but required. He writes: “This was almost too good to be true — that my quest for joy and my duty to glorify God were not in conflict.”[x] Indeed, God’s divine happiness “is the fountain from which the Christian Hedonist drinks and longs to drink more deeply … The aim of the Christian Hedonist is to be happy in God.”[xi] To drink at the fountain of divine happiness is a subjective mystical experience. Mysticism is an essential element of Christian Hedonism which claims to provide a way into the secret of everlasting pleasure in God.
The force of Piper’s mystical awakening was so overwhelming, and so deeply emotional, that it changed his entire life. “All those years I had been trying to suppress my tremendous longing for happiness … but now it started to dawn on me that this persistent and undeniable yearning for happiness was not to be suppressed — but glutted on God.”[xii] With the ideas of Christian Hedonism firmly implanted in his mind, Piper turned to the Psalms and says he found the language of hedonism everywhere. Having seen the “light” within, Piper says he reread the Bible, “to give it a chance to have its true say. And what I found there concerning joy changed me forever. I have been trying to understand it, and live it, and teach it, ever since. It’s not new. It’s been there for thousands of years. I thank God today for Pascal’s part in my awakening.”[xiii]
But Piper has committed a cardinal error by starting with the wisdom of men and not with Scripture. He is reading the Word of God through the lens of Christian Hedonism, searching for verses to support his hedonistic philosophy. If he had started with Scripture, there would be no such thing as Christian Hedonism.
In his article, Have You Tasted God Himself? (2016), Piper thanks God “that over sixty years ago, he entered my life, and gave me a new heart. I thank him that for over sixty years, he has awakened, and reawakened countless times, a taste for the moral beauty of divine things.”[xiv] Piper’s awakened taste for divine moral beauty is a completely subjective experience.
Christian Hedonism is based on Piper’s subjective inner belief that the purpose of the Christian life is to achieve maximum happiness in God. His inner source of knowledge about the things of God places great importance on feelings and emotions. The ruling force in Piper’s awakened ministry is Christian mysticism.
Piper and the mysticism of CS Lewis
C.S. Lewis has had a massive impact on Piper’s life and ministry. Piper even refers to Lewis as his hero. In a sermon entitled, “Lessons from an Inconsolable Soul: Learning from the Mind and Heart of C.S. Lewis,” Piper expresses his profound admiration for Lewis: “He helped me become alive to life … He made me more alive to beauty. He put my soul on notice that there are daily wonders that will waken worship if I open my eyes. He shook my dozing soul and threw the cold water of reality in my face, so that life and God and heaven and hell broke into my world with glory and horror…”[xv] Piper’s expression “wonders that waken worship” is mystical terminology. He admits that the extra-biblical wisdom of C.S. Lewis played an important role in opening his mind to the “truth” of Christian Hedonism.
Piper is ecstatic about the amazing influence that Lewis has had on his life: “I find both my heart and my mind awakened and made more alive and perceptive and responsive and earnest and hopeful and amazed and passionate for the glory of God every time I turn to C.S. Lewis.”[xvi]
And Piper again: “He helps me to awaken my dazed soul so that the realities of life and of God and heaven and hell are seen and felt.” Lewis awakens Piper’s dazed soul to the realities of life and helps him to “see and feel” God. Piper is deeply thankful to Lewis for bringing his subjective mystical emotions to life.
Here we should note that C.S. Lewis was deeply mystical in his writings and philosophy of life. Indeed, his theory of mythology is essential to an understanding of his entire range of work.[xvii] He was an Anglo-Catholic who believed the Bible contained errors and that some books of the Old Testament were based on legend and myth. He wrote: “The earliest stratum of the Old Testament contains many truths in a form which I take to be legendary, or even mythical — hanging in the clouds, but gradually the truth condenses, becomes more and more historical.”[xviii] Lewis’ idea of truth “hanging in the clouds” is profoundly mystical. He called the Christ story a “true myth,” and he believed that even pagan myths express spiritual truths. Piper felt completely at one with the mystical writings of Lewis. We must conclude that Piper’s hedonism is a man-made philosophical system, based on mysticism, which comes from the ideas of C.S. Lewis and Blaise Pascal. He is thankful to Pascal for awakening him to spiritual truths that satisfied his great longing for happiness.
[i] Purity of Heart: essays on the Buddhist Path, chapter ‘Pushing the Limits’, Thanissaro Bhikkhu, 2006, https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/PurityOfHeart/Section0007.html
[ii] Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Christian Mysticism,” online article, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Christianity/Christian-mysticism
[iii] Arthur Johnson, Faith Misguided: exposing the dangers of mysticism, Moody Press, 1988, back cover.
[iv] Faith Misguided, Preface, http://www.orcuttchristian.org/Arthur%20L%20Johnson_Faith%20misguided%20_Exposing%20Mysticism.pdf
[v] Faith Misguided, pages 20,23.
[vi] John Piper, Desiring God, Multnomah, revised edition, 2011, pages 31,32.
[vii] Faith Misguided, page 26.
[viii] Faith Misguided, pages 40,41
[ix] Faith Misguided, pages 41,42.
[x] John Piper, When I don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy, Crossways, 2013 edition, page 13.
[xi] Desiring God, pages 32,33.
[xii] Desiring God, page 21.
[xiii] Piper article, ‘Thank you, Blaise Pascal’, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/thank-you-blaise-pascal
[xiv] Piper article, ‘Have you tasted God Himself’, September 2016. https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/have-you-tasted-god-himself
[xv] Piper article, “How C. S. Lewis Awakened John Piper to the “Realness” of Life,” April 02, 2018, https://www.crossway.org/articles/how-c-s-lewis-awakened-john-piper-to-the-realness-of-life/
[xvi] Piper sermon, “Lessons from an Inconsolable Soul, Learning from the Mind and Heart of C.S. Lewis,” Desiring God 2010 Conference for Pastors.
[xvii] Article in Mythlore, “C.S. Lewis’ Theory of Mythology” by Margaret Hannay, 1969 https://www.jstor.org/stable/26807210?seq=1
[xviii] Cited from, Dark Passages of the Bible, by Matthew Ramage, The Catholic University of America Press, 2013, page 177.