Video Transcript - Critical Pleasure Theory

Steve - All right, Henry, we're back. Topic number three,  

Henry - Critical Pleasure Theory.  

Steve - I don't know if I've ever heard a talk on critical pleasure theory.  

Henry - Well, in the history of the world, in the world of philosophy, it's called, like epicureanism. But I mean today is clearly the critical pleasure theory, the  dominant theory that is everywhere.  

Steve - So everything relates to pleasure?  

Henry - Okay, okay, let's talk about, Yeah, real quick pleasure, not just pleasure  in that you feel good after you eat, or in marriage, you have sexual relations with pleasure, but it's actually like rooted like deep within like our life is so short, eat,  

drink, to be merry for tomorrow we die. It's not just for that. It is a entire  worldview of pleasure.  

Steve - Those with the power tend to maximize their own pleasure at the  expense of others, so that would be like the critical pleasure theory. Yeah, right,  so that it's unfair, and it's demonstrated all throughout culture. So within families, sometimes you know one family member is doing everything that they want to  do at the expense of others, or sometimes in a marriage or marriage sometimes  don't work out, because, you know, each one is seeking their own pleasure and  not the pleasure of the other, right?  

Henry - And what's happening is the critical pleasure theorist, they wouldn't call  themselves that, but through the injustices and the inequalities of things, this is  sort of like an add on theory that it's often like put in with another one. So like,  you'll have, like, rich white men who can have jets and have islands and have  this exotic life, but, but it also relates to like other equal inequality theories, even  like women's rights. So here's an example where the critical pleasure theory  marries the equality debate about women's rights. For instance, right? It's very  fascinating how these tend to combine together sometimes.  

Steve - So current social manifestation says there's many of them, yeah, but the one we are on demand abortion. Okay, very good.  

Henry - On Demand, divorce, abortion.  

Steve - So we're probably going to have to unpack how this relates to our topic.  What does abortion have to do with that? 

Henry - Well, I know Margaret Sanger in the 1930s wrote about how women  were not allowed to experience the same quality of life and pleasures that men  were having because they were forced to bear children.  

Steve - Yeah, a lot was at stake for them, right, right? They're going to get this  child that now they have to deal with the rest of their life. Whereas the man was  like for you to do whatever he wants, and they experience things and then move on. The woman was not  

Henry - so contraception in all of its various forms. And then I know that what  happened in the 1960s in America is they saw the social just they made a social  justice issue of back alley abortion. But first it was the plausibility that a child  should be eliminated if that child got in the way of a woman's happiness, right? 

Steve - And the and again, it's not just a woman's happiness, but the unfairness that the man gets to be free and be happy and the woman doesn't. Hmm, that's  interesting. So the basic arguments going on are like, also, we have the right to  

life argument. Every human being has a God given right to life, including the  unborn, and then the right to choose argument, women have been abused by  men for most of human history because they have the burden of bearing and  often caring for the children. It is a woman's body, and she should have the right  to do with it as she pleases. 

Henry - So there's the conflicting that's the conflict side of this theory here.  

Steve - Yes, okay, so there's always been the dilemma of personal choice and  how that choice affects others.  

Henry - Well, on this issue, you can certainly see that. So if, if a life was created  in a woman's womb, and then as a contraception, mean that life was taken  away, it would seem like an injustice occurred to someone.  

Steve - Yeah. I mean, to even laugh about that, right? Right? I mean. Mean right into like, kind of an intellectual AHA laugh. But we all understand that there is  this dilemma. For example, you you have the right to do whatever you want with  your body. So in other words, you can smoke right even though it's detrimental  to your body. You have the right to do that. But at least in the United States, you  do not have the right to smoke in a restaurant or and why? Because your  personal right to do whatever it is you want to is limited when it affects the right  of someone else. See, that's where the conflict is. So if I have the right, if I as a  woman, and I have the right to do what I want with my body. That right is not 

absolute. It's limited by it, either by me exercising that right without hurting  anyone else, right. So this is where people that are pro life say, Well, you can't  have an abortion without hurting the unborn child.  

Henry - But how could you go there to, I mean, a life, a baby, how does this  even happen?  

Steve - Yeah. I mean, like, how, how so? How can a woman have the right to kill an innocent human being in the name of personal choice? How is that even  possible, that we can, how is that even possible that we could have arrived  here? Yeah, that, I guess that's, you know, for those of us that are in the right to  life world, you gotta find a theory.  

Henry - There has to be a why I can abort a baby theory, and there must be well, and you know,  

Steve - if people would watch a video on an abortion, there's no way that you  can see that this is not a human being, right?  

Henry - And I know from Christian leaders, college and Institute students,  hundreds have come to Christ and they had an abortion right in the consensus  that we clearly see in testimonies after testimonies after testimony is written with them, with these women who did not know Christ, even at the time, and  somehow they got an abortion, and the agony and how they how Jesus, Christ  forgave them. And they knew that it that they took a life, right? They knew it was  killing again. So it's so interesting how clinical it becomes in the news media, but the self evident observation of the irresistible, self evident observation of the  people that we see, if we did a scientific study, it would be there was a  consensus that was a life so how is it possible that social sciences can spin this  in another way?  

Steve - So that's so how can a woman have the right to kill an innocent human  being in the name of personal choice number one, if this is one way that the  culture has used to sort of justify the question of the humanity of the unborn. We call an unborn child a fetus, fetus. But again, if you watch a video of a real  abortion, that fetus looks a lot like an unborn child, right? So it's still that that  alone does not a pre born human, yeah. So it seems like this one isn't enough  to get us. 

Henry - And here too. I noticed, like the social justice angle on that. Well, what  in? What about the cases of rape and incest? You know, right away those  exceptional cases, which are a small percentage of them, but we Christians 

could not say, well, in the case of rape or incest, because we're convicted that  each child is an image bearer, right? But if we were to say, well, let's just say,  okay, rape and incest, okay, which we would not say. The fact is, is to make it a  social justice issue, seems a little bit hypocritical. Who's justice? Right? Is there? Yeah, pre born, baby justice, 

Steve - the most innocent, defenseless anyone is a victim, the lowest that you  can possibly go on the victim scale, defenseless has no voice. It would be the  unborn, right? I mean, we save whales, but we, you know, we have a problem  

with unborn children, right? Yeah, it's, it's difficult, okay, well, if there is so I think  the question of humanity, humanity the unborn, just isn't a very good one at all. I  don't think that's what sells and I don't think that's what justifies anything. I don't  think it helps anybody. But I think it's number two, if there is no God, then, as  

Paul writes, you know, he's talking about the resurrection. If there is no  resurrection. Let's eat and drink and be merry for tomorrow we die, right, right?  So I think what has happened is the whole sexual experience has become a  physical recreational sport, right  

Henry - back to Margaret Sanger and many others in the 30s. I mean, you may  have Hitler how he thought about eugenics and all these things. I mean, this is  all in our history, within 100 years ago, right?  

Steve - So, so it really boils down to, again, pleasure, that it's just a thing that  gives you pleasure or not pleasure. And so, if that's all it is, and that's all that,  you know, if there is no God, then this is all I have, right? There's no heaven. So  pleasure is about as close to heaven as I could possibly get. I got seized. So I  got to grab happiness and every pleasure, if something is stopping me from the  one piece of heaven that I could maybe get right, then somehow I got to get past it.  

Henry - So my life, my happiness, is all that matters, the unfairness for women  who have to bear the consequences for the bad effects of the strictly  recreational activity that men can participate without consequences.  

Steve - So I think that's what justifies it in people's minds, that this is a pleasure,  and Pleasure is all that there really is. So that's why it's pleasure critical  pleasure theory, because it says everything is pleasure, right? And if I can't get  the one thing that there is because of this unfair thing, right? And now abortion is like my last stand that can help me get it or not get it right. And now you're  gonna say, I can't do that right. So then it becomes a women's rights issue, and  then how do you argue, especially as men, here we are men speaking against 

this. And who are we to speak? We're the we're the people that take advantage  and so on. So you  

Henry - we're the ones that have no consequences if we chose to do that, right? 

Steve - So then you can't speak to it. So, all right, what's the answer here?  That's the dilemma. Okay, this leads to this dilemma. Many women want the  consequence of free sex, a free sex life, and they believe men have so abortion  takes away the negative consequences, but because of that, men take even  less responsibility for their actions. Oh, come on.  

Henry - So you say men even become more robbers in this world,  

Steve - yeah, because now, now in their mind, yes, sex is just a physical  recreational activity. It's not tied to any real consequences, right? And if the  woman doesn't prepare herself, then she can always have an abortion.  

Henry - I'm interested in the critical Grace theory, understanding of pleasure and so forth.  

Steve - So again, everything relates to grace. There is a righteous God. We are  sinners in need of grace. Once we have received grace and become forgiven,  children of the king, we are in the kingdom, part of what it means to be in the  kingdom is to procreate, thus elevating sex to an incredibly purposeful,  pleasurable and meaningful level.  

Henry - Okay, so what you're saying then is that God created pleasure in a place that blesses us and blesses our culture, not in a place that disenfranchises and  hurts our culture.  

Steve - So in our culture, we let men off the hook. They can have sex and  procreate all they want, and then they can not take on responsibility. We have  women who can now have an abortion if they become pregnant, and therefore  we have this space where sex is just a recreational sport and none of it is  meaningful, right, none of it ties people together or helps people, you know,  make something important out of it, right? So it's become a total mess, or it  doesn't bring people together, it separates people, right?  

Henry - You know, what's fascinating is, since we are undeserving of grace, we  don't run around seeing how we are missing out. We don't dwell on how unfair  things might seem to be, we realize that we've been blessed with the honor of 

creating, as God did Adam and Eve or if you're a single man or woman, the  worldview of creating. What does that mean? Right?  

Steve - So, right now, because sex, there is no God. All there is is pleasure, and  so sex is just one of those pleasure experiences, and we need to do all we can  do maximize it with critical Grace theory. No, there's a God and there is  righteousness, and there is a need for his you know, there's sin, and that's why  there's brokenness in relation to sexual abuse. But God does the grace that God created this sexual experience within the confines of a marriage right to reflect  Him, right? He gives us this incredible honor. I mean, God created the first two  individuals, and he let us do the rest. Yes, I mean, that's an incredible honor that we're, you know, that we're not taking advantage of.  

Henry - And since we have purpose as children of God, we do not need to eat,  drink. and be merry as a life goal, right?  

Steve - So now, pleasure is not the one thing that we're going after. And you  know, and we can deal with things that are hard, and we can, you know, you  have five children, I have four children, and it wasn't always easy, right? But  what an honor to be a part of it. And it's still not easy, and the grandchildren all  

those things that God let us be a part of. But we, we honor that, and we, you  know, we take responsibility for that, not the other side is not taking  responsibility, right?  

Henry - I often think about the word joy, that you know, the absolutization of  pleasure, eat, drink and be merry, maybe for a human, for their senses, can give the illusion of something greater, and that is the joy of the Lord. Is our strength.  So I can enjoy marital sexuality, pleasurable but deeper than the sexual  experience itself, is the joy of the Lord in that marriage and that, you know, we're coming on to almost 38 years at the time of this taping, and that's fascinating to  see that pleasure. I can eat food, but I know that if I eat too much, it ultimately  hurts me. So you know, and I know that I have a brother in law who just retired  as just a hero, a emergency room nurse for 40 years of fighting that battle and  then became a supervisor. And he said, in the last several years now, 10 is  there's becoming a huge obesity problem where they the hospital must give  special tools to move people, and they're young. He says, this is like somebody  who's 50 or 60. But he says, when he talks with people, he's not critical is the  most compassionate man, one of the most compassionate men I've met in my  brother in law. And they taught the theory, look, this is all there is. I don't want to  get necessarily old. I just want to live now, enjoy what I can right? And then  there's a time to where, where, even with the whole legalization of drugs. And so the pleasure is not merely connected to the abortion issue. We just took that 

issue as sort of, like, the key thing that we're going to talk about here, like, how  can this one my right for pleasure hurt another person's right? But we see that  with drinking. If you drink and drive and, you know, and ultimately, you don't  exercise moderation anymore. So, you know, this is not something that we oh,  that's just one issue. This is a all encompassing issue pleasure theory. And it  really is the sinful nature, yes,  

Steve - and it's ultimately, if you seek pleasure as the ultimate god, you will not  find the pleasure you seek right? The pleasure that you seek is comes in a  relationship with God, a pleasure and a marriage. The marriage is better,  because people are saying,  

Henry - well, that's this passage of our marriage, Genesis, 2:26, that's why a  man leaves a father and mother and is united with his wife and they become  one flesh. I mean, that's like powerful to think that two humans become one.  

Steve - And you know, in Genesis 1, in the creation of man. God says, Let us  right the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Let us make man in all our  image. And then it takes two to reflect that image. And then in Genesis 2, the  

two become one, like the three of them, right? So we God allows us, in this  whole sexual experience, to reflect the very image of God. Right?  

Henry – So in your ministry, if you're dealing with someone that struggles with  pornography, you're dealing with someone who's had an affair. You're dealing  with someone who has no self control over alcohol or food addiction. You're  dealing with someone who is so into sports that that's their only pleasure, the  endorphins of winning the pleasure game, or all that matters, you know. So in  ministry now, you know, after you hear this, you can start saying, Well, maybe  we're, we all are sort of, you're prone to this. We're prone to pick the addiction  we all you know, and it's easy for one person who's overcome one thing to look  critically, the critical racers, critical judgment theory on someone else who you  know, and somehow in here, Satan, too. I mean, look at the Garden of Eden.  They looked at the tree for food, and then Satan pledged God pleasurable. Did  God really say? And now here we are, the human condition and critical Grace  theory says no. God looks at us as forgiven in Jesus Christ, and we look at  another forgiveness, Jesus Christ, but the world view we reject. If I fall victim to  some of my own pleasurable shortcomings or whatever, I know that that is not  my life. I remember we grew up. We both came from similar churches, and  every single week my Pam and I were talking about this, my wife, Pam and I  were talking about this this weekend. Every single week they read the 10  Commandments, okay? And sort of I did feel, quite honestly, beat up a little bit,  because how many of those for the sinful nature in the last week? Actually? For 

me to be a lie, or, or, you know, like Jesus, or, or, or you grow up, and most men  and women have seen pornography, you know, and then most of us have lied.  Most of us have, you know, we've gone against, you know, the worship of God  and worship other things in our hearts. And then so my wife and I were talking  about that, Steve, about how, then there's that, but then there was that place  right, the call to confession, where, and I remember, you know, and I would like  write, talk about them in prayer to Lord, you know. And in the Lord already  forgave my sins in Jesus Christ, this is for my benefit, not to have a heavy  weight. And then there was the assurance of pardon me, If you confess your sin, He is faithful and just would forgive your sins and purify you from all  unrighteousness. Now I bring that a lot, because at the end of the day, the  critical Grace theory is to say, God really knows your frame. You know, he really  knows that you have weaknesses in your flesh, and he knows we all do. But that doesn't mean we can start getting, you know, you know that's all that matters, is  me now, right, right? So we don't adopt a worldview of the critical pleasure  theory. While we still our prone to sin.  

Steve - in some ways, the critical Grace theory gives us a way out of the  addiction, whereas, if there was no grace, you're stuck. You know, if I was into  food, and that was what gave me pleasure in my life, and there's nothing else,  right? Why would I get out of it? So people will say, you know, I'd rather die  young and eat poorly, because this is the one thing that gives me pleasure. Well, with grace, let's say I'm into food just the same. I love food, and that's a thing I  do know you like ice cream, but yes, but that would be your thing. Yes, yes. But  grace gives me a way out of that. I can say, Lord, I don't want to be dominated  by this. Help me with this addiction. Help me to, you know, be more moderate  and these things. In other words, there's some answer to it, and there's some  way out where the other way, there's no way out.  

Henry - I'm still loved and accepted despite my human, sinful person? Yes, well,  I mean, I think a very interesting topic, and now in ministry, I brought that up a  little bit. I wanted you to comment on that. So what? How do you minister with  this theory so prevalent, it's almost not talked about, but it's everywhere.  

Steve - Yeah, I think, because, yeah, people get stuck in these addictions, right? But I think a lot of times it's the second, it's just the manifestation of the deeper  problem, right? So the deeper problem might be a lousy marriage. The deeper  problem might be not a walk with God. The deeper problem might not have.  Might be not a sense of my call or my purpose, or what gifts God. 

Henry - So you're saying we'll get moralistic, but we scratch on the surface, but  don't really fire someone up about so we should do a marriage retreat, right?  You know, just get married.  

Steve - So in other words, it's not just about getting someone over a food  addiction. Let's talk about food. No, we got to talk about your whole life, because maybe food is just a surrogate, right thing, because the other things are missing, right?  

Henry - So in ministry, and that's why you're taking these classes, if you are at  CLI, is we're learning how to really become servants, to help people grow in  some of these areas. One more comment on that I think to myself, is, don't be  so hypocritical to think that you are now someone who fall victim to that critical  pleasure experience. Yes, yes. We all struggle with these yeses and maybe to  be that gracious pastor who points to Jesus Christ, but Jesus Christ is pointed to in your own set because we all need him. I still need him. I need him now. Well,  very good. I'm looking forward to this continued study.