Joy is the tragedy of the world!

In his classic book, Simply Christianity, C. S. Lewis provides a profound insight into the psychological mechanism that drives historical events. «The whole history of mankind—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—is one long and terrible story of men trying to find something other than God that would make them happy.».

This is true. Even more fundamentally, the driving force of history is the pursuit of happiness. Think about it: from slavery to prostitution, from racism to terrorism, from extortion to abortion and the instigation of world wars - all of this is born of the pursuit of happiness without God.

Lewis pierces deeply, like a steel needle, into the unhealed nerve of atheism. The real problem with atheism is not the intellectual denial of the existence of God. The real problem is the emotional atheism that sees God as an obstacle to personal joy. Such practical atheism is the fundamental problem of humanity and penetrates not only the hearts of atheists, but also agnostics and even those who formally recognize the existence of God.

Atheism as an essence

This cancer at the very core of human nature has far-reaching social consequences. Having turned away from God, our pursuit of ungodly joy is inevitably pursued at the expense of others. (Psalm 14:1–4) The problem is not just that there are atheists in the world; the problem is that we all share this atheism to some extent in our motives. Each of us is born with a distorted desire for happiness that requires the sacrifices of others.

What happens when we seek joy and are forced to use someone else to achieve it? We begin to oppress. We step on others. We hurt and insult. And we come face to face with other atheists who seek happiness at our expense. We are used. Paradoxically, these desires draw us together while at the same time creating even greater conflict—like an inevitable head-on collision of trains.

A single man who loves sex seeks out acquaintances for this purpose. A single woman who needs male attention to maintain her self-esteem is also motivated to meet. When they meet, they use each other for their own selfish purposes. It will cost the man flattery and the woman her body, but at first glance it seems a small price to pay for feeding their own idols. At first, everything seems peaceful.

But this feeding of idols cannot last forever. Eventually, the man's gaze will turn to other women, and his attention to the one sitting before him at the table will wane. The flattery will turn out to be false, and the woman will realize that her body was only an object of lust. If we look deeper, we will see two isolated sinners - atheists, whose feelings are separated from God, who use each other to fill their inner emptiness. This will end in war.

Fight Club

«"The root of sin is not wrong behavior, but wrong worship.".

Using others for personal happiness, however subtly, ultimately leads to bitter conflict in our lives. James 4:1–12 helps us understand why by asking a simple question: What is causing the strife and conflict in your life? What fuels the fire of anger, bitterness, and rage in your heart?

The answer is simple: we fight each other because our passions crave ungodly pleasures. We seek the joys that we think will bring happiness, but we cannot attain them. So we kill. We envy and idolize the pleasures that we think will satisfy the soul—sex, power, wealth, fame—but they slip through our fingers, and so we kill each other. We use, we are used. We envy, we become enemies of each other. We become enemies of God. We reject the generous gifts that God offers us for our personal enjoyment. Welcome to fight club.

The Puritan Richard Sibbs explains the simple reason why all this is done: «Until the heart is changed, our minds will remain corrupt as to our ultimate good; we seek happiness where it is not to be found.» This is the tragic root of the conflicts in our lives. We are blind to that which can bring true satisfaction to our hearts. We do not see the beauty of God and cannot enjoy His joys, so we try to replace them with carnal pleasures. Our hearts are so distorted that they are dead. We pursue false goals.

But each of us is chasing something. This is Lewis's main point.

Our "main goal"«

What is a «primary end»? What is my «primary end»? Puritan Richard Baxter provides the answer. Our primary end is our pleasure, our treasure, our greatest good, the thing for which we use all other things in our lives. Our «primary end» is what we think is best for us, what we desire, what we think will bring us the most happiness, and what we most fear losing. Whether it be sex, attention, power, fame, or wealth—each of these ultimate ends reveals the practical atheism of our hearts. As Baxter explains, «a major part of human depravity in our depraved state of nature lies in the misidentification of the primary good, treasure, and security.».

No question reveals us as deeply as this: What is the one purpose I cannot live without?

Essentially, sin is not just wrong actions, but wrong worship. Sin is when our hearts are attached to any treasure or security that replaces the treasure and security that we can only find in God.

Idols

We are all, in essence, atheists, blind to the bountiful joys that God gives. Our eyes easily lead us from one idol to another in pursuit of spiritual adultery. As John Calvin notes: «Adulterers, by fornicating with their eyes, kindle the flame of lust and thereby set their hearts on fire» (Ezek. 6:9). This is how the heart works: ignoring the invisible God, we begin to desire what we see in the visible world. What comes into our field of vision, we begin to crave, and this pursuit only strengthens lust, directing us to seek this good.

That is why idols take different forms in different centuries and cultures. An idol can be a wooden sculpture of a lizard, a golden calf, a bone statuette, or a magazine cover with a photo of a figure that seems ideal. We are like climbers seeking a new foothold—each new step only intensifies our lust, lifting us higher and higher to the peak of ungodly pleasure that we will never find. It is a hopeless climb, because we have chosen the wrong mountain. And each subsequent step only increases the height from which we will eventually fall.

This is an endless cycle of sin: deadness and blindness, a constant search for earthly pleasures that prove futile and lead to deeper despair and another search for new pleasures — in sex, money, or new gadgets.

Complete corruption

«"To avoid my destruction, God must become my greatest treasure.".

The dead heart’s desire to find satisfaction in the pleasures of the flesh—where lasting happiness is impossible—is what Calvinists call total depravity. This concept, first in the famous acronym TULIP, was formulated from Scripture by Calvin himself and has been affirmed by many of his followers, from the Puritans to modern Calvinists. As John Piper says, «Total depravity is not merely sinfulness, but blindness to beauty and death to joy.».

Not everyone is destined to become Hitler and bring about great evil. Most of us do not have the strength to extract selfish pleasure from an entire nation. However, the degree of corruption varies from one person to another. In many cases, this corruption is expressed more in corrupt thoughts and desires than in actual actions. The scale of the devastation may vary, but our hearts remain equally corrupt.

It is one thing to be bad, another to be blind to good. We all experience it. That is what makes total depravity so pervasive: we cannot even imagine how one can find true joy and satisfaction in God!

The Puritans understood well how corruption works. They spoke of "corrupted" feelings, distorted ideas of purpose and desire. Corruption distorts the heart that was designed to glorify and enjoy God. It is like a man drinking seawater in an attempt to quench his thirst. The natural heart craves only that which offends God and destroys man.

The greatest tragedy of the sinner is that «he cannot satisfy his sinful desires or the lusts of the flesh.» When the natural world can no longer offer new pleasures, man turns to the unnatural (Rom. 1:18–32). His desires are insatiable, and the desires of sin are never satisfied.

So this is what the reality of total depravity leads to: we love what destroys us and are blind to what satisfies us. Total depravity is the corruption of all the desires of the soul, complete blindness to the beauty of God, and resistance to joy in God. This is the essence of all sin.

Sinful pleasures

The real tragedy is that all of this is a conscious choice. «People prefer the pleasures of the flesh to communion with God,» William Bates wrote of human depravity. This is no small matter. Being completely depraved does not mean being an innocent victim of sin. And it is not simply forgetting God, a problem that can be solved with reminders on a smartphone or regular church attendance. Depravity is a conscious and deliberate rebellion against God, for which a person deserves His judgment. To prefer the pleasures of the flesh to the neglect of the joys of God is «a sin of astonishing guilt, no less abhorrent to God and destructive to man.».

The indulgence of these sinful pleasures leads to death (Rom. 8:6). And there is only one remedy against this hopeless corruption: instead of following the natural desires of the flesh, we must seek the promise of eternal joy in union with God (Heb. 11:24–26). Sin is poisoned joy. Holiness is joy postponed for the future and pursued in the present. To escape destruction, God must become our greatest treasure.

What now?

«"Calvinists have known for centuries: to find joy, someone must break my heart and capture my feelings.".

That's all for now. Today we must admit that this practical atheism is quicksand. We all want happiness. And as sinners, we choose sin over God. Total depravity is helplessness in this choice.

And yet, as one modern Calvinist writes, «The Lord does not speak of your sin to make you feel worthless. He speaks of it because you do not speak of it. He reminds you of it because He created you in His own image and has an infinitely higher and brighter plan for you than the one you have chosen for yourself.».

This is the turning point. God reveals our depravity in order to break those whom He leads to true joy. But in light of the tragedy of human depravity, such a bright plan seems impossible without God’s intervention in our desires. To truly live, someone or something must break us. Someone must turn our gaze away from idols and fill us with greater beauty.