Monday, January 24, 2011

Considering Pleasure and Virtue in Service to Others: A Not So Obvious Conclusion

Often times, situations present themselves that have moral consequences. As people concerned with morality, many Christians are quick to offer their opinions concerning what the proper response should be to these situations. We are quick to form ethical suggestions without fully realizing the intricacies of the situation or the affects of our decisions. Quick response is often unwarranted. Christians should never act nor decide without God. Instead of consulting God, many will jump the gun. I have been guilty of this on several occasions, but by the grace of God I am becoming more aware of my need to seek Him before I speak.. I think the following interaction will demonstrate how careful consideration and willful obedience can give us an answer that is not immediately thought of.

I recently had an interesting question posed to me by a close friend who likes to ponder life. We all know that helping others is seen as a positive action by most persons of our society and is a mark of good Christian living. Doing good is not just seen as a positive action by Christians, but the larger society in general affirms this as well. In light of this, my friend must have begun to ponder why people do good deeds for others. Therefore, he posed a scenario followed with a question that the scenario brings to light. In essence, he said that we often do good deeds for others by using our talents. Those who practice their talents often enjoy doing so. Therefore, we often help others, not for their sakes, but for our own. Thus, my friend posed the question: Is it a selfish act to help others when we do so because we merely enjoy the task that is required to assist those in need?

The scenario was a bit more specific, which helps with my answer. My friend framed his scenario in the realm of vocation. So, let us say that you are a computer expert. A person you know little about has a computer that crashes, and you quickly volunteer to help. Let us make the scenario even more interesting by suggesting that this person needs his computer to do some good will project; say he is the manager of a food bank. Now, while you are aware that your good deed will provide great assistance to the owner of the computer as well as a local food bank and all the people it feeds, you do not volunteer to fix the computer for that reason. Instead, you do it because you enjoy the work. You simply take on the task of fixing the computer because you like fixing computers, not because some kind soul is in need. Is there something wrong with this?

To our Christian sensibilities, we might, at first, wish to say that this self-fulfillment is not a good motivator for good deeds. Besides, our righteous acts are but filthy rags before God; are they not? But should we then assign blame to the person who does his work happily for no other reason than he or she enjoys it? In this scenario the act of helping is not done so for righteousness’s sake. Therefore, the person is not guilty of trying to please God by doing a good deed apart from God’s power. The wrong would be to pose as good Samaritans for praise, when one is not. If the motivation was not enjoyment of work but praise for the self by those the worker helps, then the person helping is in the wrong. This is not to suggest that we should not accept thanks.

Another wrong would be found in the person who has all means to help, enjoys his or her work, and yet still refuses for no other reason than spite. I might add that I feel it to be more morally insensitive and reprehensible to deny help simply for the fact that one does not wish to pretend to care. In other words, to deny help because one does not want to commit a selfish act due to the fact that he or she will only do it for the satisfaction of a job well done, is, in itself, a selfish act, a looking out for one’s own interest (not being seen as selfish) over the interest of others.

Surely selfless acts of love are greater than mere self-fulfilling actions, but enjoying the talents we are given is a positive attribute, as long as we do not use our gifts to the detriment of others, and, in the scenario provided, people only benefit. Finding pleasure in work is more close to redemption than we might think. God's plan for mankind was not for us to sit on a fluffy white cloud while playing a harp, as many envision heaven to be. Instead, when God created the good realm for which we would live, he intended us to work the land. In other words, part of our original design was to take pleasure in our work and in progression (Gen 2:15). Therefore, enjoying our talent because it makes us feel somewhat whole is, in many ways, praise of God and His purposes, whether we realize it or not.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with enjoying work. In the scenario given, helping others is an incidental. The bottom line is that there is nothing wrong with working for pleasure, even (or should I say especially) when this work is helpful. Now, after one realizes that he cares little that he is helping others, it might be advantageous to try to develop sensitivity for our fellow man, through God’s help. While there is nothing wrong with helping for the enjoyment of the work, it might point to the fact, if one does not care either way that he or she is helping, that another issue needs to be taken care of. But, that issue does not concern the enjoyment of work, it is only brought to light by the situation at hand. Moreover, one might need to be mindful to thank God for the ability to enjoy work and for the fact that this work does help others.

Once again, I do not find the motivation to help because we enjoy the work to be negative in and of itself, although it might be more virtuous to couple this desire with the desire to serve. In fact, in and of itself, I find this to be a positive sign that one is moving towards God’s purposes, God’s original intent being that we enjoy life and this life would include work. In fact, it might be a more negative thing for the person who helps others through labor and does so for some sense of wanting to do good deeds, but does so while hating what it is to work. Work is not punishment. It is fulfillment. Part of the curse of sin is that it makes work somewhat more laborious and difficult, but if we can rise above the difficulty to find pleasure in labor, we have returned closer to our original purpose purposed by God.

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