Should We Hate This Life?
How should we see this life? Is this life something to be endured or even hated? Is all that matters the life to come?
I have been reading John Calvin’s Institutes of Christian Religion. In book three, chapter nine, Calvins says this:
For we must hold, that our mind never rises seriously to aspire after the future, until it has learned to despise the present life. For there is no medium between the two things: the earth must either be worthless in our estimation, or keep us enslaved by an intemperate love of it.
With all respect to Calvin, I think he is wrong here. I do not think that this life is something to be hated. Jesus came to bring abundant life. That is not just something for after we are dead. Abundant life can happen here.
The message of Jesus was the coming of the kingdom of God. That kingdom is not (just) heaven but something that happens in this world and in our lives. Our life right now matters.
Calvin’s thinking diminishes the value of creation. When God created this world, he said it was good. The fall didn’t destroy all that goodness.
But didn’t Jesus say:
Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. (John 12:25)
True but Jesus also said this:
If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26)
If we are to literally hate this life, are we also to literally hate our parents? An interpretation is found in Matthew:
Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. (Matthew 10:37)
The use of love and hate refer to priorities. We shouldn’t love our human families more than God. In the same way, we shouldn’t love our life more than our loyalty to God.
There is much that is beautiful and lovely in this world. These things point to God. We can enjoy this life, as long as we do not see our current experience as the best that there is. Being in God’s family means that things are only going to get better, specifically on the day of the resurrection.
