Pleasure: God's Gift
The Best Christian Writing 2002
The "Ample" Man Who Saved My Faith
by Philip Yancey
Where does pleasure come from? After searching alternatives, Chesterton settled on the Christian answer as the only reasonable explanation for its existence in the world. Moments of pleasure are the remnants washed ashore from a shipwreck, he believed, bits of Paradise extended through time. We must hold these relics lightly, and use them with gratitude and restraint, never seizing them as entitlements....
Evil’s greatest triumph may be its success in portraying religion as an enemy of pleasure when, in fact, religion accounts for pleasure’s source: every good and enjoyable thing is the invention of a Creator who lavished gifts on the world. (281)
