Sometimes Alcohol IS the answer

Most of the conversation between Christians regarding alcohol consists in whether it is permissible within Christian ethics to consume alcoholic beverages for recreational use. I’ve lost interest in that debate. It’s an easy win. I imagine that the writers of Scripture would laugh at a twenty-first century Christian who mandated that one cannot drink alcohol. Still, there’s another view that Christians often hold that I want to address.

Many Christians, I think, reject teetotalism because it’s possible for someone to drink alcohol and it have no discernible effect on the person. From this fact, they conclude: surely it’s acceptable to drink alcohol since doing so can be entirely innocuous. But there is something in this thought that is misleading. It suggests that when one drinks alcohol, it should have no visible effect on the person. The idea is that it permissible to drink alcohol not because alcohol is a good thing, but because it isn’t always a bad thing. This view is similar to someone who begrudgingly admits that sex is acceptable in cases of procreation. This person is, of course, permitting that sex is acceptable, but they aren’t really thinking of sex as a gift of grace to be enjoyed for its own sake. What I wish to challenge here is the claim that alcohol should never have a noticeable effect on our behavior.

I hold that it’s more than permissible to drink alcohol; it can be virtuous. Not only is drinking alcohol not a bad thing, alcohol can enhance our lives and make a positive contribution.

Alcohol makes this positive contribution not by some status that we confer on it, but by the grace of God. Fermentation is not some happy accident that humans either happened upon or invented. It’s not our creation; it is God’s work which he graciously gave to human beings. The statement (often attributed to Benjamin Franklin) that beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy is, of course, funny. But it is also true. The point is best brought out, though, by the psalmist in Psalm 104. The point is made better particularly because the psalmist doesn’t just say that alcohol is proof God wants us to be happy. Anyone who is not inclined to agree with this statement easily dismisses it. But the way that the psalmist puts it requires that in order for people to reject the goodness of alcohol, they must also reject the goodness of all of God’s creation. The psalmist places his reference to alcohol in the context of the many gifts God has granted throughout the natural world. Yahweh constructed the heavens and sent the winds (vv 2-4). He gave the earth the deep waters of the sea and the tall mountains (v 6). As far as creatures go, he gave water to the land animals, trees for the birds to nest (v 11). He gave the growing green grass to the cattle (v 14a) and to humans he gave plants for food and wine to gladden their hearts, oil to beautify their faces, and bread to sustain strength (vv 14b-15).

According to the psalmist, wine (and any other alcoholic beverage) is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. In fact, it is the only thing in this list that is given for that purpose. So who are we to despise what God has graciously given to us? Furthermore, who are we to abuse God’s gifts and overindulge and partake beyond what he intended? But when the course is charted between these two extremes, alcohol, we are told, gladdens the heart (and, no, this does not refer to the anti-oxidants in wine which contribute to a healthy heart, as I once heard someone argue).

 

So just how does alcohol do this? How does it enhance our lives? I think the primary way in which it does this is through the very feature for which many Christians fault it: that it alters our mood. A person that is stressed, sad, upset, or even angry can be helped by a drink to relax, be happy, or unwind. Now, I suspect that the notion that this feature of alcohol can be a good thing strikes some Christians as odd, absurd, or even sinful. Feelings of stress, sadness, tension, and anger are to be relieved through more spiritual means such as prayer or being reminded of God’s sovereignty and goodness toward us. To someone who takes this view, it seems as though alcohol turns the person into something that is inauthentic. The idea seems to be that if someone’s mood has been affected by alcohol we’re no longer encountering the real person. This observation has something going for it. Intoxication unarguably turns people into a worse version of themselves. But is it true that something that alters someone’s mood necessarily alters the authenticity of the person? It’s hard to see how. A headache negatively affects most people’s mood, but we still take seriously what they say and do. We can’t explain the behavior by saying “That’s just the headache talking”. Likewise, if one takes medicine to alleviate the headache we nevertheless maintain the authenticity of the person’s actions even though the medicine contributed to the person’s mood.

So I think we can explain our intuition to view drunkenness negatively by the fact that drunkenness has a largely negative effect and not by the fact that it has any effect at all. We regularly take in substances that positively affect our behavior (substances which, like alcohol, negatively affect us if the quantity or volume is high). Should we not take vitamins? Should we not take medication? Should we not consume caffeine? All of these substances can either positively affect behavior or negatively affect behavior, but that they affect behavior at all, is no argument against consuming them. With alcohol, or any other substance, if it positively affects someone’s behavior, it has been used in a positive way. If it negatively affects someone’s behavior, it has been used in a negative way. But it is whether the effect is positive or negative that should determine our attitude toward the substance and not the fact that it has an effect in the first place. I see no reasoned argument for the conclusion that consuming a foreign substance is immoral by virtue of the fact that it affects behavior.

Yet, I can see someone admitting that a positive effect on one’s behavior is not a reasonable basis for objecting to drinking, and still arguing that it shouldn’t be used to cope with stress or tension. Surely, when we face challenges in life, whether great or small, we should face them with the Spirit, not with the bottle. Aren’t people who find relief in drinking doing the same thing that alcoholics do only to a lesser degree?

 

This argument suffers from two problems. First, it cannot be applied consistently across all substances. Some extreme fundamentalist Christian groups argue that using foreign substances of any kind to relieve physical, emotional, or mental suffering betrays a lack of faith in God. This view is certainly wrong, but it is consistent. And if a Christian holds that it is immoral to use alcohol to temporarily relieve stress or tension, then they must draw the same conclusion with regard to all foreign substances if they are to be consistent. Again, if it is wrong to use alcohol to ease one’s stress, tension, or to lighten one’s mood, then the same will go for all foreign substances. This means that even foot baths are out since they are used to relieve stress and tension and are clearly foreign substances. The same goes for a drive through the country in the convertible on a sunny afternoon. It’s a great stress reliever and its definitely a foreign substance. Examples like these can be multiplied indefinitely.

 

The second problem with this argument is that creates a false dilemma between alcohol as an ungodly solution and things like prayer and remembrance of God’s promises as a godly solution. There is no reason to pit these against one another. Anything can be a godly solution when used for a purpose for which it was given, and anything can be an ungodly solution when used for a purpose for which it was not given. Prayer, for instance, can be an ungodly solution. If someone refuses to get out of bed in the morning and work to provide for themselves and anyone in his/her care, but chooses instead to pray that God provide for his/her financial needs, then this person has applied prayer as an ungodly solution. Asking God to compensate for laziness is not the godly solution for a lazy person. The godly solution is to stop being lazy and work (see the Proverbs). The reason that prayer in this case is the ungodly solution is because the person is attempting to use it for a purpose for which it was not given.

 

Drunkenness is, of course, one way to use alcohol for a purpose for which God did not intend. But there is, nevertheless, a purpose for which God did intend it. As the psalmist tells us, that purpose is to make our hearts glad. So one may rightly use it for this purpose. The same God that gave us his promises and his salvation is the same God that gave us wine, and so there is no basis on which to categorically distinguish between alcohol as the ungodly solution to stress, tension, depression and prayer and trust in God as the godly solution. Each can have its place in dealing with those things and they need not conflict.

 

There is another point I wish to make here. It trades on a distinction between final solutions to life’s challenges and adjustments to our feelings toward something in the moment. Alcohol is a terrible final solution to life’s great challenges. There are no shortage of people in this world who have counted on it as a final solution only to find that it makes their problems worse and creates problems of its own. Alcohol was never intended to provide final solutions to life’s challenges. Here again, what makes this alcohol such a terrible solution in these cases is that people employ to do what God did not intend.

 

But there are situations in which someone could use a distraction. Perhaps a person is focusing on a stressful situation at work. Or consider a case in which your friend has just received a citation for speeding and consequently is a little down. You could over course, pray with her about the situation and remind her that God cares for her and has in mind only what is best for her. You could discuss the importance of slowing down when we drive and obeying the law. I don’t think this is a bad course of action, but suppose she knows this, and believes this, but is still a little down about the citation. Perhaps the best advice you could give in this moment is “Drink up.”  This does not mean that the person is to find a final solution in alcohol. It is to say that your friend knows how she needs to think about this problem, but people can’t always snap themselves out of a mood or feeling simply by what they know to be true. And so we may need our minds to be taken off the problem temporarily so that ultimately what God has promised and what is true may triumph. In other words, sometimes alcohol IS the answer. Luther gave similar advice to Jerome Weller, his children’s tutor, in a moment of depression. 

Never be alone. Act foolish and play. Drink a good deal. It would even be a good idea to commit a sin — but not a gross one (Martin Luther, quoted in Martin Luther by Martin Marty [New York: Viking/Penguin, 2004], p. 181).

It is not that alcohol substitutes for other means of confronting our problems. It is that it is that it a means to be used in addition to other means for confronting certain problems. Wisdom toward alcohol will consist in knowing which problems a good drink is suited for and which it is not. But having a drink is not inconsistent with trusting in God. One can do both. But since our faith is not what it should be and since knowing the truth doesn’t always instantly convert our feelings at the moment, alcohol may rightly be used as a gift from God to “make our hearts glad”.

 

Earlier I mentioned that drunkenness is one way to use alcohol against God’s purposes for it, but there is another more subtle way that we can misuse it, namely, by denying the positive use that it can have on our behavior. The point is rarely made, but the truth is that teetotalism can dishonor God. We can become so focused on our desire to control people by preventing them from abusing it that we lose sight of what else God has said about it.

 

If we agree that alcohol is something that God graciously gave to his creation then we must acknowledge that he given it to us for our enjoyment. We all agree that alcohol can ruin people when too much is consumed, but in the right context, and in moderation, alcohol can have just the opposite effect: it makes some people a better version of themselves.

  

When we take a decidedly negative view of alcohol – whether in the form of prohibition or a begrudging tolerance of occasional consumption – we let those who abuse it determine our view of alcohol. In effect, we do not let what God has said about this part of his creation inform our view of it but we let an unredeemed approach define how we will think about the subject. In this way, those who demand total abstinence and those who abuse alcohol hold their views for the same reason: alcohol is only good for getting drunk. The difference between these views then is that one says it is wrong and the other says it is good (or doesn’t care), but with regard to  the purpose for alcohol, they agree. Both advocates of teetotalism and advocates of drunkenness have misunderstood what God has said about alcohol and both groups dishonor God. 

 

There are, of course, good reasons not to drink. What are they? You don’t like the taste. Broccoli is a good thing, and everyone can acknowledge that, but that doesn’t mean you like the taste of it, and just  as disliking the taste of broccoli is a fine reason not to eat it, so also disliking the taste of alcohol is a fine reason not to drink it (though I’ll bet you could find something you would like). Or maybe you’ve witnessed alcohol’s destructive effect on people’s lives and when you drink, it brings back painful memories of what you witnessed. So you don’t drink. Another fine reason. Or perhaps you are someone who does not moderate your use of alcohol very well and so you find it is better to avoid it altogether. Who could argue with that? But none of these reasons for abstinence requires teetotalism since none of them requires anyone to deny what Psalm 104 teaches.

For some who read this, what I have said strikes them as entirely obvious, uncontroversial, and unoriginal. For others though – and I suspect a larger part of the Christian population – what I have said strikes them in the opposite way. For the latter group, I suspect that the tendency to misunderstand what I have said here will be overwhelming. So let me say a word or two about what I am not saying. 

1. I am not saying that Scripture condones or permits drunkenness (this should be obvious from what I’ve written but I suspect it isn’t obvious to everyone).
2. I am not saying that alcohol only has positive effects.
3. I am not saying that it is wrong not to drink (though I do think that for most Christians it is).
4. I am not saying that we can be flippant in our use of alcohol.
5. I am not saying that alcohol hasn’t been abused by people to the extent that they have destroyed their lives by means of it.
6. I am not saying that we should disregard laws in society about times and places to drink alcohol.

 There are several potential arguments against what I have said that I wanted to raise and answer, but given the length of this post as it is, I think it is best to hash them out in the comments for anyone who is inclined to ask them. The two that come to mind are:

 

1. If your argument holds true that alcohol’s effect on our behavior can be a good thing, then the same argument could be made regarding illegal drugs and other substances that would extend your argument to the point of absurdity. So perhpas your argument doesn’t hold true.

 

2. If your argument holds true, then we should all be going through our day under the influence of alcohol so long as it has a positive effect on our behavior. But surely there’s a problem with advocating that the majority of the populous conduct themselves regularly under the influence of alcohol, so perhaps your argument doesn’t hold true.

I’m interested in others’ answers to these questions and in any other reasonable argument that I haven’t anticipated.