Biblical Perspective on Fiction and Entertainment Choices
The Bible does not directly address modern concepts of fiction or entertainment choices, but it provides principles that inform Christian perspectives on these activities. A core theme is the concept of choice, which is fundamental to human experience and spiritual life [4, 5]. The names "Mibhar" (chosen youth) and "Beraiah" (the choosing of the Lord) reflect this emphasis on selection and divine election [1, 2].
Early Christian thinkers, such as Tertullian and Augustine, discussed the nature of human enjoyment and the appropriate objects of affection. Augustine distinguished between things to be enjoyed and things to be used. He argued that only eternal and unchangeable things, ultimately God, are true objects of enjoyment, while other things are for use to help attain that enjoyment [6, 13]. This framework suggests that entertainment, as a temporal activity, should be used in a way that supports one's ultimate enjoyment of God.
Tertullian, in particular, expressed strong reservations about public spectacles and theatrical performances prevalent in his time. He viewed these as originating from the devil and incompatible with a Christian life, arguing that they fostered "frenzied excitement" and "blow up the sparks of passion" [9, 11]. He questioned whether one could be thinking of God while seated in an environment devoid of God's presence, where "eager strife" and "gay attiring" prevailed [11]. Tertullian believed that the pleasures God provides, such as peace with God, truth, and pardon for sins, far surpass worldly entertainments [8]. He also noted that those who depart from belief in God often "given themselves over to various inventions and fables, devising certain (fictions)" [3]. Augustine also observed the intense, often mad, excitement of spectators at such events, noting how they would "striving more madly with each other" [10].
The patristic writers also cautioned against the abuse of freedom and the soul's tendency to depart from truth through the pursuit of pleasure. Athanasius of Alexandria described how the soul, "being pleased with the contemplation of the body," can be misled into believing that pleasure is the essence of good, thereby abusing its freedom of choice [4]. This perspective implies that entertainment choices should be evaluated based on whether they lead the soul towards truth and God or away from them.
While early Christian writers were critical of certain forms of entertainment, they also recognized that not all human institutions are inherently superstitious or evil. Augustine noted that "human institutions which are not superstitious" are those "set up... by men in association with one another" and are not associated with devils [7]. He also stated that a Christian's dress or manner of life is "a matter of no moment" as long as they live in conformity with God's commandments [14]. This suggests that the form of entertainment is less important than its content and its effect on the individual's spiritual life.
The Reformed tradition emphasizes that while God's grace is necessary for salvation, individuals still make choices. Charles Hodge, for instance, discusses how the Spirit makes the means of grace effectual, but the sinner still makes a "choice of God" [12]. This highlights the ongoing responsibility of believers to make choices that align with their faith, including their entertainment.
Sources
- Hitchcock's Bible Names “Hitchcock's Bible Names: Mibhar — chosen; youth”
- Hitchcock's Bible Names “Hitchcock's Bible Names: Beraiah — the choosing of the Lord”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “ANF Vol 4: Tertullian IV, Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen — FROM THE LATIN. (part 1): among them even on this very point, because, when they once depart from a belief in God the Creator, who is Lord of all, they have given themselves over to various inventions and fables, devising certain (fictions), and asserting that some things were visible, and made by one (God), and that certain other things were invisible, and were created by another, according to the vain and fanciful suggestions of their own minds. But not a few also of the more simple of those, who appear to be restrained within the”
- CCEL (Patristic) “Athanasius of Alexandria, Select Works and Letters, section 49: §4. The gradual abasement of the Soul from Truth to Falsehood by the abuse of her freedom of Choice. Having departed from the contemplation of the things of thought, and using to the full the several activities of the body, and being pleased with the contemplation of the body, and seeing that pleasure is good for her, she was misled and abused the name of good, and thought that pleasure was the very es 6 sence of good: just as though a man out of his mind and asking for a sword to use against all he met, were to think that soundne”
- Hebrews (Baptist/Reformed) “John Gill on Hebrews 11:23: Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God,.... The Israelites, who were God's chosen and peculiar people, and were the true worshippers of him; Moses chose to be with those: the company and conversation of such is most eligible to every good man, because God is with them; his word and ordinances are with them; there are large provisions of grace in the midst of them; so that it is profitable, delightful, and honourable, to be among them, and is attended with comfort, peace, and satisfaction: but then those are a poor, and an afflicted people; affli”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 2: Augustine — City of God, Christian Doctrine — CHAP. 31.--GOD USES RATHER THAN ENJOYS US.: 34. And on this ground, when we say that we enjoy only that which we love for its own sake, and that nothing is a true object of enjoyment except that which makes us happy, and that all other things are for use, there seems still to be something that requires explanation. For God loves us, and Holy Scripture frequently sets before us the love He has towards us. In what way then does He love us? As objects of use or as objects of enjoyment? If He enjoys us, He must be in need of good from us, ”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 2: Augustine — City of God, Christian Doctrine — CHAP. 25.--IN HUMAN INSTITUTIONS WHICH ARE NOT SUPERSTITIOUS, THERE ARE SOME THINGS SUPERFLUOUS AND SOME CONVENIENT AND NECESSARY. (part 1): 38. But when all these have been cut away and rooted out of the mind of the Christian we must then look at human institutions which are not superstitious, that is, such as are not set up in association with devils, but by men in association with one another. For all arrangements that aye in force among men, because they have agreed among themselves that they should be in force, are human instituti”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “ANF Vol 3: Tertullian — CHAP. XXIX.: Even as things are, if your thought is to spend this period of existence in enjoyments, how are you so ungrateful as to reckon insufficient, as not thankfully to recognize the many and exquisite pleasures God has bestowed upon you? For what more delightful 91 than to have God the Father and our Lord at peace with us, than revelation of the truth than confession of our errors, than pardon of the innumerable sins of our past life? What greater pleasure than distaste of pleasure itself, contempt of all that the world can give, true liberty, a pure conscience, ”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “ANF Vol 3: Tertullian — CHAP. XXIV.: In how many other ways shall we yet further show that nothing which is peculiar to the shows has God's approval, or without that approval is becoming in God's servants? If we have succeeded in making it plain that they were instituted entirely for the devil's sake, and have been got up entirely with the devil's things (for all that is not God's, or is not pleasing in His eyes, belongs to His wicked rival), this simply means that in them you have that pomp of the devil which in the "seal" of our faith we abjure. We should have no connection with the things w”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 3: Augustine — On the Holy Trinity — CHAP. 16.--A SPECIMEN OF A CATECHETICAL ADDRESS; AND FIRST, THE CASE OF A CATECHUMEN WITH WORTHY VIEWS. (part 3): they like them, and the greater the enjoyment they have in them; and they favor them when thus excited,(4) and by so favoring them they excite them all the more, the spectators themselves striving more madly with each other, as they espouse the cause of different combatants, than is the case even with those very men whose madness they madly provoke, while at the same time they also long to be spectators of the same in their mad frenzy.”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “ANF Vol 3: Tertullian — CHAP. XXV.: Seated where there is nothing of God, will one be thinking of his Maker? Will there be peace in his soul when there is eager strife there for a charioteer? Wrought up into a frenzied excitement, will he learn to be modest? Nay, in the whole thing he will meet with no greater temptation than that gay attiring of the men and women. The very intermingling of emotions, the very agreements and disagreements with each other in the bestowment of their favours, where you have such close communion, blow up the sparks of passion. And then there is scarce any other obj”
- CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 3, section 5: which ought to determine the sinner to make choice of God, will remain without saving effect, unless the Spirit renders them effectual. These views are presented at length in the “Christian Spectator” (a quarterly review) for 1829. On the nature of the change in question, Dr. Taylor says: “Regeneration, considered as a moral change of which man is the subject — giving God the heart — making a new heart — loving God supremely, etc., are terms and phrases which, in popular use, denote a complex act. . . . These words, in all ordinary speech ”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 2: Augustine — City of God, Christian Doctrine — CHAP. 22.--GOD ALONE TO BE ENJOYED. (part 1): 20. Among all these things, then, those only are the true objects of enjoyment which we have spoken of as eternal and unchangeable. The rest are for use, that we may be able to arrive at the full enjoyment of the former. We, however, who enjoy and use other things are things ourselves. For a great thing truly is man, made after the image and similitude of God, not as respects the mortal body in which he is clothed, but as respects the rational soul by which he is exalted in honor above the ”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 2: Augustine — City of God, Christian Doctrine — CHAP. 19.--OF THE DRESS AND HABITS OF THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE. (part 1): It is a matter of no moment in the city of God whether he who adopts the faith that brings men to God adopts it in one dress and manner of life or another, so long only as he lives in conformity with the commandments of God. And hence, when philosophers themselves become Christians, they are compelled, indeed, to abandon their erroneous doctrines, but not their dress and mode of living, which are no obstacle to religion. So that we make no account of that distinction”