Gluttony and the Fullness of God

Canto VI of Dante’s Inferno paints a sobering scene.

Dante and Virgil have just arrived in the third ring of hell, where God punishes the sin of gluttony. An accursed rain — cold, foul, toxic — pours down on the circle. The eternal deluge turns the ground into a horizonless slough of stinking refuse.

Dante beholds a mess of souls lying prone on the ground and drowning in this thick paste. Like great slugs, they can barely move beneath the weight of their sins’ consequences. Yet as heavy as they seem, they are insubstantial; Dante treads right through them.

Without warning, Cerberus, the three-headed monster of hell, bounds out of the downpour. He bares three sets of teeth and opens three maws wide to devour Dante and his guide. Virgil reacts fast, scooping up two heaping handfuls of mud and shoveling them into the beast’s triple gullet. Like dogs with a spoon of peanut butter, the ravenous mugs of Cerberus gobble down the disgusting meal and leave Dante free to pass through “that polluted mix of soul and slush” (The Inferno 6.100–101).

Heavy Sin of Making Light

Dante’s grim picture of gluttony mirrors the tone of Scripture (Deuteronomy 21:20; Proverbs 23:20–21; 28:7). The Hebrew word for gluttony (zālal) derives from a verb not specific to food. Often used in contexts that describe reckless overindulgence and wastefulness, it means to make light of, to despise, to handle as worthless, and so to squander. Moreover, gluttony is a species of idolatry (1 Corinthians 10:6–7), which treats the belly as a god (Philippians 3:19), worshiping and serving the contents of the cupboard rather than the Creator.

Ironically, by assigning food the weight of glory due to God alone, we make light of it. Let me explain: God designed every bit of creation to communicate his glory. That means food has a peculiar derivative glory intended to help us savor God. It is weighty because it is attached to him. But untether that gift from the Giver, and it drifts away like an escaped birthday balloon. Elevate food above its Maker, and we gut it of its glory. When you divinize the gift, assigning to it more weight than God intends, you desecrate the gift and dishonor the Giver.

Thus, gluttony is the heavy sin of making light. It indulges in one of God’s gifts (generally food or drink) untethered from supreme satisfaction in God. It is the disordered eating that springs from disordered desires. The glutton despises God’s good designs for food, and thus, squanders it.

Bite-Sized Theology of Food

God invented food and gives it to man for at least three glorious purposes. First, to fuel our bodies for fruitful dominion and labors of love (Genesis 2:16; Psalm 145:15–16; Ecclesiastes 3:12–13; Acts 17:25). Food strengthens us for God’s mission.

Second, to facilitate fellowship through Christlike hospitality. Jesus catered truckloads of food and wine during his earthly ministry as a foretaste of the jovial hospitality of his kingdom (Matthew 14:13–21; John 2:1–11), and he calls his followers to feast others in the same Spirit (Luke 14:12–13; Matthew 25:35–40; cf. Nehemiah 8:10).

Third, to further our delight in him. Food communicates God’s fullness (Proverbs 24:13–14; Isaiah 55:1–5; John 6:35; Romans 1:20). God created food — aged cheddar, sourdough bread, campfire hotdogs, ice cream — as tangible, tastable images of divine things. Food’s greatest glory is divine flavor; it tastes like the Trinity.

In other words, God designed food to help fulfill the greatest commandments: Love self rightly, love others generously, and love God fully and increasingly. He gives us principles and patterns for our use of food to guide us toward these ordered loves.

Good Gone Rancid

But as we all know, sin defiles our use of food. Sin does not spoil food itself; all food is clean (Mark 7:18–19; Romans 14:14; 1 Corinthians 10:25–26; Titus 1:15). But when sin disorders our desires, we become disordered eaters. When you seek in food what you can only find in God — control, happiness, identity, comfort, hope — the good gift goes rancid.

Satan loves to help us turn food into idols (Genesis 3:1–7; Exodus 16:2–3; Luke 4:1–4; 1 Timothy 4:1–5). From the start, he has employed sinful eating with great success. Whether we overeat (Psalm 78:21–31; Ezekiel 16:49) or undereat (1 Timothy 4:3), he cares not; gluttony concerns the manner and motivation of our eating, not the amount.

“Food will never satisfy the soul’s ravenous appetite for eternity.”

Satan has always been an influencer for the demonic diet plan. We spy the first glutton in the first garden. Eve may have taken only one bite, but her tongue trumped her obedience. Or think of Esau. He exchanged his birthright, the promise of God’s presence and blessing, for a bowl of bean soup (Genesis 25:29–34). Jesus himself would have succumbed to gluttony if he took Satan as his dietician (Luke 4:1–4).

In modern times, the father of lies has had a heyday with food. Many still overeat, but perhaps even more become gluttons through strict diets, food legalism, undereating, or endlessly scrolling “food porn.” Many of the fittest people on Instagram are gluttons because diet dominates their lives. Washboard abs can be just as accurate an indicator of disordered eating as a beer belly.

Consider yourself. Has food become an idol? Does your life revolve around meals? Does your mind fixate on food? Do you keep secrets about your eating habits? Do you ignore your diet’s effects on your body — or obsess over them? Does your relationship with food hobble your ability to love others well?

Munching on Mud Pies

Returning to Dante, his repulsive images help us grapple with “the sin of the throat that damns the soul” (Inferno 6.53). In The Divine Comedy, Dante paints soul-pictures to show us the reality of sin and its effects. His images incarnate the sins they depict. So, what does Dante reveal about gluttony and God’s three glorious purposes for food?

First, gluttony is self-destructive. Gluttony may seem like a warm, cozy, even festive sin. However, freezing rain and stinking mud come nearer the truth. Food should fuel us, but Dante shows gluttons as lethargic, lacking all the alacrity fruitful labor demands. Ironically, as gluttons make light of God’s good gifts, they become at once physically heavy and insubstantial. By eating more, they become less. At its best, food sharpens our capacities to know God and draw us up to him; gluttony mires the soul in mud.

Second, gluttony isolates. In Dante’s vision, none of these souls speak to one another. In one sense, they wallow together; in another, they are totally alone. Gluttony has this effect. Overeating is often a private affair. But overscrupulous eating can isolate as well, tempting us to refuse the hospitality of others due to calorie count or content. The imperatives of “clean eating” can divide Christians just as surely as the old-covenant food laws misapplied in the New Testament (cf. Galatians 2:11–14).

Finally, and most seriously, gluttony spoils our appetite for God. Dante captures this tragedy through Cerberus. With three mouths and one stomach, the hound of hell perfectly symbolizes eating gone wild. Even more striking, this thrice-ravenous beast is satisfied with handfuls of mud. C.S. Lewis loved Dante, and I wonder if he had this scene in mind when he wrote,

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. (The Weight of Glory, 26)

Gluttony makes light of glory. Like Cerberus, the glutton munching on mud pies settles far too easily. Food will never satisfy the soul’s ravenous appetite for eternity (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Above all, Dante reveals the sin of gluttony as insufficiently hedonistic.

Too Full to Be a Glutton

Eating devolves into idolatry when you look to food to meet a hunger only God can sate. So don’t eat to fill a hungry soul. Until you are “filled with all the fullness of God,” food will always tempt you to squeeze more than it can give (Ephesians 3:19). Food threatens the soul until we heed God’s call to glut ourselves on him (Isaiah 55:1–2).

“Eating devolves into idolatry when you look to food to meet a hunger only God can sate.”

Scripture so often compares God to food because the delights of the table point to him. He satisfies the soul like a cool draft in the desert (Psalm 42:1). He thrills more than new wine, fills more than fresh bread; he is sweeter than honey and richer than milk. He is the fullness and fatness of all delicious things (Psalm 63:5). When we come to him, we “eat what is good” (Isaiah 55:2). All the best things we seek in food, we find in God. So, devour the Bread of Life. Drink down the Living Water. When it comes to this divine food, gluttony is impossible. You cannot overindulge in God.

And when you’re full of God, you’re free to feast (and to fast!). In other words, when your appetites are ordered under God, and his gifts are tethered to him, you are free to enjoy food or forgo it as a means of enjoying God — just as he intends. This is the glory of food: to help us taste and see that the Lord is scrumptious.

When you savor God and delight in food as a means of tasting him, you will be too full for gluttony.