Editor’s Note: In the first article of a four-part series on the BCC Grace and Truth blog on the topic of addiction, David Dunham provides us with a biblical definition and overview of addiction. In other contributions to the series, Greg Gifford differentiates between cravings and desires in drug addiction, Donn Northup applies the Puritan flesh-pleasing model to counseling those with sexual addiction, and Eliza Huie discusses the acceptable addiction of screen abuse and offers biblical principles for stewarding screen time.

How we understand a problem will always determine how we understand help for the problem. This is, perhaps, obviously true when we talk about the nature of addictions. While the dominant models of addiction counseling view the problem from within either a disease or choice framework, the Bible offers a more robust perspective. Within Scripture, addictions are viewed as “voluntary slavery.”[1]

The lived experience of addiction feels both like voluntarism and enslavement. An addicted individual feels both guilty and yet unable to stop, both responsible and out of control. How do we explain the disparity between these two feelings, even between these two seeming realities? The world does not attempt to navigate that terrain. More often than not, modern psychology simply offers an explanation that emphasizes one or the other of these realities. The disease model says you are a victim, in bondage to your broken biology. You did not choose your addiction; you are merely a slave to it. The choice model, on the other hand, asserts that addiction is a voluntary or willful decision to use/abuse drugs or alcohol. Each view has strengths and weaknesses but is insufficient as a comprehensive explanation for addiction.

For some Christians, this definition of addiction will be difficult. We often so emphasize the principle of moral culpability that we are reluctant to accept any notion that conflicts with this truth. So, we are more inclined to view addiction as a failure of a morally weak person than to accept that some forms of sin create a level of bondage that is hard to break. But addictions are like bondage, and the lived-experience of the addict reveals this. For instance, Jessica wasn’t making excuses when she told me that she didn’t want to drink a whole bottle of Jim Beam that night, but she knew she would. She couldn’t stop herself. She felt trapped. Kevin knew the second he had money he would buy drugs; it was the primary reason his mom kept control of all his finances. He couldn’t make himself do the right thing. Slavery is a fitting description of these experiences.

The Bible can sympathize with this feeling of bondage, and yet it never avoids holding us morally responsible for our actions. We are moral agents, and the Bible treats us as such, even in the face of addictive habits. Ed Welch points out that drunkenness serves as a prototype for all addictions in the Bible, and it is always treated as a sin, never sickness. He writes:

Drunkenness is against God and his law. Scripture is unwavering in this teaching and relentless in its illustrations. Noah (Gen. 9:18-27), Lot (Gen. 19:30-38), Elah (1 Kings 16:9), and Nabal (1 Sam. 25:36) all portray the moral foolishness of being mastered by alcohol.[2]

The New Testament continues with this same description by lumping drunkenness in with a host of other immoral activities: sexual immorality, theft, greed, and selfishness (see 1 Cor. 5:11; 6:9-10; and Gal. 5:19-21). Of course, our world has all kinds of psychological labels for these problems too (sex addiction, kleptomania, narcissism, etc.), but under the authority of the Word of God, we must recognize the against-God nature of these acts. These acts are a refusal to submit to God’s loving lordship. Drunkenness is ultimately a “lordship problem,” says Welch.[3] In other words, there is an idolatrous component of our addictions.

The Christian church should have no trouble accepting this reality. Philosopher Kent Dunnington looks to the Evangelical doctrine of sin as a connection point.[4] Our doctrine notes three levels of sin. On the one hand, we do sinful things. The Bible also acknowledges that we can develop patterns of sin in our lives—what John means when he speaks of those who “make a practice of sinning” (1 John 3:4-10). We might speak of these in terms of sinful habits. Finally, the Bible reveals that each of these first two levels happens primarily because we are sinful. This is what theologians refer to as Original Sin—that category of sinfulness which has to do with our very nature (Eph. 2:3). The Bible tells us that we not only do sinful things but rather that we are sinful.

On the one hand, we are clearly morally responsible before God for what we do. On the other, we are in bondage, slaves to sin (Rom. 6:20). Paul says that apart from Christ, we are “dead in our trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1) and that we cannot change this reality about ourselves. Rather, we must be “made alive” in Christ (v. 5). Our theology recognizes this duality of moral responsibility and bondage. It does not have to be one or the other.

Our theology helps us to understand addiction in a more comprehensive way. Addictions, within a biblical worldview, are best described as “voluntary slavery.” The value of this terminology is that it both recognizes the individual responsibility and the involuntary nature of a habit. That is to say, we make decisions to indulge in certain behaviors, and those behaviors can, eventually, become somewhat second-nature to us. [5] We participate in certain practices often enough that they formulate an automatic response when triggered. The Bible depicts this dual reality when it speaks of sin. It both acknowledges that we should not “let sin reign” and that sin can “reign” in our bodies (Rom. 6:12). Paul can speak both of “presenting yourselves” as “obedient slaves,” and of being “slaves of the one whom you obey” (Rom. 6:16). In chapter seven of Romans, he even speaks of his own desire to do right and yet also of his persistence in doing the very thing he hates. The Bible teaches this diverse understanding of addictions, and so, the church should embrace it too.

The Bible is not naïve about the nature of addictions. God holds us morally responsible for our actions, but He also recognizes the ways in which sinful choices can enslave us. In the biblical worldview, then, addictions are best described as “voluntary slavery.”

Questions for Reflection

What aspects of this definition do you find helpful? Do any aspects of this definition seem troubling to you? How might this nuanced definition help you to care well for those struggling with an addiction? This definition builds off the Christian doctrine of sin in general. Are there other doctrines that would help you to develop a robust definition of addiction?

[1] Dr. Edward Welch coined this description of addiction. Welch develops the idea and makes a compelling case for it in his work, Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave (Philipsburg: P&R, 2001), and its accompanying workbook, Crossroads: A Step By Step Guide Away from Addiction (Greensboro: New Growth Press, 2008).

[2] Addictions. 22.

[3] Ibid. 23.

[4] Kent Dunnington, Addiction and Virtue (Downers Grove: IVP, 2011).

[5] Many people are writing on the power of habits to shape us and our lives. It has become a hot category both within theological and other non-fiction writing. See James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2016); Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit (New York: Random, 2012); David Matthis, Habits of Grace (Wheaton: Crossway, 2016); Richard O’Connor, Rewire (New York: Plume, 2015); Philip Nation, Habits of Our Holiness (Chicago: Moody, 2016).