Of all the sub-tests the church has used over the centuries to discern between things that look the same but work in opposite directions, one is sharper than the rest and almost embarrassingly simple to state. Did this mediated good increase or decrease my hunger for the real thing?
Good mediation is appetite-increasing. Counterfeit mediation is appetite-decreasing. That is the test. It applies, with a little adjustment, to nearly every use of a tool you can name.
Paul's Letters as the Model
The historical evidence is right there in the New Testament. Paul writes letters at the highest level of pastoral and theological precision — and at the same time he keeps acknowledging that the letter is inferior to embodied presence.
…
The phrasing is almost shy. He is with them in spirit because he cannot yet be with them in body. The letter is not the meeting. The letter is toward the meeting.
John, the apostle of love, says it twice with disarming directness. Once in 2 John:
…
And again in 3 John:
…
…
He has much to write. He chooses not to. He wants the embodied version. The letter is appetite-increasing on purpose — it makes the recipient long for the face-to-face. The mediation is real, and its realness includes its own subordination to the unmediated.
This is the pattern. A genuine foretaste is a use that, when used well, makes you want the embodied real more, not less. A counterfeit is a use that satisfies the longing cheaply and dulls it. The two outputs are easy to feel.
Running the Test
The test runs in three time-windows. Short, immediate windows can lie. Medium and long ones tell the truth.
Immediately after the use. What does your body do? You close the app, the call ends, the page is shut. What is the first impulse? To reach for the actual person, the real thing, the embodied next step? Or to reach for more of the same use, slightly numb, slightly restless, slightly less yourself? The first response is a foretaste-shaped response. The second is a counterfeit-shaped one.
Over a week. What is happening to your appetite for the genuine? A video call with a far-away friend should leave you wanting to see her, not satisfied that you have. A sermon on a podcast should leave you readier for Sunday, not vaguely justified in skipping. A piece of digitally-rendered beauty should leave you grateful, not idly browsing for more.
Over months. The most honest window. If a use you are evaluating has been part of your life for a year, do you long more for the real thing it traces, or less? This is the window the body cannot lie about. Counterfeits, given a year, slowly empty the appetite. Foretastes, given a year, slowly enlarge it.
A small note: Paul's whole picture of present Christian life is a groaning forward into the new creation. Right desire is part of what the Spirit is forming in us.
…
We are meant to eagerly wait — meant to long, meant to ache. A mediated good that keeps that ache alive is doing what mediation is for. A counterfeit that anesthetizes the ache is teaching the body to be content with less than what is coming.
When the Test Is Hard to Read
A few honest qualifiers.
Some uses are both — appetite-increasing on one axis and appetite-decreasing on another. A long video call with a grandparent can deepen the bond and also leave you slightly more fine with not making the drive. The test, in those cases, asks which trend is dominant over time.
Some uses are appetite-decreasing for reasons that have nothing to do with the use itself — exhaustion, depression, season. The test is not a substitute for pastoral wisdom or, sometimes, medical care. It is a guide, not a verdict.
And some uses are appetite-increasing because they substitute the wrong appetite — a craving for stimulation, recognition, content. The test only works when the appetite being measured is the right one: the appetite for the embodied real, for God-given goods received as goods, for the new creation toward which everything is moving.
Why This Is the Sharpest Tool
Most tests of a tool are tests of the tool. The appetite test is a test of the user, by the tool. It asks what the use is doing in the deepest place — to your hunger. Hunger is more honest than thought; hunger is more honest than habit. Hunger tells you, eventually, what you are actually being formed toward.
Run the test long enough on enough uses, and the four-pillar framework starts to feel like a slow elaboration of one short question.
Go Deeper
- Albert Borgmann, Power Failure — focal practices vs. devices: a philosopher running the appetite test on technology long before there were apps.
- Foretaste or counterfeit? — the two-word question this sub-test serves.
- Presence — the participation node where the appetite test is born, and where it is the sharpest.