What Is Happiness?
This month, I’m thinking a lot about happiness. I’m writing a book exploring eleven features of the world (or human experience) that point to the divine. When it comes to happiness, many have pointed out that this is the deepest longing of the human heart, the thing that all people strive for. Pascal famously quipped it is even the thing sought by those who commit suicide (they just have the wrong idea about how to find it). So, we all want it. Yet, it often remains elusive. In my chapter in this book (tentatively titled Eleven Stones), I’m exploring some popular (and counterfeit) views on happiness. Many today wrongly think that happiness is found in wealth, success, fame, or pleasure. All of these, as it turns out, are ingredients in happiness, but they are not what happiness is.
What is perfect happiness? I think that perfect happiness has four basic components. First and most fundamentally, happiness is found in being rightly related to God. This is our highest good and our deepest desire—to know and be known by God. Second, happiness consists of right relations with others and the world around us. This is where justice comes in: we want to treat others well, with justice and love. Third, happiness is found in a right relationship with self. This is the idea of being a certain kind of person, a virtuous person. And finally, happiness is found by being rightly related to our end, our telos, our purpose. We were made to find rest in God; we journey to God and this is where we find our home. So, biblically, happiness is a great relational good: being rightly related to God, others, self, and our end. This is what human flourishing looks like. And the good news, as Psalm 35:27 declares, is that God wants us to flourish, God wants us to be happy in this rich way.
What of wealth, success, fame, and pleasure? These are all good things, ingredients of perfect happiness. Wealth is transformed in the Christian vision, however. The truly rich are those who enter the Kingdom of God. The success we aim at is to complete our journey and find our way home. The fame we attain, as C. S. Lewis describes in his essay “The Weight of Glory,” is the fame or weight given to us by God in Heaven such that we become an ingredient in God’s happiness. Finally, the happy life is a pleasurable life, because we are able, in the Christian vision of things, to connect pleasure with meaning. All is a gift. All that is from God is to be enjoyed in creaturely response.
It is right and good that we seek happiness. It is also important, however, to be clear about what happiness is and what it isn’t. In the Christian story, there is genuine happiness to be found. And this is good news!
— Paul M. Gould is an Associate Professor of Philosophy of Religion and Director of the M.A. Philosophy of Religion program at Palm Beach Atlantic University. He is the author or editor of ten scholarly and popular-level books including Cultural Apologetics, Philosophy: A Christian Introduction and The Story of the Cosmos. He has been a visiting scholar at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School’s Henry Center, working on the intersection of science and faith, and is the founder and president of the Two Tasks Institute. You can find out more about Dr. Gould and his work at www.paul-gould.com and https://www.twotasksinstitute.org. He is married to Ethel and has four children.
Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay
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