"Happiness and the Christian Life"

Recently, I have led a group in a reading and discussion of The Second Mountain by David Brooks. As I have framed the discussion each session I have introduced the concept of eudaimonia, or happiness, as it was first stated in ancient Greek philosophy. In this context happiness is often understood to be “living the good life.” Utilitarian ethicists have gone farther to say that the goal of human community is to bring about the greatest amount of happiness for the largest amount of people. But there are differences of opinion about what happiness is, how happiness can be measured, and whether or not happiness is possible at all. conversation about happiness was actually brought about in the Declaration of Independence in the U.S. where Thomas Jefferson wrote that our government should bring about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Some people have often interpreted “pursuit of happiness” as happiness itself—that is one problem with the construct. Others have argued whether or not happiness is free of any negative experiences at all—sadness, conflict, etc.

Certainly, this discussion of happiness and the good life is modulated in Christian thinking by identifying what the life of a faithful Christian is. In evaluating faithfulness, one can see that happiness may or may not be an end-product. In fact, if one is faithful to their calling to follow Jesus one could be miserable in terms of the evaluation of the world. This also serves to put the good life in question as measurement by pleasure over pain, or some other simplistic way of evaluating happiness. The end is faithfulness to the calling of God, or perhaps loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Christian ethicists need to pay attention to “happiness” and “the good life” because they are the way in which human beings measure positive outcomes in life. But as we consider the calling to following Jesus through whatever circumstances may come we realize that any eschatological ethics must consider faithfulness the end in this life and the possibility of blessings in the life to come as the outcome of total happiness.

On a practical level we try to bring about the greatest good in our relationships to God and others. Although we cannot measure in ordinary terms love of God and love of neighbor we know that faithfulness to our calling and to our relationships will be “good” and lead to “happiness” in every situation in life. Although there are many individual situations where we may feel happy or not, we will ultimately be happy and bring about the greatest good when we are in right relationship to God and others.