Happy pursuits: a Christian vision of the good life

AMERICANS ARE obsessed with happiness. We are bombarded daily with images of things that promise at least temporary happiness--whether it's a laundry detergent, a gourmet meal, an exotic vacation or a sexual triumph. Meanwhile, social scientists study whether we feel happy, and if not, why not.

Many Christians are suspicious of the pursuit of happiness. They know that self-denial and self-sacrifice are part of Christian life, and they worry that happiness is too often equated with a transient feeling. They may also believe that acting right does not involve doing what makes us happy. In fact, they may think that doing the right thing usually hurts--it's an act of duty, not pleasure. Maybe Christians should not be concerned about happiness.

But happiness is a term deeply rooted in Christian tradition. Happy is the very first word of the Psalter. Matthew uses the word happy to describe those who take on the yoke of Jesus. Augustine uses the word happiness to describe the goal of life. Happiness may need to be redefined by Christians, but abandoning the word altogether is not an option.

One reason Christians are suspicious of the pursuit of happiness is that today it is understood in hedonic terms. It is seen as the search for good feelings--often achieved in an impulsive manner. But there is another ancient understanding of happiness: happiness is the ability to live a virtuous life that promotes well-being and the judgment that one is indeed flourishing rather than languishing. This eudaemonic notion of happiness is embedded in the Christian tradition. What the tradition has not recognized is that these two understandings are not opposites and that virtue gives genuine pleasure. That is, eudaemonic flourishing produces hedonic happiness. So goodness and pleasure cannot be separated, for doing good is pleasing to us.

An important source for a Christian account of happiness is the 13th-century philosopher Thomas Aquinas. Thomas drew on Augustine, Boethius and Aristotle in fashioning a rich foundation for Christian happiness. To understand Thomas we must first discard the idea that happiness is a feeling of moderate euphoria. Second, we must be willing to consider that happiness is linked intrinsically to virtue (doing good well).

Thomas begins from the following premises: 1) God is good. 2) The cosmos is God's creation. As such, it is an expression of his goodness. 3) The creation is unified because each part belongs to and contributes to the whole and is in turn promoted, sustained and perfected by the rest. All things actualize the goodness of God and celebrate themselves as good creatures when they are at their best and helping all creation to flourish. As we become the very best creatures that we can become, we are not only obedient to God's destiny for us, but we are also celebrating our own goodness in God.

Let's take the example of a healthy sugar maple that is providing the very best sap that it can. We might call this tree happy because it is fulfilling its purpose in creation. Or take the example of a honeybee that is contributing to the flourishing of its hive, the production of honey and the pollination of plants. This bee, too, might be called happy, since it fulfills its function. Because this definition of happiness does not trap us in the realm of feeling, we can speak about the happiness of trees and bees as easily as about our own happiness.

Happiness is somewhat more complicated for humans, but many of the fundamental principles remain. We must, like trees and bees, fulfill our purpose. We become our best selves in the process of fulfilling that purpose. Humans are far more like God than bees because we have choices to make and the intellectual power and creativity to make them. At the same time, while bees and trees fulfill their purpose more or less automatically, humans do not. Because of the freedom we have to act or not act, we must work at directing our actions toward our proper flourishing.

According to this model, feeling good is the result of doing good in ordinary and common choices of daily life. We become happy not by pursuing fleeting moments of pleasure, but by being the self that God created us to be. While our capacity to honor God is perhaps greater than the capacity of trees and bees, so is our instability. We make choices constantly, and not all of them contribute to the flourishing and sustaining of creation--nor do they all honor God. In this realm of choice, we find the moral life.

All our interactions with other creatures have a moral dimension because our actions affect them. By attending to the effects we have on things and on each other we can learn to use ourselves more lovingly for the well-being of the things and people we touch. We are always forming each other and ourselves, for good or for ill, through everyday choices and interactions. Learning to use ourselves well is the foundation not only of judging our life to be going well, but also of feeling happy.