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1.Happiness in the Christian Life

2 Although my topic is happiness in the Christian life, I would like to set our topic in a broader

perspective in order to locate a Christian understanding of happiness among various other

construals of happiness since it is one of the central topics of ancient philosophy and is currently

of great interest in both positive psychology and philosophy.

What do we all want?

I begin with a basic question. In a world deeply fragmented by religion, class, ethnic and racial

tensions, linguistic divides, disparities in wealth and financial and psychological access to

education and access to basic health and safety resources, what do we all share.

Augustine: Stoicism and Epicureansim

3 Augustine of Hippo asked this question almost seventeen hundred years ago and it reverberates

among us today. Listen to how he put it to his readers in a paraphrase that I hope will be easy to

follow:

DT 13.2.6-9.

Although no one actually knows what another individual wants, there is certainly agreement

among people about what everyone wants. There is a story about a comedian who told his

audience that if they came back to the theater the next day he would tell them what they all want.

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Well, more people showed up the next day wrapped in suspense. The story continues that he

said: “you all want to buy cheap and sell dear.” [that is, you all want to make money or more

plainly, everyone is greedy]. The answer resonated with everyone and they applauded his

cleverness, acknowledging that indeed they all were greedy.

But Augustine asked why they were so surprised since we attribute to others what we think

ourselves. But, he says, it is one thing to know what one wants and another to know what

someone else wants.

While the comedian inferred that the fact that everyone wants to buy cheap and sell dear may be

common to all, the problem with the generalization that everyone is greedy is that it betrays a

vice: greed. [Wanting to make money may not seem like a vice to us today since our society

depends upon this vice, yet when one thinks of price gouging, for example jacking up the price

of gasoline or hotel rooms during a natural disaster that takes advantage of innocent people, or

the greed of Wall Street that plunged us into economic crisis for which no one has been held

legally accountable, one can see his point: greed is vicious because it harms other people]

Augustine offered another example: the ancient poet Ennius had another answer to the question.

He said that “Everyone wants to be praised,” no one wants to be disparaged. Again, Ennius was

probably generalizing from himself to others. But wanting to be praised at least to Augustine’s

mind is also a vice because seeking to be honored is crass because it bespeaks insecurity. It also

invites empty flattery offered to someone by another seeking to curry favor for personal

advancement and inhibits accurate self- assessment. Augustine countered: on the other hand

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“there are people who hate their vices and do not want to be praised by others for what they

dislike in themselves and are grateful for the good will of those who scold them…in order to

correct them.” In short, seeking praise betrays insecurity. It is a vice and maturity its matching

virtue.

It is interesting that the man who gave the west the infamous doctrine of original sin—meaning

not simply that we commit sins but that we are fundamentally sinful creatures—here is rejecting

sinful/ vicious desires as that which unifies all people. No, here he is looking for something

positive on which to base happiness and he presses on. This is especially noteworthy since the

thinking is later western Christianity is that atonement for sin and belief in God’s mercy are the

foundation of happiness in this life by stilling anxiety. And so 4 Augustine offers his own answer

to the question of what everyone wants that is not vicious but virtuous: “you all want to be

happy.” To this he added that not only do we all want to be happy but we all want happiness to

last. Yet, he continues, despite this fundamental agreement about what we want we differ,

sometimes profoundly, on what happiness is and consequently on how to get it. Clearly the

greedy person thinks happiness is being wealthy and the poet thinks that happiness comes by

being honored that exalts the ego, perhaps dangerously so. Nota Bene: I am not saying that we

should not praise to one another appropriately but objecting to insincere, inappropriate or

effusive praise. For example, grade inflation that is now rampant in the US because college and

university teachers want to fill their classes. This gives students a false understanding of their

abilities and distorts both expectations and relationships.

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5 On the question of what a better notion of happiness is Augustine considered two moral

philosophical proposals. One is that of the Stoic moralists who claim that happiness consists of

an intentionally virtuous life. The other is Epicurus’s proposal that happiness is securing bodily

pleasure. Both are spiritual construals of happiness but in these brief references Augustine does

not do them justice. To help us appreciate Augustine’s portrayal of happiness in Christian

perspective, I will nuance these two and add two more proposals of what happiness is in moral

philosophical perspective.

The Stoic notion of intentional virtue is specified as peace of mind (tranquility) knowing that our

life is guided by sound morally clear-sighted judgment. Living virtuously is the only way to be

happy because it is one of the few things in life supposedly under our control. Living virtuously

is to live according to “nature” and for them that is not to follow the animal side of our nature but

the exalted side. The happy life requires being able to control untoward emotions so that they do

not interfere with pursuing what good judgment tells us is in keeping with our personal, social,

professional, and civic responsibilities. Stoicism assumes that guided by strong moral principles

we can know the right thing to do in any given situation and that we have the psychological and

moral strength to act on that conviction. Acting in a morally praiseworthy way brings peace of

mind that calms stress, anxiety and worry that disturb the spirit. To fall short of that high

standard is to succumb to vice and that is emotionally destabilizing for those with a conscience.

We become anxious before the recognition of our failures. This distress destroys the equanimity

of spirit that Stoicism prizes as happiness that they called tranquility, perhaps moral self-

contentment, because those plagued by anxiety cannot achieve peace of mind and heart. For the

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Stoics, happiness is taking pleasure in living an intentionally consistent moral life that controls

internal emotional stress possibly galvanized by each new challenge that comes along.

Epicureanism, the other proposal that Augustine mentions here, is not an expression of crude

hedonism as some moderns might think of as a self-indulgent life gobbling up whatever

gastronomic delights, libations, sexual pleasure, and economic power one can. No, for Epicurus

happiness is being free from physical and emotional pain (that is, being healthy), especially

anxiety aroused by fear of physical pain in this life and the next. To this end he denied the

immortality of the soul and consequently the notion of punishment by the gods after this life.

Epicurus thought that the greatest source of fear in this life comes from the theistic sanction: the

threat of divine punishment after this life. And so he taught that the gods are not interested in us

so there is no reason to fear them. After we die it will be for us as it was before we were born so

the fear of what Christians would call hell—eternal punishment—is a waste of energy.

Still, how can we ever be free of the fear of bodily pain since illness, injury, and death may

overtake us and those we love at any moment? Who but the intrepid or the young is not afraid of

getting cancer?

6 Other ancient proposals: Aristotle and Buddhism

Aristotle offered a third proposal of happiness. He took happiness to be living in such a way that

we contribute constructively to society and consequently do well in life. Living excellently, not

living high as the comedian seems to have thought, facilitates happiness. Happiness for Aristotle

is basically the result of being an excellent person and in his foundational treatise on ethics

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(Nichomachean Ethics) he identified specific character traits, dispositions that enable us to

flourish in this life. Its central tenet is moderation in all things. Avoiding extremes enables

excellent personhood that facilitates a flourishing life. Needed traits are being courageous,

exercising self-restraint, being philanthropic and gracious, acting honorably, being refined in

one’s lifestyle, being able to control one’s temper, being able to listen well, being socially

skilled, living modestly, and being appropriately angry. Here happiness is being an excellent

person and that takes skill that comes only with practice in assessing the best response to each

situation life presents. We have to work at becoming an excellent human being, just as becoming

an excellent athlete or musician takes determination and practice.

7 The ancient moralists interested in happiness were not only in the west. Buddhism argues that

happiness is living contentedly without fretting over what we do not have. So, getting rid of

desires that lead to despondency if they cannot be fulfilled and grasping at what we think should

do the trick in the short term is the path to happiness. Buddhists advise a noble 8-fold path to

human excellence perhaps analogous to Aristotle’s list of excellent dispositions that cultivate

wise living so that we stop fretting over things that are either wrong or not worth our attention. It

involves having a fine understanding of things, the right intention in dealing with things,

judicious speech, excellent behavior, a noble occupation, the effort to pursue what is good and

useful to self and others, the right attention to things, and rightly attending to the right things.

Like all the western schools of thought I have named, Buddhism is a moral-spiritual path for an

intentional and examined life designed to eliminate the worry, stress and anxiety that can torture

sensitive spirits. It is close to Stoicism in seeking a calm spirit for those who want to avoid being

a negative force in the world.

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8 All of these paths to happiness assume that the good life, eudemonia (flourishing) in Greek,

felicitas (felicity) in Latin, nirvana/moksha (liberation from spiritual suffering) in ancient

Sanskrit, advise an attentively moral way of life that yields personal satisfaction and contentment

from a life well-lived even when outward circumstances are untoward. Happiness then is

enjoying a well-ordered life. It is a psychological state of serenity that comes with exercising

wisdom in all things. To put it sharply, a wise life is pleasurable and it enables flourishing in its

various forms.

9 The American Marketplace

Against all these moral-spiritual offerings, the American marketplace currently proposes a

materialist notion of happiness from which moral, spiritual and public considerations are

eliminated. I would characterize it as having what you want, when you want it, and in the amount

that you want it understood in material terms often focused on money, sex and power,

recognizing that money and sex are about power. Market forces and exceptional technological

prowess have now established novelty, convenience and efficiency as crucial American values to

maximize what Thomas Jefferson famously called the pursuit of happiness in the American

Declaration of Independence. Prizing novelty, convenience and efficiency now shapes American

expectation of immediate gratification rather than valuing discerning judgment that the ancient

philosophers and the Buddhists all assumed is necessary to become excellent persons who will

flourish emotionally and materially.

10 So, my first point here is that in discerning what happiness is we seem to be facing a choice.

Either the good life is a wisdom-driven life led by principles and character strengths that must be

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carefully cultivated from childhood or it is that set of skills which enable us to master the forces

of nature and society that can marshal against our getting what we want, when we want it and in

the amount that we want. The choice here is between thinking of happiness as either having to do

with our spiritual life, or with adventitious good that we hope to acquire. Either it is about the

quality of our life or our skill at negotiating the culture in which we live. My own belief is that

this is a false choice because the caliber of who we are cannot but affect how successful we will

be at negotiating the world. Conversely, living in adequate circumstances of health, wealth,

safety and salutary companionship free the spirit to focus on the quality of one’s character and

how we impact others as we negotiate the world around us. Before pursuing my own suggestion

for a Christian construal of flourishing, however, let us return to Augustine’s ruminations on our

topic long before novelty, convenience and efficiency held the upper hand. We are still in his DT

book 13.

11 Returning to Augustine

From Augustine’s perspective, if happiness is the contentment of living an intentionally virtuous

and well-examined life but one is ignorant of or resists that truth—thinking for example, that

happiness is the external pleasures wrought by money, sex, and power—Augustine responds that

it is certain that these transient pleasures cannot last, and Augustine had begun his reflection by

observing that we all want happiness to last. So, he concludes that some people are deluded

about what truly makes for a good life. Though people may say they want to be happy if they do

not understand that true happiness depends on wisdom that comes from within rather than

possessions that come from without they carry around a counterfeit notion of what we all truly

want. They are self-deceived, having turned away from what truly happifies to follow a dead-end

path that may temporarily please but will ultimately fail. Think of smoking drugs, gourmet

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cuisine, drinking or sex, for we only want these over and over again. Satiety is beyond their

reach. Even more pointedly, think of the American Airlines drinks napkin that says “Coca-Cola

is Happiness”. It’s not only a lie it’s insulting. Such slogans are silly if not pernicious for they are

designed to drag us down to the level of soft drinks in order to get our money. Personally, I don’t

even like Coca-Cola. It’s too sweet.

Perhaps, Augustine muses, playing devil’s advocate, we should say that the happy life is living in

a way that you enjoy: the slogan “if it feels good do it” is perhaps a current version of the idea.

This is the point at which Augustine and the Christian tradition following him broke with several

construals of happiness that dominate both current philosophy and psychology that separate the

happy life from the moral life, for living for what you enjoy without considering the moral value

of what you enjoy is, Augustine says, “itself a very unhappy situation; in fact not to get what you

want is not so unhappy a state of affairs as to want to get what you have no business to” (DT

13.8). That is, craving something without considering its consequence for your moral health and

the well-being of others shortchanges and debases you. He pushes the point. “Who could be so

mentally blind, so estranged from the light of decency and wrapped in the darkness of infamy as

to call happy the [person] who lives a rotten worthless life with no one to stop him, no one to

punish him, no one even daring to rebuke him?” Wanting badly without true friends who call us

back from foolishness is to live a self-deceived life. We cannot go it alone for we are given to

self-flattery and self-advancement in ways that may ultimately be self-defeating and certainly

damaging to others. 12 With this opinion, Augustine set the path for western Christian

civilization until the past 200 years or so when utilitarianism , spear-headed by Jeremy Bentham

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and later John Stuart Mill championed a materialist hedonism, the maximization of sensate

pleasure that one might calculate, apart from a morally grounded notion of pleasure.

Against this dubious separation of the pleasures of a morally good life from the pleasures that

come from enjoying material goods, Augustine proposed that happiness is having everything

you want and wanting nothing wrongly (DT 13. 8). Here we are at the crux of the Christian

doctrine of happiness. As you can see by now, Augustine, along with other ancient moral

philosophers, believes that to pin happiness on material pleasures disconnected from the

psychological pleasure that we derive from living excellently fails to value the genuine pleasure

that comes from living graciously, gently, courageously, magnanimously or as the Buddhists

would say, rightly. This may seem like a dualism that divides spiritual pleasure from sensuous

pleasure, but I think that division is simplistic. I think it better to conclude that sensuous

pleasure—pleasures of the body—divorced from enjoying a well-ordered moral life is

problematic. Bodily pleasures are not to be scorned but they do need to be monitored. With this

single terse sentence, Augustine set the standard for the western theological tradition that the

happy life is grounded in the moral life, as a document like the Ten Commandments suggests.

Augustine elaborated his definition of happiness as having what you want and wanting nothing

wrongly by interpreting “wanting nothing wrongly” as wanting the right things. Of all the good

things to want he identified one as the greatest good, the summum bonun against which all others

pale by comparison. Further all other goods that are lesser goods should be wanted to the extent

that they enable us to get closer to having the one best thing to want and that is God, the greatest

good. As other goods—health, wealth, safety, friends—find their true meaning in their

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contribution to our knowing and loving God that is the singular source of our happiness, they

lose their ultimacy for human happiness.

Thus is may seem to the casual reader that Augustine did not value temporal goods like health,

wealth, safety, fine friends, family, education, meaningful employment (these last becoming

important only lately). This is not really the case. He truly did appreciate and want everyone to

enjoy temporal pleasures in this life. Like the Stoics, he did not, however, value them as goods in

their own right but only as they enhance our enjoyment of God to fend off any chance that they

might be thought of as the ultimate motivation for our striving and so he kept all temporal goods

tethered to the greatest good. This has given moderns pause for only God is good for his own

sake and that became a strange idea as science and technology dramatically improved the quality

and length of life. 13 The position invites what moderns suspect as an instrumental use of other

goods of this life for an ulterior purpose: to advance their or our enjoyment of God, once modern

ethics, established by Immanuel Kant, taught us to treat things, especially people, as ends in

themselves not as means to ulterior ends.

St Thomas

14 The only theologian after Augustine to treat happiness as a specific topic is Thomas Aquinas.

15 His treatise on happiness begins the great second part of the Summa Theologiae, the ethics.

This treatise interprets Augustine’s insistence that happiness resides in knowing God with the

help of Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics. Aquinas insists that “Ultimate and perfect happiness

can only be in the vision of the divine essence” (ST 2.1.3.8). Sadly we cannot have that in this

life, only in the next, and so in Q 4 he created a category that he calls imperfect happiness,

happiness in this life that is not defined by but requires delighting in temporal well-being and

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that requires a healthy body and external goods including wealth and friends. And so although

Aquinas denies that happiness is constituted by wealth, honor, fame, power, or any external

good, he does recognize that external goods are necessary for the imperfect happiness that we

may enjoy in this life if our thoughts and desires are rightly developed and oriented.

The ancient moral philosophers appreciated the psychological pleasure of developing and

exercising excellent personhood. Yet with utilitarianism, pleasure construed in material terms

ignored the satisfaction we experience when doing good things well even though some may take

pleasure in doing bad things well. I would expect actually that pleasure in doing bad things well

is short-lived for the danger always lurks that one will be found out, exposed and punished for

unethical or criminal behavior that advanced technology and criminology are ever more able to

discern. We all need recommendation letters to move from one job to another, for example, and

if we have soiled our nest those letters will not be forthcoming.

American individualism

16 Today in this country we are in an individualist culture that has severed the ancient bond

between the moral life and the happy life and with the Augustinian-Thomistic bond between God

and happiness on the grounds that happiness is having what we want and wanting it rightly.

Because Augustine was influenced by Stoicism and Neo-Platonism (that we have not talked

about) he identified the personal skills needed for happiness in terms of character strengths.

Basic to personal strength is self-mastery that requires self-control not control of others (DT

13.17) as the desire for “money, sex, and power” does. So, my friends, even if the stark choice

between a morally pleasurable life and a life devoted to temporal pleasures is an overly

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simplified construal of happiness, we are faced with a decision about what happiness truly is.

The difference between the spiritual and the materialist proposals is, it seems to me, that

Augustine and the ancient moralists are thinking in a context that is far larger than self that now

characterizes individualist societies like ours. Communally oriented cultures of Asia do not

suffer this problem. Convinced that the happy life properly understood is a well-ordered life

oriented toward that which is truly good not only for ourselves but for the community does not

separate personal desire from the web of mutually interdependent relationships that enable

society to flourish.

Supposing then that we agree with Augustine’s proposal that the happy life is having what we

want and wanting the right thing(s), the reason we may not be happy is that we want bad things

in which case we are deceiving ourselves about what will get us where we want to go. To want

bad things and to organize ourselves to attain them, say money that is a form of power, only puts

happiness further beyond reach while wanting good things, even if they escape us, puts us closer

to them than does wanting the wrong things. At least we want the right things. The core of

happiness then turns on being able to organize desires rightly as Buddhists might put it. Finally,

it is the quality of the desiring mind that matters. Given that life is fraught with perils and

temptations, becoming an emotionally strong, insightful, caring and generous person that can

translate its values into what I call a “lifeway” is essential to an excellent life. I suspect that other

ancient philosophical spiritualties and Buddhism might concur, although they have different

discourses.

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Happiness then for Augustine depends upon mastering one’s desires that guide an ordered life

that is far more likely to eventuate in flourishing on all levels than is a disordered life. It is not a

matter of chance or of seizing an opportunity. It is not a matter of being in the right place at the

right time. It is not just a matter of knowing the right people in the right places. Nor is it

something adventitious, external to us. Happiness is not something that one receives, or that

accrues to one by virtue of successfully manipulating the environment so as to control it, for

despite technology and medicine’s ability to control more than ever before, in truth there is much

that we cannot control in this life: catastrophic illness, injury, social & economic downturns, the

devastations of war and climate changes as well as accidents of birth belie our pretense of power

to bend the world to our will. No, for Augustine Christian happiness is more under our control

than reliance on circumstance allows for we can prioritize wanting exalted things and nothing

can negate our enjoyment of living such an excellent life.

Depending on externals and short term physical pleasures to MAKE us happy, Augustine

teaches, is unreliable and so doomed to falter. The only reliable means of finding happiness lies

within. It requires learning to want well that is, wisely. That, my friends, does not come easily to

most of us given as we often are to impulsive desires and the hope of satisfying them as

effortlessly as possible. Supermarkets and chain stores depend on impulse buying to sell products

that companies pay to put in the middle of the aisle so that we cannot avoid them.

Happiness then depends not only on how skilled we are at manipulating the world, although I

would be the first to admit that we need to know how to handle ourselves in whatever

environment we find ourselves, but also on what we want for ourselves that is truly worth

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wanting. For Augustine, of course, there is only one thing truly worth wanting, and that is God.

No other desire can compare with wanting God in order to be truly happy in the best sense of the

word.

17 A fresh proposal for a Christian doctrine of happiness

With all of this said, I now venture my own tweak of Augustine’s definition of happiness as

having what we want and wanting nothing wrongly or as I would put it, wanting what is truly

worth wanting.

I begin with a point of disagreement with the dualism of much ancient moral philosophy that is

powerful for Augustine although challenged by both Epicurus and Aristotle who broke with

Plato at least partially over this point. Dualism is the idea that the life of the mind and spirit is

more valuable and important than physical and bodily well-being. The reason for this valuation

is that our desire for physical and bodily well-being can become disordered and harmful resulting

in the wealthy exploiting the poor, the powerful exploiting the environment, sexual

inappropriateness resulting in domestic violence and unwanted children, and so on and so forth.

The moral motivation behind dualism is that strengthening the spiritual and reasonable part of

ourselves can order the disorderly parts of our nature that can harm self and society. I am

persuaded by the social problems that beset us that the dualists, ancient and modern have a point.

A particularly stark statement of this dualistic view is presented in Matthew 6.24: “You cannot

serve God and money.” You must choose, implying that a godly life implies a preference for

poverty.

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Guiding ourselves maturely is difficult. Intellectual and spiritual self-mastery are needed to

enable us to contain untoward desires that can harm self and others to the detriment of society.

Submitting to divine guidance as the Christian traditions urge can and should shape desires and

behavior in salutary ways that turn us outward from self advancement to concern for the well-

being of others. Having a strong conscious that has been called the voice of God within can help

us restrain unseemly urges. That is, tethering ourselves to God can help us move toward a better

and more flourishing and happy life in the binary terms that dualism establishes.

Christianly speaking, that dualistic value hierarchy is firmly in place in the Gospel of John. It

categorizes people in terms of darkness and light and is evident in the writings of Paul who

depicts a struggle between the desires of the body and the spirit. Some Christians refer to this as

galvanizing all their forces for spiritual warfare against temptation personified as Satan.

Preference for intellectual-spiritual over material flourishing, or more starkly seeking God over

material flourishing is deeply entrenched in the Christian spiritual and theological traditions.

Despite its strengths, the objection I have to dualistic piety is the judgment that physical and

material flourishing are not worth wanting as if wanting God and the moral-spiritual flourishing

that life with God can guide us to must be at the expense of physical-material flourishing. Rather,

I submit, enjoying adequate physical and mental health, having financial security and safety,

being able to benefit from education, enjoying stable family life, and cultivating mutually

rewarding relationships with other people establish an environment in which and develop the

skills needed to attend to the quality of their inner life. Cultivating emotional maturity, insight,

caring and generosity, perhaps all gifts of God, are needed to navigate the world with dignity and

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grace. But this is to tend to one’s life with God for God wants creation to flourish. That indeed is

the reason Christian theology and piety insist that knowing, loving and enjoying God enable

flourishing societies. That is, far from disenabling spiritual flourishing, material flourishing

enhances it.

Thus, perhaps ironically, while there is value in the dualistic assumption that we need strength to

control untoward desires and emotions, the opposite may also be true as St Thomas Aquinas,

encouraged by Aristotle, may have grasped. Against the dualistic Augustinian tradition that he

venerated, that in his day was rather out of control among the Albigensians, Aquinas grounded

his whole theological endeavor on the goodness of creation that is to be enjoyed, not the

centrality of sin that is to be overcome. Thus, he not only connected temporal and eternal

happiness but came quite close to recognizing that despite the instability of material desires,

basic material well-being, achieved through a modicum of wealth, health, safety, social respect,

and good companions are necessary in order to focus attention on life with God. Here I make my

case.

Lacking basic creaturely well-being can be spiritually corrosive. It can be degrading and anxiety

producing and distract from tending to the quality of one’s actions and their impact on others.

That is, creaturely disadvantage and deprivation may deter one from discerning what is truly

worth wanting. Greed may lurk in all of our hearts, but serious deprivation can activate that

greed in exceptional degree. Poverty forces people to focus their energies on fighting for

financial survival and may crowd out, at least for a time, the examined life necessary for the

adept self use necessary for moral-spiritual flourishing.

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Unstable family life cannot train the young in the skills needed to benefit from education and to

sustain constructive relationships. Further, creaturely deprivation can cultivate character

weaknesses: greed, as noted, reflexive anger, contempt, xenophobia, anguish, despair and self-

righteousness that are socially isolating. In short, physical well-being provides a floor upon

which psychological well-being is enhanced and psychological well-being enables one to

strengthen one’s intellectual and spiritual strength for moving ever more deeply into life with

God that in turn strengthens one’s ability to master untoward desires.

This route is fraught with the opposite danger than the dualists face. Rather than denying the

necessity of material well-being to make space for spiritual pursuits, recognizing the importance

of material well-being for spiritual flourishing courts the danger of never getting to desire for

spiritual well-being. Each perspective has its strengths and weaknesses.

Nevertheless, my point then is that creaturely security allows the mental and emotional space to

attend to the quality of one’s life, or as Augustine puts it, attending to what it means to know,

love, and enjoy God. Yet even if a comfortable material floor is needed to be able to tend to the

quality of one’s spiritual desires, it does not assure that one will be interested in doing so because

in order to want what is truly worth wanting we need to be able to discern what is truly worth

wanting and what is not. That is why valuing moral-spiritual goods above material goods has a

point.

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I have argued that Happiness from a Christian perspective entails having what we want and what

is truly worth wanting. I then argued that the classic dualistic view, that in order to want what is

most worth wanting we should distance ourselves from what is less worth wanting, is a flawed

notion. Rather, although it is the case that wanting physical and material goods may interfere

with our life with God this is not necessarily the case and that to the contrary, enjoying material

well-being actually enhances our ability to know, love, and enjoy God and that that enhances the

happiness that God wants for us.

18 One more question poses itself, however. In a materialist and individualist culture like the US,

how are we to learn to distinguish between what is truly worth wanting and what not? American

culture no longer enjoys the support of moral philosophical assumptions that enabled Augustine

and Aquinas to rely on the desire for moral excellence as an alluring category that brings

satisfaction and contentment to one’s life. Perhaps it was ever so. By the same token, it is

interesting to note that the value of spiritual self-cultivation has reemerged over the past 40

years, although not necessarily in the Christian form that focuses on God or that addresses the

Augustinian point that a serious Christian teaching on happiness must include learning to want

what is truly worth wanting. My point here is that if we need training in how to cultivate the best

life we need guidance and practice.

19 Since our topic is happiness in the Christian life, to answer this question I turn to the Christian

heritage. At this point Jews will turn to the Jewish heritage, Muslims to the Islamic heritage and I

have already mentioned the Buddhist heritage. Staying with the Christian heritage here it seems

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to me that its greatest resources for providing guidance for the Christian life are liturgy and

scripture. In the time remaining I can touch only on scripture.

20 For guidance in discerning what is truly worth wanting I am particularly drawn to the

commandments of the Older Testament, not only the famous ten which are direct but many more

whose moral guidance encourages formation of salutary dispositions, for these are essential to

learning to want well. They articulate not a vague general notion of life with God but give

specific shape to it through guidelines for the actual texture of that life. For example, the

command to leave the corners of a field unharvested, and the injunction not to strip your

vineyard bare of fallen grapes but to leave them for the poor (Lev 19.9-10) intend to cultivate

generosity and public mindedness. The command to return lost articles to their owner (Deut 22.

1-3) cultivates neighborliness that enables healthy stable communities. The command to

construct the roof of a house with a parapet to protect from harm any worker who goes up there

(Deut 22.8) cultivates active concern for employees as does the command not to withhold the

wages of a day laborer overnight (Lev 19.13). The command that permits taking eggs from a nest

but not the mother bird (Deut 22. 6-7) cultivates ecological sensitivity and concern for the future.

These and many related commands cultivate socially oriented dispositions much as Aristotle

named salutary character traits although he does not specify concrete practices that teach us how

to practice them. These public-spirited commandments form spiritual appetites the exercise of

which advances both the moral-spiritual life that God wants for us and the public good, that God

also wants for us, from which those who practice them derive deep contentment and satisfaction.

Personal pleasure in this regard and promoting societal well-being are central to the Christian

life.

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My proposal for happiness in the Christian life then is that most biblical commandments as well

as the guidance offered by the Bible’s prophetic tradition and wisdom literature, are not

perfunctory rules but rather pinpoint specific actions the practice of which crafts a public-spirited

lifeway that cultivates emotional maturity, insight, caring and generosity. Biblical commands

understood broadly rather than perfunctorily teach us to want well and to have what we want:

both spiritual and material flourishing for us and for others.

In turning to the Younger Testament, I think the text that treats our topic specifically is the

Gospel of John. It adds two important elements to our discussion. Despite its dualism that

divides those who follow Jesus from those who do not, this Gospel has a teaching on happiness

very like what I have been arguing for here. It is named as eternal life. That is, John assures us

that happiness is to be found in this life in obedience to the call of Jesus. We do not have simply

to withstand this “vale of tears” until we cross over as Augustine later believed. The other

element that John adds is that eternal life is lived in the company and with the encouragement of

friends. That is, happiness in the Christian life is lived with the help of the church, the keeper of

liturgy and scripture.

21 In sum then, happiness in the Christian life requires allowing oneself to be shaped and

nurtured for eternal life in this world in the company of friends committed to the same goal.

What I am saying is that you here at XXX College are engaged in cultivating that life with and

for one another every day, in every class, at every sporting event, at every meal. I urge you to

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cherish this gift as you learn here how to advance eternal life not only within this community but

in every community that you will ever touch.

22 May you be blessed with eternal life this day and forever more.