Happiness is not just a feeling

Posted by Jeremy on Tuesday, March 9, 2010 · 6 Comments 

I won­der, if we viewed “hap­pi­ness” as the ancients did, would the “prob­lem” of evil and suf­fer­ing be such a prob­lem? In fact, I think I agree with Peter Kreeft when he says — or per­haps repeats — that suf­fer­ing isn’t a prob­lem, it’s a mys­tery (Mak­ing Sense of Suf­fer­ing). It is a mys­tery because we encroach on our own data–we com­mit evil even while study­ing it. By study­ing evil, we are in some ways study­ing our­selves. And yet in see­ing evil so clearly in the world, we refuse to see it in our­selves. We are “black and white”; more “good” than “evil,” and so that makes us good. Or we are more “evil” than “good,” and that makes us a vic­tim. We blame God for the evil men do, and we exalt men for their crit­i­cisms of God (“Not I,” says the Chris­t­ian). We haven’t learned Job’s les­son. We ask God “why” and demand an answer, when we’ve already been told “no”. I sus­pect we couldn’t com­pre­hend the answer, for it seems to involve the words “because I love you, I let you suf­fer”. It’s a mys­tery. And hap­pi­ness, what if we stopped view­ing it as a feel­ing, a sense of “I feel good”. What if hap­pi­ness meant “good­ness,” and to say one was happy is to say one is liv­ing or has lived a good, noble and vir­tu­ous life. Per­haps we would con­clude that not all suf­fer­ing is evil, or bad, and may be nec­es­sary for liv­ing this good, noble and vir­tu­ous life. Per­haps suf­fer­ing is a fire that refines char­ac­ter, or which shows mans need of God. I’m inclined to ask, did the ancients see clearer than us? With their lit­tle knowl­edge — or so we seem to think — but much wis­dom? We have equated knowl­edge and wis­dom, suf­ficed one (knowl­edge) for the other (wis­dom). And yet in doing so we’ve undone our­selves. We are a civ­i­liza­tion with no answers (or attempts at answers) to the great ques­tions. We are, for the most part, apa­thetic. We’re rich, and it’s eas­ier for a camel to go through the eye of a nee­dle, than for a rich man to enter the king­dom of heaven (Matt. 19:24). Well, we’re rich, we com­plain we aren’t, but who cares.

Related posts:

  1. Anaes­thetic and the loss of feel­ing alive
  2. But you can prove a negative!

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Comments
6 Responses to “Happiness is not just a feeling”
  1. Ted says:
    March 9, 2010 at 1:34 pm

    I couldn’t help but think of Eccle­si­ates with this posting:

    Ecc 2:24–26
    24 A man can do noth­ing bet­ter than to eat and drink and find sat­is­fac­tion in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, 25 for with­out him, who can eat or find enjoy­ment? 26 To the man who pleases him, God gives wis­dom, knowl­edge and hap­pi­ness, but to the sin­ner he gives the task of gath­er­ing and stor­ing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is mean­ing­less, a chas­ing after the wind.

    and;

    Ecc 3:9–14
    9 What does the worker gain from his toil? 10 I have seen the bur­den God has laid on men. 11 He has made every­thing beau­ti­ful in its time. He has also set eter­nity in the hearts of men; yet they can­not fathom what God has done from begin­ning to end. 12 I know that there is noth­ing bet­ter for men than to be happy and do good while they live. 13 That every­one may eat and drink, and find sat­is­fac­tion in all his toil—this is the gift of God. 14 I know that every­thing God does will endure for­ever; noth­ing can be added to it and noth­ing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.

    and;

    Ecc 3:22
    22 So I saw that there is noth­ing bet­ter for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will hap­pen after him?

    Not sure if I’m drag­ging those out of con­text? But I won­der is what we seek in hap­pi­ness is really contentedness?

  2. Jeremy says:
    March 9, 2010 at 1:53 pm

    That’s a good thing to won­der. In my expe­ri­ence we seek two things, and we would prob­a­bly call these things “hap­pi­ness” and “con­tent­ed­ness”. We want to be happy, and to be happy most fol­low our own pursuits–we seek a state of happy, a feel­ing. We then want to be con­tent; and to be con­tent, we must first be happy. But, as (I’m assum­ing) Solomon says, we can’t find hap­pi­ness (Ecc. 3:12 seems to speak of the “hap­pi­ness” I talk about above) out­side of our pur­pose, oth­er­wise, our pur­suit is fruit­less and never ending.

  3. Ted says:
    March 9, 2010 at 2:01 pm

    So I guess our pur­pose ends being in the summary:

    Ecc12:13–14
    13 Now all has been heard;
    here is the con­clu­sion of the mat­ter:
    Fear God and keep his com­mand­ments,
    for this is the whole duty of man.

    14 For God will bring every deed into judg­ment,
    includ­ing every hid­den thing,
    whether it is good or evil.

    (I love the book of Ecclesiastes.)

  4. Jeremy says:
    March 9, 2010 at 2:07 pm

    v. 14 is the kicker, isn’t it? Who wants to have their evil, hid­den things brought into judg­ment? Euch… Some things I’m not too proud of. But it seems to me a very wise man wrote that book, even if it sounds so depressing.

    v. 13 reminds me of Job 28:28, “And to man He said, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wis­dom; And to depart from evil is under­stand­ing.’” Sim­ple, yet profound.

  5. Ted says:
    March 9, 2010 at 2:20 pm

    I think one of the tragic things is how Solomon’s final years seem to have flown in the face of his wis­dom he penned.

    As far as the v13, this is where I won­der how many get tripped up com­par­ing this wis­dom espe­cially when deal­ing with sci­en­tific mat­ters? (The favourite verse from Romans I think — where the wise are ren­dered fool­ish — you know the one). Sorry that’s a sloppy reply. :)

  6. Jeremy says:
    March 9, 2010 at 2:33 pm

    I think with respect to Solomon, that shows how utterly depen­dent we are on God, and how impor­tant it is to “fear God and keep his com­mand­ments”. Maybe it even makes some won­der the value of wis­dom, if it was unliv­able for one of the wis­est men in history.

    Sloppy replies are fine :P No more “reply” but­ton after 5 com­ments, I guess. But I imag­ine there is much con­fu­sion, yes. I don’t think wis­dom comes through this sort of knowl­edge, or is even what the bible has in mind.

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