Happiness
HAPPINESS
Absolutely taken, denotes the durable possession of perfect good, without any mixture of evil; or the enjoyment of pure pleasure unalloyed with pain, or a state in which all our wishes are satisfied; in which senses, happiness is only known by name on this earth. The word happy, when applied to any state or condition of human life, will admit of no positive definition, but is merely a relative term; that is, when we call a man happy, we mean that he is happier than some others with whom we compare him; than the generality of others; or than he himself was in some other situation. Moralists justly observe, that happiness does not consist in the pleasures of sense; as eating, drinking, music, painting, theatric exhibitions, &c. &c. for these pleasures continue but a little while, by repetition lose their relish, and by high expectation often bring disappointment. Nor does happiness consist in an exemption from labour, care, business, &c.; such a state being usually attended with depression of spirits, imaginary anxieties, and the whole train of hypochondriacal affections. Nor is it to be found in greatness, rank, or elevated stations, as matter of fact abundantly testifies; but happiness consists in the enjoyment of the divine favour, a good conscience, and uniform conduct. In subordination to these, human happiness may be greatly promoted by the exercise of the social affections; the pursuit of some engaging end; the prudent constitution of the habits; and the enjoyment of our health. Bolton and Lucas on Happiness; Henry’s Pleasantness of a Religious Life; Grove’s and Paley’s Mor. Phil. Barrow’s Ser. ser. 1. Young’s Centaur, 41 to 160; Wollaston’s Religion of Nature, sec. 2.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
happiness
Very early in the history of Greek philosophy, happiness became the center of keen speculation and the science of ethics had its origin in these theories. According to Socrates, happiness consists in the cultivation of the mind and must not be built on the perishable things of the external world. The Cyrenaics and the Stoics, assuming happiness to be the result of following nature, diverged to opposite poles. The former claimed that felicity signified gratification of the senses which are the voices of nature; the latter advocated the satisfaction of reason by the entire suppression of the lower appetites. Plato and Aristotle rejected these two extreme views and both agreed in considering happiness as the highest good. Plato defines it as that harmonious functioning of the parts of man’s soul which shall preserve the subordination of the lower to the higher faculties. Aristotle was distinctly human in concerning himself with the happiness which it is possible for man to gain in this life, a felicity which springs from the highest virtue. He asserts that there are two virtues: the ethical or practical attainable by the majority, which does not exclude wealth, pleasure, friends, etc., and the intellectual or speculative which is acquired by the exercise of the best faculties and which only a few philosophers may achieve. It remained for Christian philosophers to go beyond the present life. Saint Thomas taught that happiness, the supreme end of man, is open to all but is unattainable in this life. It consists in the exercise or activity of man’s highest faculties, the intellect and the will, in the contemplation and possession of the one object of infinite worth, God, and inconsequent felicity of the lower powers so that the whole of man’s complex nature may enjoy perfect beatitude. Relative and incomplete happiness in this world may be obtained by self-restraint, detachment, and sacrifice of transitory enjoyment for the sake of the eternal end. Since Descartes, philosophy has been separated from theology and the problem of modern thought is temporal happiness which is identified with pleasure. Some stress the difference between higher and lower pleasures, between active and passive pleasures, between pleasures that endure and those that pall by repetition. John Stuart Mill and others, departing somewhat from these hedonistic principles, adopted a theory of utilitarianism which teaches altruism and the happiness of the community. Finally, the extremists degenerate into pessimism declaring that human misery outweighs happiness and that supreme felicity is altogether impossible.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Happiness
(Fr. bonheur; Germ. Glück; Lat. felicitas; Gr. eutychia, eudaimonia).
The primary meaning of this term in all the leading European languages seems to involve the notion of good fortune, good chance, good happening; but from a very early date in the history of Greek philosophy the conception became the centre of keen speculation and dispute. What is happiness? What are its constituents? What are the causes and conditions of happiness? How, if at all, does it differ from pleasure? What are its relations to man’s intellect, to his will, to his life as a whole? What is its position in a general theory of the universe? These are questions which have much occupied the various schools of philosophy and, indeed, have exercised men who would not be willingly accused of philosophizing. For happiness is necessarily amongst the most profoundly interesting subjects for all of us. With the Greeks interest in the problem was mainly ethical, the psychology of happiness being ancillary; whereas for several modern schools of philosophy psychology is deemed the key to many of the most important queries respecting this familiar yet enigmatic conception.
Dismissing the view that happiness was a lot arbitrarily bestowed by capricious Fortune, the more serious thinkers among the Greeks regarded it as a gift of the gods. Further reflection led to the view that it was given as a reward for goodness of life. Hence the acquisition of happiness depends on the working out of the good for man in man’s life. What then is the good? For Socrates it is eupraxia, which receives closer definition at the hands of Plato, as such harmonious functioning of the parts of man’s soul as shall preserve the subordination of the lower to the higher, of the non-rational to the rational. In this view happiness becomes for Plato less the reward than the inevitable concomitant of such harmony. It is the property of the whole soul; and the demand of any element of the soul for preferential treatment in the matter of happiness Plato would thus look upon as unreasonable. In setting happiness as the intrinsic result of a policy of “following nature”, the Stoics and the Cyrenaics were in verbal agreement with Plato, though diverging to opposite poles in their answer to the psychological question as to the constituents of happiness. “Follow Nature”, for the Cyrenaics, meant: “Gratify the sensuous faculties which are the voices of nature.” For the Stoics it signified: “Satisfy your reason which nature bids us to exalt by the entire suppression of our sensuous appetites.” Happiness is for these latter the consequence of the virtuous life which issues in spiritual freedom and peace.
In Aristotle’s ethical system, happiness, as expressed by eudaimonia, is the central idea. He agrees with Plato in rejecting the exaggerated opposition set up between reason and nature by the Sophists, and fundamental to both the Stoic and Epicurean schools. For Aristotle, nature is human nature as a whole. This is both rational and sensuous. His treatment of happiness is in closer contact with experience than that of Plato. The good with which he concerns himself is that which it is possible for man to reach in this life. This highest good is happiness. This must be the true purpose of life; for we seek it in all our actions. But in what does it consist? Not in mere passive enjoyment, for this is open to the brute, but in action (energeia), of the kind that is proper to man in contrast with other animals. This is intellectual action. Not all kinds of intellectual action, however, result in happiness, but only virtuous action, that is, action which springs from virtue and is according to its laws; for this alone is appropriate to the nature of man. The highest happiness corresponds to the highest virtue; it is the best activity of the highest faculty. Though happiness does not consist in pleasure, it does not exclude pleasure. On the contrary, the highest form of pleasure is the outcome of virtuous action. But for such happiness to be complete it should be continued during a life of average length in at least moderately comfortable circumstances, and enriched by intercourse with friends. Aristotle is distinctly human here. Virtues are either ethical or dianoetic (intellectual). The latter pertain either to the practical or to the speculative reason. This last is the highest faculty of all; hence the highest virtue is a habit of the speculative reason. Consequently, for Aristotle the highest happiness is to be found not in the ethical virtues of the active life, but in the contemplative or philosophic life of speculation, in which the dianoetic virtues of understanding, science, and wisdom are exercised. Theoria, or pure speculation, is the highest activity of man, and that by which he is most like unto the gods; for in this, too, the happiness of the gods consists. It is, in a sense, a Divine life. Only the few, however, can attain to it; the great majority must be content with the inferior happiness of the active life. Happiness (eudaimonia), therefore with Aristotle, is not identical with pleasure (hedone), or even with the sum of pleasures. It has been described as the kind of well-being that consists in well-doing; and supreme happiness is thus the well-doing of the best faculty. Pleasure is a concomitant or efflorescence of such an activity.
Here, then, is in brief Aristotle’s ethical theory of eudemonism; and in its main features it has been made the basis of the chief Christian scheme of moral philosophy. Constituting happiness the end of human action, and not looking beyond the present life, Aristotle’s system, it has been maintained with some show of reason, approximates, after all, in sundry important respects towards Utilitarianism or refined Hedonism. This is not the place to determine precisely Aristotle’s ethical position, but we may point out that his conception of happiness (eudaimonia) is not identical with felicity — the maximum sum of pleasures — which forms the supreme end of human conduct for modern hedonistic schools. It is rather in his failure to perceive clearly the proper object of man’s highest faculty, on the one hand, and, on the other, his limitation of the attainment of this proper end of man to a handful of philosophers, that the most serious deficiency in this part of his doctrine lies. It is here that the leading Schoolmen, enlightened by Christian Revelation and taking over some elements from Plato, come to complete the Peripatetic theory. St. Thomas teaches that beatitudo, perfect happiness, is the true supreme, subjective end of man, and is, therefore, open to all men, but is not attainable in this life. It consists in the best exercise of the noblest human faculty, the intellect, on the one object of infinite worth. It is, in fact, the outcome of the immediate possession of God by intellectual contemplation. Scotus and some other Scholastic writers accentuate the importance of the will in the process, and insist on the love resulting from the contemplative activity of the intellect, as a main factor; but it is allowed by all Catholic schools that both faculties play their part in the operation which is to constitute at once man’s highest perfection and supreme felicity. “Our heart is ill at ease till it find rest in Thee” was the cry of St. Augustine. “The possession of God is happiness essential.” “To know God is life everlasting.” With all Christian writers true happiness is to come not now, but hereafter. Then the bonum perfectum quod totaliter quietat appetitum (the perfect good that completely satisfies desire) can be immediately enjoyed without let or hindrance, and that enjoyment will not be a state of inactive quiescence or Nirvana, but of intense, though free and peaceful, activity of the soul.
The divorce of philosophy from theology since Descartes has, outside of Catholic schools of thought, caused a marked disinclination to recognize the importance in ethical theory of the future life with its rewards and punishments. Consequently, for those philosophers who constitute happiness — whether of the individual or of the community — the ethical end, the psychological analysis of the constituents of temporal felicity, has become a main problem. In general, such writers identify happiness with pleasure, though some lay considerable stress on the difference between higher and lower pleasures, whilst others emphasize the importance of active, in opposition to passive, pleasures. The poet Pope tells us, “Happiness lies in three words: Peace, Health, Content”. Reflection, however, suggests that these are rather the chief negative condition, than the positive constituents of happiness. Paley, although adopting a species of theological Utilitarianism in which the will of God is the rule of morality, and the rewards and punishments of the future life the chief part of the motive for moral conduct, yet has written a celebrated chapter on temporal happiness embodying a considerable amount of shrewd, worldly common sense. He argues that happiness does not consist in the pleasures of sense, whether the coarser, such as eating, or the more refined, such as music, the drama, or sports, for these pall by repetition. Intense delights disappoint and destroy relish for normal pleasures. Nor does happiness consist in exemption from pain, labour, or business; nor in the possession of rank or station, which do not exclude pain and discomfort. The most important point in the conduct of life is, then, to select pleasures that will endure. Owing to diversity of taste and individual aptitudes, there is necessarily much variety in the objects which produce human happiness. Among the chief are, he argues, the exercise of family and social affections, the activity of our faculties, mental and bodily, in pursuit of some engaging end, that of the next life included, a prudent constitution of our habits and good health, bodily and mental. His conclusion is that the conditions of human happiness are “pretty equally distributed among the different orders of society, and that vice has at all events no advantage over virtue even with respect to this world’s happiness”. For Bentham, who is the most consistent among English Hedonists in his treatment of this topic, happiness is the sum of pleasures. Its value is measured by quantity: “Quantity of pleasure being equal, push-pin is as good as poetry.” Rejecting all distinctions of higher or lower quality, he formulates these tests of the worth of pleasure as an integral part of happiness: (1) its intensity, (2) duration, (3) propinquity, (4) purity, or freedom from pain, (5) fecundity, (6) range. J. Stuart Mill, whilst defining happiness as “pleasure and absence of pain”, and unhappiness as “pain and privation of pleasure”, insists as a most important point that “quality must he considered as well as quantity”, and some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and valuable than others on grounds other than their pleasantness. “It is better”, he urges, “to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.” This is true; but it is an inconsistent admission fatal to Mill’s whole position as a Hedonist, and to the Hedonistic conception of happiness.
The aid of the evolutionist hypothesis here as elsewhere was called to the support of the Sensationist school of psychology and ethics. Pleasure must be life-giving, pain the reverse. The survival of the pleasure fittest to survive will, according to Herbert Spencer, lead to an ultimate well-being not of the individual, but of the social organism; and the perfect health of the organism will be the concomitant of its perfect functioning, that is, of its perfect virtue. Thus happiness is defined in terms of virtue, but of a virtue which is a mere physical or physiological excellence. Spencer’s critics, however, have been keen to point out that the pleasure of an activity in man is not by any means a safe criterion of its healthiness or conduciveness to enduring well-being. In the writings of the German Rationalists from Kant onwards we meet echoes of the ancient Stoicism. Usually there is too narrow a view of human nature, and at times an effort to set aside the question of happiness as having no real bearing on ethical problems. Kant is inclined to an over-ready acceptance of the Hedonistic identification of happiness with sensuous pleasure, and for this reason he is opposed to our working for our own happiness whilst he allows us to seek that of others. His rigoristic exclusion of happiness from among the motives for moral action is psychologically as well as ethically unsound, and although “Duty for duty’s sake” may be an elevating and ennobling hortatory formula, still the reflective reason of man affirms unequivocally that unless virtue finally results in happiness, that unless it be ultimately happier for the man who observes the moral law than for him who violates it, human existence would be irrational at the very core, and life not worth living. This latter, indeed, is the logical conclusion of Pessimism, which teaches that misery altogether outweighs happiness in the universe as a whole. From this the inevitable inference is that the supreme act of virtue would be the suicide of the entire human race.
Reverting now to the teaching of St. Thomas and the Catholic Church respecting happiness, we can better appreciate the superiority of that teaching. Man is complex in his nature and activities, sentient and rational, cognitive and appetitive. There is for him a well-being of the whole and a well-being of the parts; a relatively brief existence here, an everlasting life hereafter. Beatitudo, perfect happiness, complete well-being, is to be attained not in this life, but in the next. Primarily, it consists in the activity of man’s highest cognitive faculty, the intellect, in the contemplation of God — the infinitely Beautiful. But this immediately results in the supreme delight of the will in the conscious possession of the Summum Bonum, God, the infinitely good. This blissful activity of the highest spiritual faculties, as the Catholic Faith teaches, will redound in some manner transcending our present experience to the felicity of the lower powers. For man, as man, will enjoy that perfect beatitude. Further, an integral part of that happiness will be the consciousness that it is absolutely secure and everlasting, an existence perfect in the tranquil and assured possession of all good — Status omnium bonorum aggregatione perfectus, as Boethius defines it. This state involves self-realization of the highest order and perfection of the human being in the highest degree. It thus combines whatever elements of truth are contained in the Hedonist and Rationalist theories. It recognizes the possibility of a relative and incomplete happiness in this life, and its value; but it insists on the importance of self-restraint, detachment, and control of the particular faculties and appetencies for the attainment of this limited happiness and, still more, in order to secure that eternal well-being be not sacrificed for the sake of some transitory enjoyment.
(See also EPICUREANISM; ETHICS; GOOD; HEDONISM; LIFE; MAN; STOIC PHILOSOPHY; UTILITARIANISM; VIRTUE.)
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JOSEPH RICKABY, Aquinas Ethicus, I (London, 1892); IDEM, Moral Philosophy (New York and London, 1893); CRONIN, The Science of Ethics (Dublin, 1909); JANET, Theory of Morals (tr., Edinburgh, 1872); PALEY, Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (London, 1817); BENTHAM, Works, Pt. I, ed. BOWRING (Edinburgh, 1838); MILL, Utilitarianism (New York and London, 1844); SPENCER, Data of Ethics (Edinburgh, 1879); SETH, Ethical Principles (New York and London, 1904); LECKY, History of European Morals, I (New York and London, 1894); PLATO, Philebus, tr. JOWETT (Oxford, 1892); GRANT, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, I (4th ed., London, 1884); RASHDALL, Aristotle’s Theory of Conduct (London, 1904). — There are several of the translations of the Nicomachean Ethics; WILLIAMS (New York and London, 1879) and PETERS (9th ed., London, 1904) are good. — SIDGWICK, Methods of Ethics (6th ed., New York and London, 1907); IDEM, History of Ethics, (17th ed., New York and London, 1896); OLLÉ-LAPRUNE, Essai sur la morale d’Aristote (Paris, 1891).
MICHAEL MAHER Transcribed by Vivek Gilbert John Fernandez Dedicated to all Catholics who find happiness in continuing the work which Our Lord began.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIICopyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Happiness
absolutely taken, denotes the durable possession of perfect good, without any mixture of evil; or the enjoyment of pure pleasure unalloyed with pain; or a state in which all our wishes are satisfied; in which senses, happiness is only known by name on this earth. The word happy, when applied to any state or condition of human life, will admit of no positive definition, but is merely a relative term; that is, when we call a man happy, we mean that he is happier than some others with whom we compare him; or than the generality of others; or than he himself was in some other situation. Moralists justly observe that happiness does not consist in the pleasures of sense; as eating, drinking, music, painting, theatrical exhibitions, etc., for these pleasures continue but a little while, by repetition lose their relish, and by high expectation often bring disappointment. Nor does happiness consist in an exemption from labor, care, business, etc.; such a state being usually attended with depression of spirits, imaginary anxieties, and the whole train of hypochondriacal affections. Nor is it to be found in greatness, rank, or elevated stations, as matter of fact abundantly testifies; but .happiness consists in the enjoyment of the Divine favor, a good conscience, and uniform conduct. In subordination to these, human happiness may be greatly promoted by the exercise of the social affections, the pursuit of some engaging end, the prudent constitution of the habits, and the enjoyment of our health.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Happiness
HAPPINESS
i. Pagan and Christian Ideals compared.Happiness was much discussed among the Greeks under the term well-being (). Aristotle said: For on the subject of happiness and what conduces to it, and of its opposites, exhortation or discussion is always conversant, and this because we needs do the things which procure it or any of its constituents, and refrain from doing the things which destroy or impede it (Rhet. i. 5). The differences of the philosophic schools arose from the question wherein this well-being consisted. Was it in knowledge, pleasure, virtue, freedom from pain, wealth, or well-doing? The record of the answers to this forms the history of ancient Ethics. Jesus did not use the word happiness (), or propound any theory of the relation between duty and pleasure; but absence of the word is no proof that the subject was foreign to His mind. It is inconceivable that the Son of Man: should neglect in His system so universal an instinct as the desire after happiness; for in the final summation joy must be a part of the perfect state. The comparison between ancient and Christian Ethics must not be made on verbal or literary lines, but the systems must be judged by their actual contribution to well-being or happiness.
(1) The failure of Paganism. The systems of Plato and Aristotle did not bring any large satisfaction with them, nor did they discover any permanent refuge for the race. Of all the products of Greek speculation, Stoicism survived longest, and had the largest influence upon the civilization of the world; but while, by its stern grandeur, it shaped a few noble characters which remained as a protest against the lax manners of the Empire, it failed to open up any fountain of joy for man. The Stoic sage was powerless to convert his theories into conduct, as he himself confessed; and the passionlessness of soul which he advocated was a poor match for the strong impulses of the human heart. Where reliance upon human reason was undermined, it was met with an impotent religiousness; and where reverence for the natural order was impaired, there was no message of a future life in which compensations would atone for present inequalities. Also the examples of the earlier leaders created a preference for suicide, which was a confession of failure to procure the well-being of life. Paganism withdrew from the struggle to provide happiness. It despaired, and was therefore defeated.
(2) The success of Christianity. The characteristic word of Christianity is Life; for while the moral code and example of Christ are superior to others, it is not on this that His supremacy rests. Christs Person is the vital force of the new religion. As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself (Joh 5:26). This same blessing is bestowed upon all who believe in Christ; and so rich is this gift, that each believer becomes a constant source of life (Joh 6:57; Joh 7:38). Life is imparted to the believer in many ways, but chiefly through Christs words (Joh 6:63; Joh 6:68; Joh 15:3). This life is the realization of all human aspiration, enabling the Christian to hold on with courage and hope in the face of temptation and doubts; and the history of our civilization is the evidence that Jesus has succeeded where all others failed. To an age that was exhausted and desponding, that had failed to satisfy the deep desires of human nature, Christ came with convincing and converting power. When He spoke, men believed and lived again. Through Him rose
One common wave of thought and joy,
Lifting mankind again.
Stoicism and Neo-Platonism produced thoughts of great beauty and purity. Yet neither of them could enable artisans and old women to lead a truly philosophic life. Christianity could and did; the apologists point triumphantly to the realization of the moral ideal among Christians of every standing. That was due to the power which issued from Jesus Christ and actually transformed man. The certainty and confidence of faith based on Him, with reliance on Gods grace in Jesus Christ, begat in Christians a matchless delight in doing good (von Dobschtz, Christian Life in the Primitive Church, p. 329).
ii. The Teaching of Jesus.The NT verbal equivalent for happiness is blessedness (which see), but it is not conceived in terms of pleasure. It is a religious idea, drawing its worth from the blessing which God imparts. The adjective blessed occurs frequently in Mat 5:3-12. This representative discourse may be entitled Christs way to happiness. Here Jesus describes how people become happy, but refrains from all abstract definition. Each of these Beatitudes falls into two parts. In the first half those virtues are mentioned the possession of which constitutes people happy; in the second part the reward or result of each virtue is given. The following statements may be made as to Christs teaching on this way: (1) The joy begins immediately on the commencement of the journey, and is not reserved for the future. Thus, all who are pure in heart are happy. (2) More depends upon the traveller than upon the outward conditions. Happiness rests in dispositions, such as purity, meekness, righteousness, peace, and not in possessions, such as wealth, health, fame. The happy man makes his own scenery. Christian joy, like other Christian graces, is inward; and the OT conception of blessedness, in so far as it consisted in prosperity and length of days, yields to a more spiritual ideal. All who go Christs way are like the Happy Warrior,
Whose high endeavours are an inward light
That makes the path before him ever bright.
(Wordsworth).
(3) This happiness is not a passivity, but an activity, coinciding with some function of the will or mind. It cannot rise of itself as a mere state of emotion, but accompanies an act of service either for God or man. Happiness is associated with piety (Mat 5:3-6) and probity (Mat 5:7-11). It follows upon doing the will of God, or upon seeking the well-being of others. Socrates also regarded happiness as , well-doing. (4) This way, unlike the worlds way, is endless, for the joy that begins on earth is an anticipation of the full joy of heaven (Mat 5:3 b, Mat 5:10 b). (5) The pursuit of this way is a duty. All who walk with Christ not only will but ought to rejoice. Happiness is an imperative, Rejoice and be exceeding glad (Mat 5:12). The ethical ideal of Jesus differs from Hedonism, in which morality and happiness are synonymous terms, because with Him blessedness is the associate of virtue. Christ neither confuses nor separates these two. Happiness and virtue are twin stars. The further use of the Beatitude in Christs teaching continues to emphasize the spiritual ingredients of happiness. In Luk 11:28, Joh 13:17, blessedness and obedience are associated; in Mat 16:17 blessedness and knowledge are united; in Joh 20:29 blessedness and faith are joined. In many places blessedness is reserved for the future (Luk 7:23; Luk 12:37-43; Luk 14:15). In the Fourth Gospel Jesus distinctly offers fulness of joy (Joh 16:24).
iii. Happiness as revealed in Christs Person.The birth of Jesus was a proclamation of joy (Luk 2:10). Though called the Man of sorrows, He was not unhappy. Sorrows never distorted His soul, nor left the faintest shadow of melancholy or accidie. He was still cheerful and helpful and firm. His first miracle contributed to the innocent pleasure of social intercourse (Joh 2:1-11). The impression left by His address was pleasing; nor was His voice the voice of grief (Luk 4:22). His gospel was a joyous prize (Mat 13:44-45). He delighted in healing pain (Luk 4:18). Instead of reflecting the sadness of households, Jesus removed it (Joh 11:23, Luk 8:52). He spoke of a joy that was His own peculiar and characteristic possession (Joh 15:11), and promised entrance into His own joy as a supreme reward (Mat 25:21). This joy He offered all who followed Him (Joh 16:24), and He was anxious to complete the joy of His disciples (Joh 15:11; Joh 17:13). Christ shunned the moroseness of asceticism (Mat 11:19), as He turned from the selfish happiness of the epicurean (Mat 20:28). The joy of Christ arose from several causes(1) He was free from sin, that root of sorrow and bitterness: For by sinning we kept neither piety nor felicity (Augustine). (2) He had the intense joys of a Saviour (Luk 15:7). His was the happiness that comes from being the creator of anothers good (Luk 19:10). The keen pleasure of rescue work filled His soul (Luk 15:5; Luk 15:9; Luk 15:23). The thought of the countless hosts who would obtain eternal rest through His death was a secret potion to sweeten His bitter cup. For the joy set before Him He endured the cross. (3) The self-sacrifice of Jesus issued out of pure love (Joh 15:13). He was happy as a lover. (4) He rejoiced in the sense of Divine sonship. This was His earliest thought (Luk 2:49). To do the will of God was better than food (Joh 4:34). The knowledge of His Father was life (Joh 17:3). It was an incomparable ecstasy for Him to dwell upon the love of God (John 17). This relieved Him of fear (Luk 23:48, Mat 6:34); also it freed Him from the distracting care of false ambition (Joh 18:36). Being thus free from many of the vexing thoughts and struggles that disturb our peace of mind, He was able to find comfort in Himself and His cause. He was the first citizen in the Kingdom of Heaven, which is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Though tempted in all points like as we are, and acquainted with grief, Christ was nevertheless a man of joy.
Christ gives happiness by giving Himself. He that hath the Son hath life, and the causes which led to His peace act in measure in all those who turn to Jesus. The first and last Beatitude of the Gospels is to those who believe in Him (Luk 1:45, Joh 20:29). All life culminates in God, and mans summum bonum is God as He is revealed in Christ. Partnership with Him, even when joined with personal suffering and sacrifice, is more valuable than all worldly prosperity (Mat 10:39). Plato had climbed to a lofty place when he declared that mans happiness was to be found in a supernatural good, in the knowledge of ideas, especially the idea of God. But Christianity rises higher. Jesus leads us up from imitation of God and acquaintance with Divine ideas to the sublime fact that we may know God personally. Not a resemblance, but a partnership; not a certainty that God is good, true, and wise, but a certainty that He loves us, and that we may love Him in returnthis is the new faith (Joh 15:9). Jesus is the Christians joy. Into our restlessness of soul, due in part to imperfect ideas, Christ comes with a fellowship and an ambition grand enough to supply man with the peace after which he is ever struggling (Mat 11:28). Through Christ our sins are forgiven, our anxieties removed, our sorrows softened, our hopes revived, while He alone imparts that supreme gift of fellowship with God which is our highest good. Thus purest happiness comes, which some will still prefer to call blessedness, as more appropriate to such intimate and spiritual relationships.
Literature.Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible , artt. Beatitude, Happiness, Sermon on the Mount; Hort, The Way, The Truth, The Life (Macmillan, 1894); Hilty, Glck (J. C. Hinrichs, Leipzig); PRE [Note: RE Real-Encyklopdie fur protest. Theologic und Kirche.] 3 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] , art. Gluckseligkeit; Coleridge, Aids to Reflection: Prudential Aphorisms; Shairp, Studies, 362; Seeley, Ecce Homo15 [Note: 5 designates the particular edition of the work referred] , 114, 195; Carlyle, Sartor, 112, 132, Heroes, 64.
James W. Falconer.
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
Happiness
hapi-nes. See BLESSEDNESS.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Happiness
Happiness of the wicked:
– Limited to this life
Psa 17:14; Luk 16:25
– Short
Job 20:5
– Uncertain
Luk 12:20
– Vain
Ecc 2:1; Ecc 7:6
– Is derived from:
b Their wealth
Job 21:13; Psa 52:7
b Their power
Job 21:7; Psa 37:35
b Their worldly prosperity
Psa 17:14; Psa 37:3-4; Psa 37:7
b Their gluttony
Isa 22:13; Hab 1:16
b Their drunkenness
Isa 5:11; Isa 56:12
b Their vain pleasure
Job 21:12; Isa 5:12
b Their successful oppression
Hab 1:15
– Marred by jealousy
Est 5:13
– Often interrupted by judgments
Num 11:33; Job 15:21; Psa 73:18-20; Jer 25:10-11
– Leads to sorrow
Pro 14:13
– Leads to recklessness
Isa 22:12
– Sometimes a stumbling block to saints
Psa 73:3; Psa 73:16; Jer 12:1; Hab 1:13
– Saints often permitted to see end of
Psa 73:17-20
– Envy not
Psa 37:1
– Woe against
Amo 6:1; Luk 6:25
– Illustrated
Psa 37:35-36; Luk 12:16-20; Luk 16:19; Luk 16:25
Happiness of the wicked, exemplified:
– Israel
Num 11:33
– Haman
Est 5:9-11
– Belshazzar
Dan 5:1
– Herod
Act 12:21-23
Happiness of the righteous
– General references
Deu 33:29; Job 5:17-27; Psa 36:8; Psa 40:8; Psa 63:5; Psa 128:1-2; Psa 133:1; Psa 144:15; Psa 146:5; Pro 3:13-18; Pro 14:21; Pro 16:20; Pro 28:14; Pro 29:18; Ecc 2:24-26; Ecc 3:12-13; Ecc 3:22; Isa 12:2-3; Mat 5:3-12; Rom 5:2; 2Co 12:10; Phi 4:7; 1Pe 3:14; 1Pe 4:12-13 Joy; Peace; Praise
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
Happiness
(in Kant’s ethics) Kant is more concerned with happiness in terms of its ideal possibility than with its realization in actual human experience. Its ideal possibility rests on the a priori laws of intelligible freedom (vide), by which the individual through self-determination achieves unitythe self-sufficiency and harmony of his own being. “Real happiness rests with my free volition, and real contentment consists in the consciousness of freedom.” (Kant.) — P.A.S.