How does the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ bring these glad tidings to pass? “He made himself poor.” Without ceasing to be the eternally rich God by nature, the Son of God willingly assumed our poor humanity into personal union with himself in the virgin’s womb. Rich and happy in himself, he was happy to own our poverty and misery: “God of God, Light of Light; Lo, he abhors not the virgin’s womb.” To what end? Not to gain happiness or riches for himself, but to communicate his happiness and riches to us: “so that you through his poverty might become rich.”

ABSTRACT: What is true happiness, where does it come from, and how do we find it? According to the Christian Scriptures, true happiness begins and ends with God. In the beginning, God’s Trinitarian happiness overflowed into a universe of delights. In the gospel, God gladly owned our poverty and misery in order to make us happy again in him. Now, by his Spirit, God himself dwells within his people, sharing his happiness freely and causing us to rejoice in him.

We asked professor and seminary president Scott Swain to tackle a theology of happiness in the first of a series of feature articles by scholars for pastors, leaders, and teachers. You can download and print a PDF of the article, as well as listen to an audio recording.

The Eudaimonia Machine is a work environment designed for what Cal Newport calls “deep work,” the state of undistracted, focused attention in which human beings are able to operate to the full extent of their creative capacities.1 This work environment “takes its name from the ancient Greek concept of eudaimonia (a state in which you’re achieving your full human potential).”2 Though the Eudaimonia Machine exists only in the mind of its architect, David Dewane, not yet in reality, it rests upon a valid insight. There is a relationship between our environment and our well-being. There are both objective and subjective dimensions to human flourishing, eudaimonia.

The Eudaimonia Machine also reveals that there are competing conceptions of human flourishing. While the Eudaimonia Machine suggests that human flourishing or happiness consists in productivity, others have argued that happiness consists in the possession of external goods such as wealth, honor, and fame, or that it consists in the possession of internal goods such as physical health or virtue.3 As Aristotle observed, the pursuit of happiness is unavoidable, but its character is not undisputed.

The phenomenon of happiness is disputed because our perception of happiness is both limited (due to our finitude) and liable to distortion (due to our fallenness). We disagree about whether happiness exists — is it truly achievable, or is it just a mirage? We disagree about what happiness is — does it lie in riches, wisdom, power, pleasure, fame? And we disagree about howhappiness may be achieved — should we pursue the American Dream or audition for American Idol?

What Is True Happiness?

Christian theology enters the fray surrounding human flourishing and seeks to expound what God has disclosed about this topic in his word. In response to the question of whether happiness exists, Christian theology confesses that happiness exists, first, in “the happy God” (1 Timothy 1:11)4 and, second, in creatures designed and destined for happiness in communion with the happy God (Psalm 144:15). In response to the question regarding what happiness is, Christian theology confesses that happiness consists in possessing, knowing, and enjoying the supreme and unsurpassable good, God himself, the blessed Trinity. “I have no good apart from you,” the psalmist declares (Psalm 16:2). “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). And in response to the question of how happiness may be achieved, Christian theology confesses that divine happiness communicates itself to us, freely and abundantly, through the Mediator of happiness, Jesus Christ our Lord. “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11; 17:13, 24–26).

In Jesus Christ, eternal, unchanging, and unsurpassable beatitude5 shines upon us and welcomes us into its all-satisfying presence. For now we enjoy a taste of this happiness on the pilgrim path of faith and repentance. One day we will drink fully and deeply from the infinite ocean of beatitude when we behold the triune God in the unmediated splendor of his personal presence, “face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12; Revelation 22:1–5). This is our “happy hope” (Titus 2:13): that the God who dwells in unapproachable light and unlimited delight will also dwell with us (Isaiah 57:15–19; 1 Timothy 6:16), that God will be our happy inheritance, our happy habitation (Psalm 16:5–6), and that we will flourish in his presence to his eternal glory (Psalm 1:3; Isaiah 33:24; 61:3).

What follows is an account of happiness from a theological perspective.6 We will address the topic of happiness by considering various elements within the order of beatitude — that order of happiness that begins in and with God, that freely flows from God in the creation, redemption, and consummation of creatures, and that returns to and rests in God.

Happiness Begins in God

A Christian account of happiness begins with the blessed Trinity, the primary form of happiness in the universe and the principle from and to which all other forms of happiness flow. As God is the supreme good (Mark 10:18), to be extolled above all by all at all times in all places (Psalm 145:1–3, 21), so also is he the supreme beatitude, “the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords” (1 Timothy 6:15).

Along with divine perfection and divine glory, divine beatitude is a summative attribute. A summative attribute is not simply one attribute among others, but instead an attribute that characterizes all of God’s attributes. God’s wisdom, goodness, and power are perfect wisdom, perfect goodness, and perfect power. God’s wisdom, goodness, and power are, furthermore, glorious and beautiful. God’s wisdom, goodness, and power are therefore objects of God’s supreme beatitude, delight, and satisfaction. Divine perfection refers to the fullness of God’s being, the infinite riches of his wisdom, goodness, and power (Romans 11:33; Ephesians 2:4, 7; 3:8, 18–20). Divine glory refers to the beauty of God’s being, the utter clarity and intelligibility of God’s radiant life (Hebrews 1:3; 1 John 1:5). Divine beatitude, in turn, presupposes both divine perfection and divine glory.7 Divine beatitude refers to the satisfaction of God as he reposes in, rests in, and rejoices in the beauty of his perfect being. The blessed Trinity “dwells” in unapproachable light (1 Timothy 6:15–16). The Father rests in his radiant Son in the Spirit (Matthew 3:16–17) and, by the Spirit, the Son rejoices in the glory of the Father (Luke 10:21). Divine beatitude is “the happy land of the Trinity,”8 where, suffering no lack, the blessed Trinity reposes in the fullness of his luminous life.

God’s beatitude is simple.9 Nothing “makes” God happy. God does not “have” happiness. “God is happiness by his essence.”10 He is happy because he is who he is (Exodus 3:14). God’s beatitude is eternal. “The glory of the blessed God” (1 Timothy 1:11) is the glory of “the King of the ages” (1 Timothy 1:17), the glory of one who lacks beginning and end. God’s beatitude is immutable. Nothing can increase God’s happiness, and nothing can take it away (Job 22:2–3; 35:6–7; 41:11; Acts 17:25; Romans 11:35; James 1:17). God’s beatitude is impassible. Because God is perfect, he rests content in himself as his own final end. He desires no further completion, no further fulfillment from anything outside of himself. God lacks all desire, reposing in himself in infinitely realized delight. God’s impassible happiness is fully actualized happiness.11 For this reason, God’s will toward anything outside of himself is not an expression of desire but of pure benevolence.12 God wills and affirms the existence of creatures, without grudging, without envy (James 1:5).

Consequently, while divine beatitude is the supreme form of beatitude, it is not the exclusive form of beatitude. God’s blessedness is a communicative attribute — that is, an attribute that he shares with creatures. As the supreme good, God is also the supreme source of creaturely goods: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). And each creaturely good carries with it a distinct form of happiness for creatures capable of happiness. Some creaturely goods are worthy of our love: we are called to love our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:39). Other creaturely goods are not worthy of our love but are to be received and shared with our neighbors for our mutual enjoyment: wine gladdens the heart of man, oil makes his face shine, and bread strengthens his heart (Psalm 104:15). All creaturely goods are limited goods, and therefore sources of limited satisfaction, pleasure, and felicity. But all creaturely goods are true goods, and therefore sources of true satisfaction, pleasure, and felicity.

Christian teaching on happiness thus rules out disordered hedonism, which treats finite goods, objects of finite happiness, as if they were infinite goods, objects of infinite happiness (Matthew 6:31–33). Christian teaching on happiness also rules out false asceticism, which devalues finite goods, objects of finite happiness (1 Timothy 4:1–5). All creaturely goods, both material and social, are to be received “with thanksgiving” to the happy God who makes us happy through them (1 Timothy 4:4). Even in their finitude, they point to the one who is the transcendent good and the object of transcendent delight: our true food, our true drink, our true husband (Psalm 45; John 3:29; 6:35, 55). The blessed Trinity is thus the source and end of all creaturely goods, all objects of creaturely happiness within the order of beatitude.

Footnotes

1Cal Newport, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World (New York: Grand Central, 2016), 95.

2Newport, 95.

3Thomas Aquinas surveys these various options, and finds each of them wanting, in Summa Theologiæ, I-II.2.1–8 (hereafter ST).

4Throughout I cite the ESV, albeit with frequent modification.

5A few comments on terminology are in order. First, “beatitude,” as I use it in this article (along with terms such as “happiness,” “felicity,” “blessedness,” etc.) refers to the state of being in which a person possesses goods (both objective and subjective) that are necessary for that person’s wholeness, fulfillment, and satisfaction. Second, the Bible primarily uses two terms,‎ אַ֥שְֽׁרֵי and μακάριος, along with a host of other terms, descriptions, images, etc., to refer to “beatitude” as I define it here. The ESV commonly translates both terms as “blessed” (e.g., Psalm 1:1; Matthew 5:3). Though this is a perfectly suitable translation, being “blessed” can connote “being the object of God’s blessing,” which is a slightly different concept than “being in a state of beatitude or well-being.” The two concepts, of course, are related, but they are represented by different terms in both Hebrew and Greek that carry slightly different significance. Third, in contemporary usage, “happiness” often refers merely to a person’s subjective state of well-being. In this article, I use the term with fuller reference, referring to both objective and subjective aspects of beatitude. This is essential because, according to the Bible, one can be in a state of beatitude even while experiencing sorrow (Matthew 5:4).

6I have attempted to provide a much shorter account of these matters at http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2016/01/on-happiness-a-theological-out.php.

7To say that divine beatitude “presupposes” divine perfection and divine glory is to say something about the way we come to understand God’s attributes. We can only understand what divine beatitude involves by understanding first what divine perfection and divine glory involve.

8This happy turn of phrase comes from Fred Sanders, The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything, 2nd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), chap. 2.

9The doctrine of divine simplicity teaches, negatively, that God is not composed of parts upon which he might depend to be who and what he is. It teaches, positively, that God is identical with his attributes. The doctrine of divine simplicity rests upon biblical teaching that God is who he is (Exodus 3:14): the self-existent one, whose being and attributes do not depend upon anything (John 5:26), and the self-same one, whose being is identical with his attributes (1 John 1:5).

10Aquinas, ST, I-II.3.1.

11Maximus the Confessor, “Ambiguum 7: On the Beginning and End of Rational Creatures,” in On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003), 45–74.

12“Desire,” as I use the term here, refers to something a bit more specific than “wanting something.” It refers to “wanting some good that one lacks.” Its terminological correlate is “delight,” which refers to “wanting some good that one possesses.” “Desire” longs for an unpossessed good, while “delight” relishes in a possessed good. In the sense of the term as I am using it here, therefore, God does not “desire” his creatures for the very simple reason that God’s will with respect to creatures does not arise from a lack that the possession of creatures might fulfill. For further discussion of these dynamics, see Paul J. Griffiths, Intellectual Appetite: A Theological Grammar(Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), chap. 7.

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