Happiology, cont.
September 15, 2015
BRUCE B. writes in response to this previous post:
A common assertion by modern Christians (I saw a women claim this recently in an online Catholic discussion forum) is that God wants us “to be happy.” If I understand Christianity correctly, this is the wrong “H” word. God wants us to be holy. Being holy can and often does conflict with our happiness. Isn’t that what taking up our crosses means? So while God doesn’t literally want the opposite (for us to be unhappy), saying that God wants us to be (in an earthly sense) unhappy would be closer to the truth.
— Comments —
Bob writes:
Of course God wants us to be happy. He not only wants us to be happy, but also to have fulfilled lives. The reason Christians seek holiness is they know it is their happiness. Suffering in this life does not cause unhappiness. It is impossible to find a single soul out of the billions alive today who woke up this morning and decided to spend the day trying to make himself miserable. Everything we all do from robbing banks, taking drugs, committing adultery, to singing God’s praise, feeding the hungry, every act of self-denial is done with the goal of achieving personal happiness. Self-indulgence and self-denial are motivated by the same goal. One will lead to true happiness and the other to total misery and personal destruction.
The only true happiness is found in loving God and neighbor, fulfilling the purpose for which we are made. The only true happiness is found in knowing God who is love. The only way to happiness is the cross, taking up our crosses and following the bloody footprints of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
The criticism of the ‘new church of happy’ is valid, but modern errors do not show that God does not will our true happiness, or He did not make us to be happy, or that holiness and happiness are mutually exclusive conditions.
Laura writes:
I believe Bruce would agree.
I think he was saying God does not want happiness itself (i.e. emotional contentment itself) to be our primary goal.
Bruce responds:
Yes, by “in an earthly sense” I meant getting the things we want or the emotional state that we want. The idea that God wants us to be happy can be and is used as an excuse for all sorts of bad things like divorce and remarriage.
It seems to me that sometimes choices we make in pursuit of holiness can cause us grief. We’re not told (at least I don’t think so) not to feel grief. But the grief is accompanied by the joyful knowledge that much better things are to come.
