Aristotle claims that the basis of all ethics is personal happiness. By this, he doesn't mean pleasure or bliss, but satisfaction of life, contentment. This is partly in agreement with Jesus, for Jesus always persuades others to good action because of personal reward, one's ultimate happiness in the long run.
However, Happiness is found, Jesus says, not in one's individual action, but in one's action in community. Thus, Aristotle finds happiness to be found in the mean-- the perfect balance between extremes. Jesus finds happiness in love-- in offering a benefit to the other in community. Happiness is not something that one obtains personally, as if it were something one can seek and achieve personally. Rather, it is a gift that one receives from others. This does not mean that everyone will grant the gift of happiness-- not everyone will grant forgiveness, healing, pleasure, peace or security. Some, in fact, grant the opposite, attempting to take happiness away from others.
Jesus says, however, that rather than only seeking out one's personal benefit-- only being with those who promote personal happiness-- rather one must seek out those who need happiness and grant it to them. This makes our lives a mix of joy and sorrow, for not everyone will receive the happiness we wish to grant to them. This is why we must make our happiness dependent on one relationship alone: our relationship with God. God alone truly desires our happiness and wishes us to possess happiness as a lifestyle. And so in our relationships on earth we must grant happiness and we must seek happiness from God.
There is still one caveat of this process of happiness. God, as our Creator, understands that we are in a place of confusion and that our minds are not right. From the environment we live in and the imperfections of our body we are not in a state to truly appreciate full happiness. Rather, our happiness is often dependent on first having a lack of happiness. Our current happiness is not a consistent state, but it is a place of contrast. We are almost never "happy", but we can be "happier"-- we are only content in comparison to where we once were. Thus, God has granted that our lives be filled with challenges, temptations, persecutions and difficulties. In this way, God leads us into only occasional happiness.
However, God promises that ultimate happiness is to come. He calls this "eternal life". This is a permanent state of happiness, which we can only experience when we are in a world system that helps us achieve happiness and we have bodies that allow us to experience that permanent state of happiness.
Happiness is ours to obtain-- but we must wade through a huge pile of shit to get to it.
No comments:
Post a Comment