By Richard J. Sklba
As long as the human heart has experienced a glimmer of desire for something more than whatever might be at hand in the present reality, we have known the hope for happiness.
Happiness suggests something deeply desired and already possessed, at least to the degree that it can satisfy our basic needs and hopes. For some people that sum total is minimal and modest, but for others it may be vast and enormously extended. Some individuals are content with little material comfort or possessions, while the desire, or even greed, of others seems limitless! Western Amero-Europeans are often amazed at the happiness of people in Africa or South America who have so little by way of material possessions, yet live in such deep contentment and peace.
There is, therefore and inevitably, a deeply subjective dimension to such “happiness” and for that reason the state one calls “happy” is relative. This entails a cautionary warning, namely that happiness could even become pathological if the hunger is insatiable and unethically disrespectful of others.
Aquinas’ Investigation of Happiness
When renowned medieval scholastic theologian Thomas Aquinas (1224-74) was organizing his take on the great questions of human thought and existence, he chose “Happiness / Beatitudo” as one of his organizing principles.[1] He took all the religious thinking from the first millennium of Christian writers, namely the biblical perspectives which had quickly become deeply permeated with Platonism—since after all, philosophy was invariably viewed by the ancient world as a way of life that included moral values—and mixed into the stew a healthy dose of Aristotelian philosophy. The result was a new philosophical realism within the big picture of human existence.
After exploring final human destiny (quaestio 1) in the dialectic method of a scholastic disputation, Aquinas moved to a consideration of the various things in which human happiness might consist (quaestio 2), the nature of such human happiness (quaestio 3), the things required for human happiness (quaestio 4), and finally the method of attaining happiness (quaestio 5). In his vast vision, Aquinas acknowledged a type of immediate personal happiness that could be found in a variety of created realities, such as the satisfaction of senses or the possession of material objects which provide comfort, security, and enjoyment. He insisted, however, that full and final human happiness can only be found in the possession of the knowledge of an ultimate being who is all good, and in total friendship with such a God. As a result, every portion of the cosmos was somehow subsumed into his understanding of fundamental happiness, which he viewed as somehow related to God. Such happiness is a gift freely given by God, he wrote, and beyond any human ability to achieve on one’s own.
Obviously, this Thomistic consideration is intimately related to religious faith and cannot be understood or achieved without that context. Not everyone possesses that viewpoint, however, and yet we see that people can be relatively happy if they possess what they need and want, whatever that may be.
Antidote to Rampant Individualism
More ancient than the philosophical synthesis of Thomas Aquinas, one might explore the Judaeo-Christian Scriptures to see if they can illumine a consideration of happiness. It was those same writings that formed the background for Aquinas’ reflections. These Scriptures bear ancient witness to the values of a Semitic culture, which was concrete rather than abstract. These Semitic and biblical values were brought into close connection with the happiness described by Aquinas. He presumed them and brought his philosophical categories to that task of logically organizing the ideas.
The writings we label “the Bible” are in fact an entire library of different writings: poems and songs, tales and parables, ancient myths and family legends together with literature of every sort. Woven throughout the entire body of the biblical writings, partially because of their Semitic origins, are some concepts and viewpoints very different from our own. Those of us who inhabit the “Western world” live within a culture of radical individualism. The French writer who visited the nascent United States of America, Alexis de Tocqueville, warned of this trait which he saw among the early pioneers and entrepreneurs. He foresaw that it could become a lethal disease if not watched carefully. This quality, though needed for creativity and progress, can also become the source of much unhappiness and social harm if unchecked or unlimited. Any happiness which this American civil virtue might provide could become (and at times has been) severely harmful to the social fabric.
There are antidotes to such rampant individualism, and some of them are in fact found in the biblical writings. They surface because the ancient world was primarily social in its thinking. Persons were first and foremost identified by their respective family or tribal character, and only secondarily viewed as individuals.
As I think about it, there are three concepts from the vast witness of the Judeao-Christian Scriptures that can provide an antidote to the excessive individuality of our culture. These three concepts are ways of describing the common good, and might offer some insight into the question of genuine human happiness.
Translating the Roots of Happiness
The first concept a Christian student of the Scriptures might bring forward as a contribution to the study of human happiness is the word that introduces the familiar Beatitudes from Christ’s Sermon of the Mount in Mathew’s Gospel, as in “Blessed are the poor in spirit…the merciful, etc.”[2] The English word blessed translates the Greek word makarios, which in turn attempts to capture the earlier original Hebrew expression עשר / ‘asher. The fundamental concept captured by those three words throughout their linguistic migrations—from in the Hebrew just mentioned and into its subsequent Greek translation—is twofold. The concept attempts to convey, on the one hand, a blessing or gift from outside the human person[3] and initially beyond human control and, on the other hand, the subsequent emotional delight of that same person as a result of the fact that the gift has been bestowed, received, and gratefully welcomed.
Some of the traditional English translations seem very inadequate to the richness of the idea itself if they only stress one aspect or the other. For example, if one should choose to render ‘asher / makarios as “happy,” one captures the delighted and positive emotion from the gift, but not that the source of the happiness is from outside and beyond the person herself. Conversely, if someone prefers to invoke the traditional English version “blessed,” that choice would seem to accent the opposite, namely that the source of the gift is from without, while virtually ignoring the ensuing emotional state of the human recipient. The best choice seems (at least to me) “fortunate,” because the latter catches both the giftedness of the state and the positive enjoyment experienced by the happy person.
(People are proclaimed “fortunate,” or happy, if they understand that all is gift; if they learn how to live with their personal sorrows without anger, bitterness, or resentment; and are able to avoid being “full of themselves” when reaching out to others. The familiar Beatitudes offer an insight into the factors that could enable a person to be truly “blessed” or “happy.” Thomas Aquinas would readily understand that the Scriptures offer illumination and insight into true human happiness. A truly happy person, therefore, is one who accepts the gift of insight and wisdom with joy.)
A second useful concept from the biblical literature of ancient Israel would be that of שלום / shalom, which is usually translated simply as “peace.” The inner notion for this word, however, is profound and much more nuanced than our familiar American usage might suggest. For us Americans and Western Europeans, the word peace is usually presumed to be the equivalent of tranquility and the absence of noise or distracting cacophony, as in “Thank goodness! The kids are in bed and we finally have some peace and quiet around here!” In the Semitic culture, however, the true sense of “peace” is one of reconciling separated elements, or regrouping disparate parts of an entity which had been splintered or scattered. Like a jigsaw puzzle where all the individual pieces finally fit together again, one experiences happiness when one’s individual gifts are placed in a context which best fits the needs and talents of each person, and thus the entire common good. The same Hebrew concept shalom can mean prosperity, wealth, or health, especially when each category of thought or experience describes a situation in which various parts and facts are reintegrated into a healthy functioning reality.
(Internationally, peace occurs when warring groups are restored to their proper mutual relationship. The attendant noise level is quite irrelevant. Whenever all things are back in their proper place, therefore, and in their proper relationship with everything else, there is true peace. This is another manner of approaching the human notion of happiness.)
The third and final concept I would raise from Israel’s biblical witness because, at least in my judgment, it can contribute greatly to true happiness is that of justice. Often in our pragmatic world we imagine that justice is achieved when an individual has paid all one’s debts. Biblical justice, however, is once again a much larger and more comprehensive notion. Fundamentally, biblical justice, namely צדקה / tzedeqah, means being in right relationship with everything else. A recent article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel[4] highlighted the feast of Hanukkah, which had begun the night before, and reported the delightful efforts of local Milwaukee Jewish children to collect money for the needy. The reporter quoted a local Jewish leader as suggesting that the word could be translated as “charity.” In my judgment, however, that version seems woefully inadequate because charity would suggest an emotional affect for the needy. To the contrary, there is a universal aspect inherent in the original Semitic concept of tzedeqah / justice which includes every bit of reality—animal and mineral as well as social and human—and asserts the quality of being in right relationship with everything! I would suggest that one is truly happy if one is in that sort of right relationship with everything and everyone.
There are undoubtedly other notions within the ancient traditions of Scripture that highlight some aspect of human happiness. These three Semitic words and their inherent frames of reference might seem to singularly contribute to an authentic human happiness. Each presumes, as you can see, a basic social structure or network of relationships. The larger reality of multiple relationships and individual reintegration is a nonnegotiable for the type of happiness described in the Scriptures. Recognition of the common good and a sense of shared responsibility for that common good is assumed to be a portion of human happiness.
Only when a person transcends his or her own individual tastes and preoccupations can he or she begin to find true happiness. The various proverbs collected over the centuries by the sages of Israel also describe happiness within the Semitic frame of reference.[5] They are always worthy of review, but the three concepts explained above seem more precisely targeted toward authentic human happiness.
May those who seek such happiness find it as a gift from God which they welcome warmly in order to place that gift in turn at the service of family, friends, and neighbors! Only in the context of a social context can human happiness be experienced and achieved.
Richard J. Sklba is Auxiliary Bishop of Milwaukee, former professor of Scripture at St. Francis Seminary in Milwaukee, and past chair of the Catholic Bishops’ National Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.
[1] Summa Theologica, pars Prima Secundae, questiones 1-5. The Pars Prima of the work begins with establishing the truly scientific character of theology, then moves to a treatise on creation and the ongoing divine governance of the world. Thus having laid the necessary logical foundation, Thomas Aquinas raises the question of human happiness.
[2] Matthew 5:1-12. There is a similar and possibly more original form of the Beatitudes found in Luke 6:21-26. Both versions use the same introductory term “Blessed.”
[3] This external aspect of the word is evident in the fact that the same root cognate means material riches and wealth.
[4] Local section, 11 December 2009, B1.
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