Hello everyone, and welcome back to Deeper Waters, a Christian blog seeking to dive into the ocean of truth! We’ve been spending time looking at the doctrine of God and right now, we’re at the final section of our study and that is the blessedness of God. Our guide for this has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, which can be read for free at newadvent.org. I hope readers will continue studying the thought of Thomas Aquinas even after this portion of our study is done. Tonight, we will begin this topic by looking at the question of if God is indeed blessed.
Happiness. What is it? What does it mean? In our world, there is much confusion over the topic of happiness. Modern minds tend to understand happiness to be a feeling and having what one desires. Now there is some truth to that, although I would not say that happiness is a feeling but it is what produces a feeling that we call happiness. (I would also say the feeling of love is more that which is produced by the action of love)
The problem however is that we do not know what we ought to desire and if we look for something else to be the ultimate and receive that something else and it does not satisfy, we will be depressed. This does not mean that we cannot look to other things to bring about happiness to some degree. They just cannot bring us happiness.
For instance, as it stands, in the realm of things that aren’t specifically Christian, I can celebrate now the love of a very good woman, the friendship that I have with several people, and to get to think about the things that matter most. For the Christian side, I have the forgiveness of God, that He has blessed me with being able to serve Him, and that I have a great church fellowship. (Although I am still in major need of employment. We would still be very appreciative of any donations made)
There’s nothing wrong with enjoying your life. Over here, the wife and I watch DVDs and enjoy video games together. Right now, she just got done asking me what the blog was about and we have some good discussion on these kinds of topics. Of course, she also makes sure I keep up with schoolwork. I can enjoy movies with friends and this evening will be enjoying gaming with friends, going to an ice cream parlor as I regularly do, and then going bowling. There is nothing wrong with enjoying pleasures in life provided we don’t make them everything.
What is happiness then really? Happiness is realizing your place in the universe and conforming yourself to it. Too often, we try to conform the universe to our desires. We should find the way reality is and not try to adapt it to us, but rather try to adapt ourselves to it. The problem is not our having desire, but our having improper desire. We desire too much the things that won’t satisfy, and we desire too little the one that does satisfy, namely God. For Aquinas, this happiness would not be reached apart from the beatific vision, that is, the seeing of God.
Is God happy then? Yes. He accepts reality as it is and accepts the reality that He is in fact God and is happy with that state. Hence, while there is much that is not good, that cannot detract Him from the overall good, which is Himself. We are promised that we will have similar happiness when we see Him.
God is blessed indeed, and by his grace, so shall we be.
We shall continue tomorrow.
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