The Pursuit and Deceit of Happiness

I recently listened to a podcast on the MoreChrist YouTube channel. He was interviewing the theologian NT Wright.

It was a wide ranging discussion, but I picked up NT Wright’s comments on how the Modern West has adopted much of Epicurus’s philosophy.

Epicurus

Epicurus was born almost 300 years before Christ. He was a hedonist, which means, in broad terms, pleasure is good and pain is evil. He also argued that the purpose of life is to pursue happiness, which meant your life was free from fear and absent of pain. And under his philosophy, no one should fear the gods or death.

I believe Wisdom of Solomon (written around the birth of Christ) details the outcome of such a hedonist philosophy. And provides a simple solution.

Here is the text:

Wisdom of Solomon 2 v 1-11

For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves, "Short and sorrowful is our life, and there is no remedy when a man comes to his end, and no one has been known to return from Hades.

Because we were born by mere chance,
and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been; because the breath in our nostrils is smoke, and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts. When it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes, and the spirit will dissolve like empty air.

Our name will be forgotten in time
and no one will remember our works;
our life will pass away like the traces of a cloud, and be scattered like mist that is chased by the rays of the sun and overcome by its heat.

For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow, and there is no return from our death, because it is sealed up and no one turns back.

"Come, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that exist, and make use of the creation to the full as in youth. Let us take our fill of costly wine and perfumes, and let no flower of spring pass by us. Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither. Let none of us fail to share in our revelry, everywhere let us leave signs of enjoyment, because this is our portion, and this our lot.

Let us oppress the righteous poor man; let us not spare the widow nor regard the gray hairs of the aged. But let our might be our law of right, for what is weak proves itself to be useless.

Pursuit of Happiness

If Western culture is drawing part of its philosophical heart from Epicurus and his ideas, then we should see a society similar to what the author of the Wisdom of Solomon writes in Chapter 2.

Deceit of Happiness

I believe this description is broadly similar to the culture of the West. ‘Life is too short’, ‘might as well enjoy yourself’ and ‘you’ll be dead before you know it, so have as much fun as you can’, are all phrases I’ve heard or even said.

In verse 23, the book says the solution is twofold:

• For God created man for immortality

• Man is made in the image of God

With these two ideas, it undoes all Epicurus says. We are immortal and we are made in the image of our Creator. All our actions and intentions are not forgotten. And souls do not end with the death of the flesh.

As we bear God’s image, we are to treat ourselves and all those around us with respect and care.

If the West rejected Epicurus, we could then enter a new era. Sadly, pleasure is sometimes too tempting. And the West doesn’t appear to want to do the hard work and begin to address its spiritual problems.