Do Virtues Make Us Happy?
To Live Well Bonus Content via Augustine
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When I research for a book, I scour other books and articles to find sources, ideas, authorities, and wisdom to understand my topic. And inevitably I miss something. Every time. There’s just too much to read in the world.
When I wrote You Are Not Your Own, I missed the section in Calvin’s Institutes where he directly talks about the fact that we are not our own (Book 3 Chapter 7, if you’re curious). After my book came out, I stumbled across the passage and felt stupid for not discovering it before publication. For To Live Well, I quote Augustine, but not from City of God. I didn’t think he’d talk about the virtues in City of God. I was mistaken, which I realized only after I turned in final edits for To Live Well. In reading City of God for another project, I found several beautiful passages which I shall explore over the coming weeks leading up to the release of To Live Well as bonus content for the book.
Today’s passage comes from Book XIX Chapter 4, and it deals with the question of happiness and the virtues. Why do we practice the virtues as Christians? Is it to avoid suffering? Is it to achieve happiness? When I ask this question, I’m not referring only to the emotion of happy feelings, but a classical sense of happiness, a profound sense of fullness or completion, a sense that you have lived up to your created purpose.
Here’s what Augustine has to say:
True virtues, however, can exist only in those in whom there is true godliness; and these virtues do not claim that they can protect those in whom they are present against suffering any miseries. True virtues are not such liars as to claim such a thing. They do, however, claim that though human life is compelled to be miserable by all the great evils of this world, it is happy in the hope of the world to come, and in the hope of salvation. For how else could it be happy, seeing that it is not yet saved?
Let’s start off by observing Augustine’s stark claim that “True virtues. . . can exist only in those in whom there is true godliness.” This would preclude atheists from living “truly” virtuous lives. They might have the semblance of virtue, but not the substance. For Augustine, there are no virtuous pagans (sorry, Dante). True virtue comes from godliness. Why is that? The key for Augustine, as we will see in later installments of this series, is that virtues are inherently dependent upon a telos, an end toward which everything points. And the only true telos is God.
For example, as I talk about in To Live Well, you cannot act prudently without knowing the good in a particular situation. And the ultimate good in every situation is to glorify God. The person who tries to act prudently without that frame of reference will have to replace God with some infinitely lesser, mortal good and will end up serving an idol. Instead of prudently considering what it looks like to glorify God in a decision they are making, the person who denies God as their telos will look to their own desires as the final good. And that will never allow them to pursue true virtue.
Next, notice Augustine’s second point: the virtues don’t claim to protect you from suffering misery. A point Augustine returns to again and again is that human life is filled with misery (but that’s not the end of the story!). Living virtuously does not protect you from that. Accidents will happen. Sickness will befall you. Growing up, I remember being horrified when I learned that a friend’s mother fell ill with cancer despite being one of the healthiest, most temperate women I knew. Virtue couldn’t protect her and it can’t protect me.
Which is not to say that in the grand scheme of things the person who lives a vicious life and the person who lives a life of virtue will on average experience the same sorts of outcomes in life. The Bible, and Proverbs in particular, is very clear that sin has consequences. But it’s also the case that living virtuously does not protect you from misery, from suffering. You will experience loss, pain, heartache. In fact, one virtue, courage, even involves a vulnerability to suffering in its very nature. Suffering is a fact of life. But that does not mean we cannot be happy.
It is not in our effort, our virtue that we find happiness for Augustine, as opposed to Aristotle who believed that happiness was found in living virtuously. Our happiness for Augustine is found in hope. Hope in the resurrection: “it is happy in the hope of the world to come, and in the hope of salvation.”
From this above quoted passage he goes on to quote Romans 8:24: “For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?” And then he elaborates:
We are in the midst of evils, and we must endure them with patience until we come to those good things where everything will bestow ineffable delight upon us, and where there will no longer be anything which we must endure. Such is the salvation which, in the world to come, will also itself be our final happiness. Yet these philosophers will no believe in this happiness because they do not see it. Thus, they endeavor to contrive for themselves an entirely false happiness, by means of a virtue which is as false as it is proud.
These parting lines are particularly to the point. Pagan philosophers see the pursuit of virtue as a path to human fulfillment (happiness). But it’s a false happiness for two reasons. One, because it’s a false virtue. It’s a false virtue because it’s proud, vain, self-centered. Its telos is not focused on God and his glory but on the individual. But it’s also a false happiness because our efforts cannot bring us ultimate fulfillment. We only find that in hope in God’s promises, in God’s work, not ours.
Great, so why are we even practicing these virtues then if they don’t bring us happiness? We practice them first out of love. Because we love God, we desire to glorify him, and orienting ourselves towards him in our practices is what the virtues are all about. Second, because this is what we were created to do. God created us to serve and worship him. It’s part of the creational design of the cosmos for us to live temperately, to walk justly, to think prudently, to have faith, to show love. Third, as Proverbs teaches us, “Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find life, righteousness, and honor” (Proverbs 21:21). Living a virtuous life will not protect us from all suffering and misery, but it will give us life and honor.
We don’t practice virtues to earn God’s love, but because he first loved us. Our world is filled with moral confusion and vice, conflicting voices and weak knees (Hebrews 12:12). We need adults with moral courage and character, who are virtuous for God’s glory. Such men and women will still struggle with suffering, but through the hope given by God, they can have true happiness in this life.
Just one month and one day until the release of To Live Well: Practical Wisdom for Moving Through Chaotic Times. Preorder today. It makes a world of difference for authors.
Thank you. I pre-ordered your book. I know I will benefit from it.