God Just Wants Me to be Happy!

Every now and then I'm going to share a bit that I'm thinking from my reading. Hopefully over time you will see the pieces fit together.

The Shorter Westminster Catechism, a founding document of English Calvinism, starts in a really interesting place. You might expect a Christian movement's core teaching to start with its doctrine of God or something about Jesus, but no. It starts with us.

'What is the chief end of man?'

'Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.'

Wow. Enjoyment is our chief aim (OK, along with glorifying God)!

You wouldn't think that Calvinists would provide the theological underpinning for the 20th century's turn towards pleasure and self-fulfilment.

Yeah,

But

Nah.

In traditional philosophy there are two kinds of pleasure: hedonistic and eudaimonic. It's telling that you've probably only heard of one of those words.

Yesterday my neghbour helped me build a garden structure using his vastly superior (to mine) DIY skills. I learnt today that he did a six-month carpentry and furniture-making course, so I don't feel too bad. What felt like an uphill struggle for me turned into a relatively quick and pleasurable experience as Chris did something he was good at. Eudaimonic pleasure is the pleasure gained from fulfilling our purpose, whether that be the short-term purpose of building a pergola or the longer term purpose of being a carpenter. Or the even longer-term purpose of being caught up in God and God's purposes.

The catechism starts by asking a question about our 'telos', which means our purpose, our reason for being. Or maybe just our reason for getting out of bed.

When Jesus delivered one of his most terrifying sayings, 'Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect' (Matt 5:48), the word which gets translated as perfect is actually 'teleios', which elsewhere in the New Testament is translated as 'mature'. Perhaps a better translation would be, 'Live towards your purpose, just as God lives towards God's purpose.' (Maybe the Aramaic 'Abba' describes God's telos as well as God's identity?)

This helps me understand a lot of things, including the kind of joy being alluded to in the catechism. To find one's place in the universe, the gift one has to give and the pleasure one can give God by giving it, goes beyond mere hedonistic pleasure. It provides a much deeper context to the word joy, which can sometimes come across as 'Being really happy whatever the circumstances.'

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