The Gateway to the Divine

We have been working our way through Aristotle’s study on Ethics. The fact that people don’t change over the centuries is an interesting one. There doesn’t seem to be much evolution in thought between then and now. The same questions are being asked and similar answers only by different people. I see this opinion as a critical one because it represents the conclusions of a couple generations of people devoted to the purity of critical thinking and it forms the basis for civil, meaning people learning to get along in co-operative groups. Our founders used it also. They pointed out how groups advance from anarchy, to mobs from patriarch to tribe and from tribe to civil government. The trouble is that in all of these we are still human and have to deal with freeloaders and despots, Laziness and greed. When there is so much potential for cooperative art or human accomplishment, it can be wasted by bad character. So here is the next installment with the conclusion that happiness of the soul, what can also be called contentment, joy, and peace, is what we all seek more than anything. It is the soul of a person that is fascinating as is the divine origin of happiness.  

At what point do we acquire enough to complete our happiness? Does there always have to be a carrot hung in front of us? Some say that it is the culmination of what was our entire life and death. All we can say is that a good person will tap into happiness as life unfolds.

It is prudish to say that other people’s success doesn't affect our happiness. We are happy when our friends and family are doing well. It is also hard to define failure. Our disappointments vary from profound to light and the same goes for those of our family and friends. The duration varies also, and some go as far as saying lawless people will continue to suffer after death. We, however, don’t know if the dead experience good and evil as the living do. We have to assume the influence of disappointments and victories is as weak to them as it is from us to them. But we do need to mention it since many religions have doctrines pertaining to the dead.

The question remains whether happiness is an achievement or an endowment. Praise is always due to comparisons. A job well done is better than an inferior one. Praise has to do with achievement according to the particular discipline; a great runner, a great orator. Even when referring to goodness and virtue, we praise someone for their achievements and using discipline. What is interesting is that we describe God as being happy and desiring to acquire happiness. This suggests that happiness is an endowment that supersedes God himself, although we might praise him because he is greater than all else.  Praise has to do with achievement according to certain standards that require comparisons. We cannot put happiness in this category. It isn't virtue itself since no one praises happiness as they would justice. Happiness is a blessed state and something that is divine and beyond virtue itself.

There is truth in saying that pleasure has a similar divine origin. It is something that is regulated by morals, but in itself pleasure isn't good or bad. Seeking pleasure isn't always praised but it is always sought in one way or another. What we are getting at is that happiness is the ultimate pleasure and it is prized and perfect. All we do, all we seek, comes from this first principle. It is the cause of all the good that we claim; something divine and prized.

We know happiness originates in our soul and the gateway is virtue, so by studying virtue, maybe by chance we can reveal the true nature of happiness. We see it depends on our interactions with others and so this is a good point to begin a study of the soul itself…