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Thomas_Jennings
Guest
Peter Kreeft said God’s beauty was infinite and also infinite in other perfections. Does happiness count as a perfection? If so, are there no finite boundaries as to how happy a being may become?
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abon12
Guest
What is eternal happiness?
Eternal happiness is seeing God and being taken up into God’s happiness.
In God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit there is unending life, joy, and communion. To be taken up into it will be an incomprehensible, infinite happiness for us men. This happiness is the pure gift of God’s grace, for we men can neither bring it about ourselves nor comprehend it in its magnitude. God would like us to decide in favor of our happiness; we should choose God freely, love him above all things, do good and avoid evil insofar as we are able.
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po18guy
Well-known member
The ecstatic Saints often were detached from all sensory perception and awareness of this life when in a spiritual ecstasy with the Lord. And this was within the limitations of the human body, which is physical in nature. The spirit has no such limitations, and once we are freed from the physical world and from time, it is God’s intent that we experience a joy which far surpasses anything of this life, or anything that we can conceive of.
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paduard
Guest
I agree and additionally think that part of eternal happiness includes freedom of making choices in heaven.
po18guy
Well-known member
Imagine the joy for those of us who have trouble making decisions! Decide once for all eternity! Like the angels.
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Ad_Orientem
Guest
St. Thomas says that happiness is an operation of the intellect, and that there are degrees of it (S.T. I-II, Q3).
Since our intellect (and all other faculties) are finite, it seems to follow that our happiness is necessarily finite (which would be compatible with degrees of happiness), but I could be wrong.
Since our intellect (and all other faculties) are finite, it seems to follow that our happiness is necessarily finite (which would be compatible with degrees of happiness), but I could be wrong.
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Thomas_Jennings
Guest
Ok, thanks…and do you, like Kreeft, believe ‘joy’ is separate (and better) than happiness? Or is that also finite?
Thanks.
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Pugsly
Guest
I agree with this poster from England. But would add…“happiness” is like a wave that surges forth and breaks upon the shore…then recedes for a time. If we were “happy” all the time you wouldn’t experience “happiness” at all.
“Joy”…however…is God’s background prescence that remains in a soul…even one that suffers. Both, joy and happiness will be in Heaven.
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Ad_Orientem
Guest
There’s a difference between natural and supernatural happiness. I think both are finite in man, since man is a finite being.
God is a different story; he is infinite in all his perfections. If so, it seems his happiness must be infinite; but in God we call it “happiness” only by way of analogy, since he is utterly “other,” with the following caveat. If what I said about human happiness is true, then Christ in his sacred humanity must experience finite natural and supernatural happiness, lofty and perfect though they be.
po18guy
Well-known member
Yet, we are partakers of the Divine nature and know not what our spirits are capable of once freed from the corruption of this physical body. Conversely, if happiness is finite, we can seek only that it be complete. John wrote of this at the end of his letters.
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Thomas_Jennings
Guest
So shall we never gain complete and ‘utter’ happiness if there are always scales of joy far higher than ours? Must being human equal partial and finite experiences?
Not saying you’re wrong…but it’s all a bit sad, isn’t it? Or maybe I’m just being greedy…
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Ad_Orientem
Guest
We will not be freed from our bodies. They are separated temporarily at death, but this is not a desirable state; our souls and bodies are made to work together. Nor will we be happier without bodies. In fact, St. Thomas says we will be happier *with *our bodies, “because their happiness will then be not only in the soul but also in the body” (ST Sup., Q93, Art. 1). St. Paul says we will “delivered from the servitude of corruption” (Rom. 8:21), but I think he’s referring to sin and its consequences.
On the other hand, the Roman Catechism says our bodies will have impassibility, brightness, agility, and subtility (see RC, Creed, Art. XI, Qualities of a Glorified Body).
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Ad_Orientem
Guest
Fill a thimble and a glass with water. Which is more full? Each of us can attain utter happiness, even though some have greater capacity. (This is St. Therese’s analogy, from Story of a Soul, Chap. 2.)
Yes, but “That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him” (1 Cor. 2:9). Our finite experience of God will more than satisfy us.
po18guy
Well-known member
Not permanently, of course not. sorry I did not clarify that.
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Mount_Carmel
Guest
Only when human beings are freed from fallibility and in the full and constant oneness with God in Heaven can they experience the complete expression of constant and eternal happiness and contentment. We need to be in perfect accord with God, and that can only come from being with Him in that Heavenly home He has wished from eternity and for eternity, for us.
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ConstantineTG
Guest
There is a distinction between happiness and joy (much like knowledge and wisdom), and joy is what is connected to Christ, not happiness. God never promised us happiness.
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Thomas_Jennings
Guest
It is all very interesting…after al,l (I had never REALLY considered it before) will new bodies still equal certain boundaries? (though less restrictive than in the now?)…Peter Kreeft and CS Lewis often mention infinite joy and it really is wonderfully head scratching to think about the notion…Not permanently, of course not. sorry I did not clarify that.
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Robert_Sock
Guest
I often feel joy, but not happiness.
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Ad_Orientem
Guest
'Tis. I have always liked the idea that our glorified bodies will be capable of aerial flights, but of course this presupposes some sort of landscape (why not?). But whether this be true or no, the vision of God will fill us will pleasures beyond our wildest dreams.
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jonathan_hili
Guest
I don’t think it’s a question of how happy one can become, as if there is a quantitative measure of happiness, but rather a qualitative difference: a full happiness that does not increase in kind but in duration, that is, eternally.
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