Love And Happiness: Augustine's Theory Of Happiness

Augustine questions what a person should obtain to achieve happiness since happiness is a matter of having what one wants in order to be happy. Augustine’s grasp of love is understood as a kind of desire, and we see that desire is also present in other parts of the soul. (83 Different questions p. 66). Now the love of those things worthy to be loved is better termed “disinterested love” and for this reason, one ought to reflect carefully with all the power of one’s thought on that most salutary precept: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”,; and again, on that which the Lord Jesus says: “This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God and whom you have sent, Jesus Christ.” (82 Q. p. 66) Therefore, he believes that happiness constitutes something that can be had when it is wanted (the Happy Life 2.11) So does material items bring happiness? The answer is no for material wealth, no matter how achieved, is perpetually subject to the fear of loss.Augustine argues that it is in our love of God that we find permanent and enduring happiness without fear of loss that erodes our happiness (De beata vita 2.11). Augustine states, “It is beyond doubt that the one cause of fear is either that we will lose what we love after attaining it or that, despite all our hopes, we will never attain it at all.” (De div. quaest. 33) Augustine’s definition of love can be found near the end of the first book of the Soliloquia, it states: “What is not loved in its own right is not loved.” This describes the shear purity of love that is not egotistical saturated with selfishness but altruistic in its unselfishness. When Augustine considers the purity of love he goes on to state, that ...

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...ring its love towards the eternal love of God (83 Different Questions 35.2). So in Augustines statement that “All persons want to be happy; and no persons are happy who do not have what they want (On the Happy Life 2.10).” Therefore, Augustine describes, to pursue God is to desire happiness, and to attain God is happiness itself (The Morals of the Catholic Church 11.28). Augustine reveals through his writings on Theology of love is that what comprises genuine human happiness in our love of God is what human beings were created for. Therefore, “Virtuous behavior pertains to the love of God and of one’s neighbor; the truth of faith pertains to a knowledge of God and of one’s neighbor. For the hope of everyone lies in his own conscience in so far as he knows himself to be becoming more proficient in the love of God and his neighbor (On Christian Doctrine 3:10).”