The almighty cannot give us pleasure and peace apart from Himself
because it is not there. There is not any such thing.
C. T. Lewis
I read a paper in the Journal of Health-related Ethics entitled, “An offer to classify happiness as a emotional disorder. “Richard P Bentall wrote the article of Liverpool University in 1992. The author speculated that happiness is undoubtedly an abnormality and should be labelled as a disease similar to Schizophrenia. Now the author was not expressing happiness as upsetting to the individual as an essential psychological disorder. He recommended that happiness be categorised as a “significant affective ailment, pleasant type. ” To put it differently, it may be a disorder, but it is not recognized as displaying any in a wrong way valued symptoms.
The author put forward this hypothesis:
“… Pleasure is statistically abnormal, includes a discrete cluster of signs, is associated with a range of intellectual abnormalities, and probably demonstrates the abnormal functioning in the central nervous system… ”
What does this all mean? We probably really know what “statistically abnormal means. I assume most of us are not happy. In determining whether or not happiness is a disorder, the author discusses recognized means for determining abnormalities that can be disruptive to the individual. He or she talks about happiness being referred to as a disease. An identified mental disease will demonstrate groupings of symptoms that, when compared with a look for in an individual’s behaviour.
The author also explores neurological reasons and the possible dysfunction of the central nervous system as a reason behind happiness. Some type of stimulation that will produce happiness or relish. However, this natural result produces a disadvantage for the personnel. For example, happiness has been connected to obesity, alcohol consumption, or thoughtless behaviour. Also, happiness can cause manic behaviour, which is then depression. Any of these “disadvantages” probably will lead to a shortened life.
Another possibility is that the actions that result from happiness tend to be irrational. The author describes this as “… irrational when it is bizarre and socially undesirable, reduces the individual’s anticipated utilities, or is not grounded on good reasons. ” The writer has a hard time identifying illogical behaviour. What one person views as irrational may be pretty regular for someone else, mainly when different civilizations are discussed.
non-e from the above will probably convince a person that happiness is an emotional disorder similar to schizophrenia. Still, you may wonder if it is a record abnormality for humans. Imagine if fallen mankind is not capable of experiencing happiness? What if joy, or what we consider joy, is an allusion?
Let me request you a series of questions. Is happiness temporal? In other words, may happiness be happy when it is not permanent? Can we become happy one moment and not delighted the next? Is that true delight? If we are happy one moment but not happy the next, then our delight must depend on something that reasons the feeling of happiness. Is usually happiness the possession of a thing we desire? Is delight the result of being healthy? Is happiness usually the result of a good task? Is happiness being quite happy with life? What happens when we aren’t getting what we want, or many of us aren’t content with life, or maybe our health begins to decline? Are generally we then unhappy? Therefore, if we are not getting whatever we want, we must always be unhappy. If that is the event, is mankind unhappy automatically? If unhappiness is the convention, then happiness, incredibly sustained happiness, is abnormal. If true and lasting delight is out of the reach involving humanity, then happiness, even as we understand it, is an internal disorder.
But don’t many of us want to be happy? Who wants always to be unhappy? If happiness is usually abnormal in humans, why do we seek joy? It seems reasonable to state that happiness is not the normal condition of a human because humans must pursue this. We must not be happy individuals. Otherwise, happiness would be a condition of normalcy. Unhappiness, however, would be a state we encounter when we fall out of joy because of some internal or external stimulus.
I think our seeking of happiness is another puny attempt to grasp something we cannot attain on this own. Like genuine praise, salvation, and justification, we all grasp at the unattainable in a futile attempt to regain our race’s actual standing as soon as possible. We are fallen. Within our fallen state, true joy is unattainable because joy is not of us. Happiness is actually of God.
As dropped creatures, we are not just individuals who commit an occasional sin. We have been people who have completely fallen through the grace of our race as soon as we enjoyed. We can only achieve a shadow of correct happiness in short-lived snatches. Even this happiness is just a glimpse of correct happiness. It is a little slow, isn’t it? But which is a good thing because it helps to place us to true delight, which is life in union with God.
Augustine involving Hippo, one of the greatest theologians in recent history, said, “For Lord has created us to him or her and our heart is usually restless until it rests throughout God. ” We were developed to be in communion with Lord. Our desire from the start was going to be our own God, which broke our communion using God. We seek happiness on our own, but it is out of reach.
Look at the pair of paragraphs below taken from Augustine’s Confessions:
“How sweet it had been to be rid of those ineffective joys I had as soon as I feared to lose… You forced them from me, anyone who is the true, the complete sovereign coin joy. You drove these people from me and got their place, you which are sweeter than all delight, though not of weed and blood, you who have to outshine all light, still are hidden deeper when compared with any secret in our hearts and minds, you who surpass most honour, though not from the eyes of men who have seen all honour per se… O Lord my Lord, my Light, my Variety, and My Salvation. very well
“I sought for delights, sublimities, truths, and so fell into headlong into sorrows, chambardement, errors. Thanks be for you to Thee, my joy along with my glory and this confidence, my God, thanks a lot be to Thee intended for Thy gifts; but accomplish Thou preserve them to us. For so wilt Thou preserve me, and those issues shall be enlarged and acquired which Thou hast granted me, and I myself should be with Thee, since possibly to be Thou hast granted me. ”
You can experience Augustine’s passion for Lord and his acknowledgement that Lord was his all. As we realize that all things are via God, we can only let go of this world and its short-lived pleasures, self-praise, and false hopes.
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