Heaven and Gifts

When I started reading Boethius, the first thing I noticed was that is was a lot about happiness, and that reminded me of Aristotle. Aristotle wrote of happiness a lot as well. However, Boethius and Aristotle seem to have very different opinions on happiness. The main difference that I noticed right away is that Boethius seems to be writing about happiness as a state of being, while Aristotle was describing happiness as more of an action. They both had different views on what happiness actually was. Boethius seemed to think happiness was a state of perfectness, in which nothing is missing; you have everything you could possibly want, and not desire anything more. Aristotle seemed to think happiness was a final goal, a thing that everybody worked toward but nobody could truly obtain. These two concepts of happiness seem very similar, but Boethius just seemed a lot more agreeable to me than Aristotle.

When I think of Boethius' definition of happiness, I think of heaven: "Now, the good is defined as that which, once it is attained, relieves man of all further desires. This is the supreme good and contains within itself all other lesser goods. If it lacked anything at all, it could not be the highest good, because something would be missing, and this could still be desired" (pg. 38). This seems to be exactly what heaven will be like. Everything without anything missing. The connotation of heaven was why I agreed with Boethius way more than with Aristotle. Aristotle's version of happiness was more about different opinions. He did mention a "supreme good" a few times, but didn't really go into it very much. He more wrote about how different people have different views on what happiness was. This, of course, is true, but it doesn't really resonate with me very well. It's a very boring statement. Boethius, on the other hand, just states exactly what he thinks happiness is. Boethius' approach, I think, was better, if only because I have the same opinion on what happiness is as he does.

As humans, loved by the Lord, saved by Him, created by Him, we ought to devote our lives to bringing as many people to heaven, to this "supreme good," this ultimate happiness, as we can. One of the last commandments that Jesus gave to us while on the earth was to go make disciples (Matthew 28:19). That is our purpose: to get as many people to follow Jesus as we can. A lot of the times, it can be difficult to share your faith with other people, but when you think about the stakes, it should be easy. If you don't share the gospel with them, they might never hear it. I don't know about you, but I definitely want all of my friends to go to heaven. Especially when the alternative is Hell. Think about the opposite if the supreme good. The supreme evil. Nobody wants to go there, and nobody should want anybody to go there. But that is where everyone is headed unless they trust in God. And how can they if they don't even know who God is, or what He did for them on the cross.

Going further into Boethius, I want to emphasize the point that wealth and fame do not lead to happiness. No matter how much you have, you will always be left wanting more. True happiness comes only when you are completely satisfied. A lot of wealthy people find satisfaction in giving. They feel good giving to people in need. I'm not saying that giving to the needy is a bad thing, in fact it is the opposite, but sometimes more wealth isn't what people need. Giving people more stuff will in turn make them want even more stuff. They will never be truly satisfied, and neither will you from giving. Keep that in mind as we go into this Christmas season. Do not give gifts just to give. Give gifts to make people happy. Give someone something meaningful that won't leave them wanting more. And keep in mind the real reason why we give gifts around Christmas. One thing that really annoys me that I've been hearing a lot recently is that we give gifts because the wise men gave gifts to Jesus. That couldn't be more wrong. We give gifts because God gave us the greatest gift: Jesus. Jesus is the ultimate gift because without him we'd never get to heaven, we'd never have that ultimate happiness. We'd be stuck in Hell, suffering for an eternity. Obviously we can't give gifts as amazing as Jesus, but model your gift giving after God, just as you should model everything else in your life after him.

I would like to conclude with a prayer, as this is the last blog post. "Father, you are amazing. You gave us the greatest gift of all time, and that is sending your only son to die for us because you loved us so much. We thank you for that amazing gift, and we ask you to help us show people they need to accept that gift. I pray that everything that we learned this semester, everything we read, from Plato and Aristotle, to Confucius, to Moses, to Paul, to Boethius, and others, that we would take what we learned and apply it to our lives. I pray that in everything we do we would glorify you. In your holy name, Amen."