The Christian Integration

of Morality,
Freedom, and Happiness
 Do you perceive the rules of the
Catholic Church as burdensome or
as a limit to your freedom?
 Christian morality is harmful “because
[the church] has chosen to label as
morality a certain narrow set of rules of
conduct which have nothing to do with
human happiness; and when you say
that this or that ought to be done
because it would make for human
happiness, they think that has nothing
to do with the matter at all.”

Bertrand Russell, Why I

am Not a Christian?
This is a common indictment of Christianity:
that it puts people in a moral straightjacket,
enslaving them to an outdated moral system,
and thereby greatly diminishes their happiness
and even inhibits the progress of the human
race.
But, what does the Bible
tell us about this?
 “It is for freedom that
Christ has set us free.”

St. Paul, Epistle to the

Galatians
 “I came that they may
have life, and have it to
the full.”

Jesus
from the Gospel of John
Echoing this biblical message, Christians
throughout the ages, have expressed a great
joy that derives from their faith.
 “Joy… is the gigantic
secret of the Christian.”

G.K. Chesterton
 What, then, explains the
enormous gap between the
Christian idea of liberation
and the popular perception
of Christianity? How can
these two views of
Christianity be reconciled?
The prejudice against Christianity’s moral claims is
due in part to a general human tendency to resent all
rules and restrictions—religious, political, or
otherwise—as unfair and destructive of liberty.
 “In many cases confinement and
constraint is actually a means to
liberation…freedom is not so much the
absence of restrictions as finding the
right ones, the liberating restrictions.
Those that fit with the reality of our
nature and the world produce greater
power and scope for our abilities, and a
deeper joy and fulfillment.”

Tim Keller, The Reason for God

“Liberating Restrictions”
Example:
A pet fish taken out of its fishbowl

The fish has thus been freed from the limits of the fish bowl,
from restrictions of place and movement—but removed from its
proper environment, the fish will die. Because the fish is free to
live and move only when it is limited to a bowl full of water, the
restrictions placed on it are essential to ensuring its freedom,
flourishing, and survival.
“Liberating Restrictions”
This example illustrates why it is that restrictions
can simultaneously bind and free; it is only in being
bound by some rules that we can live at all or enjoy
any kind of meaningful freedom.
“Liberating Restrictions”
Example:
In politics

the vast majority of humans recognize the need for limits and
rules. We recognize that anarchy—the complete absence of
governmental authority—is not a desirable political arrangement,
and that the restrictions on our freedom enforced by laws and
taxes actually allow for human prospering and flourishing in a
way that anarchy never could.
“Liberating Restrictions”
By allowing everything, you effectively destroy
everything; but by forbidding some things, you allow
everything else. True freedom is only possible where
freedom is limited.
For any happiness, even in this world, quite a lot of
restraint is going to be necessary… every sane and
civilized man must have some sort of principles by which
he chooses to reject some of his desires and to permit
others. One man does this on Christian principles,
another on hygienic principles, another on sociological
principles. The real conflict is not between Christianity
and nature. For ‘nature’ (in the sense of natural desire)
will have to be controlled anyway, unless you are going to
ruin your whole life.

Lewis, Mere Christianity

Christianity does not seek rules for the sake of rules, but
for the sake of true happiness and freedom. It seeks rules
for the same reason that everybody seeks rules: in order
to allow us to survive and flourish.

Its value is purely instrumental, meant to aid one in

attaining goodness and happiness and to succeed in
becoming a good and happy person.
 How could Christian
morality ever be
connected to happiness?
The Difference of Pleasure and Joy
Pleasure
• agreeable sensation, a passion
caused by contact with some
exterior good
• decreases when the good that
causes it is divided up and shared
more widely
Joy
• is something interior, like that act
that causes it
• direct effect of an excellent action,
like the savor of a long task finally
accomplished
• effect in us of truth understood
and goodness loved; associated
with virtue
The Difference of Pleasure and Joy
Pleasure
• brief, variable, and superficial, like
the contact that causes it
• individual, like sensation itself
Joy
• lasting, like the excellence, the
virtues, that engender it
• communicable; it grows by being
shared and repays sacrifices freely
embraced
When happiness is understood in terms of lasting joy,
instead of temporary pleasure, the way in which Christian
morality can be said to be compatible with happiness
becomes clear. Though a Christian must, from time to
time, forgo certain temporary pleasures, the Christian
moral life instills a deep and irrevocable joy.
The attainment of a virtuous character, one that can give
rise to morally excellent actions at all times, is a joy-giving
accomplishment, in part because we naturally desire
goodness (though we often forget what goodness actually
is).
 “Discipline and constraints,
then, liberate us only when
they fit with the reality of
our nature and capacities.”

Tim Keller
Christianity teaches that the one thing that fits with our true
nature above everything else is love. It is the proper environment
for mankind.

Love, Keller argues, is simultaneously the most liberating thing

and the most restrictive thing a human being can experience; it
demands the most, but it also gives the most.
By its very nature, love means giving things up, sacrificing
for the other, the object of your love. Removed from the
context of love, those sacrifices might seem painful and
absurd, but within the context of a love that gives joy,
freedom, and meaning, they begin to make perfect sense.
We all seek to live in relationships of love and to live in a
world characterized by love. Christianity offers exactly
this, but it also specifies what is necessary for such a
world to come about.
Are we not perhaps all afraid in some way? If we let Christ enter fully
into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not afraid
that He might take something away from us? Are we not perhaps
afraid to give up something significant, something unique, something
that makes life so beautiful? Do we not then risk ending up
diminished and deprived of our freedom? … No! If we let Christ
into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what
makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are
the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great
potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship
do we experience beauty and liberation. And so, today, with great
strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal
experience of life, I say to you, dear young people: Do not be afraid
of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. When
we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return. Yes,
open, open wide the doors to Christ—and you will find true life.
Pope Benedict XVI
If one doubts this idea . . .

Christianity has not been tried and found

wanting; it has been found difficult and not
tried.
The most important “liberating restriction”
of all is the love of God, come to set us
free.
REFERENCE
The Christian Integration of Morality, Freedom, and Happiness, Peter
Blair, http://augustinecollective.org/the-christian-integration-of-
morality-freedom-and-happiness/