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“Are You Happy? Are You Fulfilled?”
If we stand back to ask what we have learned about happiness over the centuries, it is striking to see our lack of progress. Think of how we have surpassed our ancestors in our ability to travel and communicate, in our accomplishments in medicine and science. Think of how much less brutal and unjust to minorities many societies are today compared with even one hundred years ago. In so many ways human life has been transformed, and yet though we are unimaginably wealthier and more comfortable than our ancestors, no one is arguing that we are significantly happier than they were.
We are struggling and seeking happiness in essentially the same ways our forebears did and doing a worse job of it, if we use the rise of depression and suicide as an indicator.
The author of Ecclesiastes deserves the final word here. “Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before.” (Ecclesiastes 3:15) Despite all our modern efforts, with regard to happiness we are essentially back where we started…
To get at our condition more accurately, we should ask about joy, fulfillment, and satisfaction in life. Are we achieving those things?...We have much thinner life satisfaction than we want to admit to researchers or even to ourselves. On the whole, we are in denial about the depth and magnitude of our discontent.
The artists and thinkers who talk about it most poignantly are seen as morbid outliers, but actually they are prophetic voices. It usually takes years to break through and dispel the denial in order to see the magnitude and dimension of our dissatisfaction in life.
Excerpt from Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical by Timothy Keller
Reprinted by arrangement with Viking Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, A Penguin Random House Company. Copyright © 2016 by Timothy Keller
If we stand back to ask what we have learned about happiness over the centuries, it is striking to see our lack of progress. Think of how we have surpassed our ancestors in our ability to travel and communicate, in our accomplishments in medicine and science. Think of how much less brutal and unjust to minorities many societies are today compared with even one hundred years ago. In so many ways human life has been transformed, and yet though we are unimaginably wealthier and more comfortable than our ancestors, no one is arguing that we are significantly happier than they were.
We are struggling and seeking happiness in essentially the same ways our forebears did and doing a worse job of it, if we use the rise of depression and suicide as an indicator.
The author of Ecclesiastes deserves the final word here. “Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before.” (Ecclesiastes 3:15) Despite all our modern efforts, with regard to happiness we are essentially back where we started…
To get at our condition more accurately, we should ask about joy, fulfillment, and satisfaction in life. Are we achieving those things?...We have much thinner life satisfaction than we want to admit to researchers or even to ourselves. On the whole, we are in denial about the depth and magnitude of our discontent.
The artists and thinkers who talk about it most poignantly are seen as morbid outliers, but actually they are prophetic voices. It usually takes years to break through and dispel the denial in order to see the magnitude and dimension of our dissatisfaction in life.
Excerpt from Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical by Timothy Keller
Reprinted by arrangement with Viking Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, A Penguin Random House Company. Copyright © 2016 by Timothy Keller
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About this Plan
Our society places such faith in empirical reason, historical progress, and heartfelt emotion that it’s easy to wonder: What role can Christianity play in our modern lives? In this plan, pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller invites skeptics to consider that Christianity is more relevant now than ever, and provides believers with inspiring reading on the importance of Christianity today. For more on this topic, buy Timothy Keller’s latest book, Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical.
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