Reinhard Hütter is a guest on Volume 149 of the Journal, talking about his book Bound for Beatitude. Those three words capture the boundless confidence that is the ground for the Christian understanding of human nature. Every human being is created with a desire to be happy. That is given with our nature, but we need to learn what true happiness is. As Hütter writes, “The teaching of Scripture is unequivocal: true and lasting happiness, beatitude, is found only when a person embraces the truth that God reveals, follows the path God thereby opens up to that person, and, through God’s grace, begins to participate in the divine life.”
The subtitle to Hütter’s book is A Thomistic Study in Eschatology and Ethics. Instructed by the work of Thomas Aquinas, Hütter describes why Christian ethics — indeed all Christian theology — must be grounded in the ends for which persons (and all of Creation) were called into being.
The culture of modernity — in the seas of which we swim — is marked by a rejection of the claim that there are ends (teloi) for which human beings exist and according to which their lives, privately and publicly, should be ordered. By contrast, the work of Aquinas, explicated in Hütter’s book, reflects the fundamental Christian affirmation of “the principle of finality,” the recognition that “every agent acts for an end,” an end (telos) established by the Creator.
Our age is emphatically anti-teleological, insists Hütter: “[O]ne of the characteristics of the modern era is the widespread rejection of the principle of finality. As it plays out in the anthropological realm, this pervasive dismissal of the principle of finality leads to a crisis in terms of the human being’s understanding of himself as a human person. Due to the widespread and erroneous dismissal of the finality of human nature, the human self-image as rational animal, as person and nature in one, collapses into the irresolvable antinomy between two contradictory and agonistically competing self-images, a neo-Gnostic angelism and a naturalistic animalism. The late modern person vacillates between the self-image of an essentially disembodied sovereign will that submits all exteriority, including the body, to its imperious dictates, and the self-image of a super-primate, a highly advanced animal, gifted or cursed with a developed consciousness that is driven by instincts, passions, and desires beyond its control and understanding into patterns of behavior for which an animal can never be held fully accountable.”
If there are no ends for which we were created — no nature that defines us— then the pursuit of happiness has no transcendent guidelines or points of reference. As Hütter observes, “a partial result of the eclipse of what it means to be human [is that] the understanding of and search for happiness has taken a radical experiential turn. The happiness now sought is the emotional state of joy, delight, and especially ecstasy as the apex of an encompassing feeling of well-being that ideally continues, fed by whatever sequence of objects, substances, and events it takes to sustain it. The a-teleological dynamic of consumption — the trademark of consumer capitalism — collapses action and its purpose to the here and now. Any remaining sense of community and conviviality is no longer based on the common good, let alone on the highest good, God, but rather on sensuality, sentiments, and transient coalitions of proximate interests. Nietzsche announced the return of the Dionysian and what has arrived is the obsession with the body and with orgiastic and analogous experiences of sensual and emotional ecstasy. The fun- and event-centered culture — the most characteristic feature of which is the collection of extraordinary, exhilarating, and possibly transgressive experiences of all sorts — is the direct result of the pervasive search for the feelings of joy, delight, and ecstasy that happiness issues in the here and now. . . .
“[G]iven this existentialist understanding of happiness as the result of the instant gratification of some desire and the resulting sensual or emotional elation, a happiness that consists in the attainment of a specific good, even the highest good, is simply meaningless.”
Related reading and listening
- Discerning an alternative modernity — In a lecture from 2019, Simon Oliver presents a summary of the cultural consequences of the comprehensiveness of the work of Christ. (28 minutes)
- Hütter, Reinhard — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Professor Reinhard Hütter’s primary field of study is systematic and philosophical theology with a focus on faith and reason, revelation and faith, dogma and history, on questions of theological anthropology (freedom and grace) and the doctrine of God.
- The theonomic nature of conscience — Matthew Levering on Reinhard Hütter’s description of conscience: “Real conscience does not give free rein to a person’s desires.”
- The aboriginal Vicar of Christ, the voice of God in the heart of Man — Reinhard Hütter on John Henry Newman’s insistence that conscience — rightly formed — bears witness to the law of God
- Conscience and its counterfeits — A 2014 lecture by theologian Reinhard Hütter examines “Freedom of Conscience as Freedom in the Truth: Conscience according to Thomas Aquinas and John Henry Newman.” (64 minutes)
- Thinking Christianly about the body — Theologian and ethicist Gilbert Meilaender discusses some of the themes he explores in two of his books: Body, Soul and Bioethics; and Bioethics: A Primer for Christians. (19 minutes)
- Loving relationships in community — In conversation with moral philosopher Oliver O’Donovan, and with readings from his book, Entering into Rest, Ken Myers explores a central theme in O’Donovan’s work: that we are created to enjoy loving relationships in community. (27 minutes)
- David K. Naugle, R.I.P. — Philosophy professor, author, and compassionate mentor David K. Naugle (1952-2021) explains the long history of the concepts of “worldview” and “happiness.” (26 minutes)
- “A roaming unrest of the spirit” — Theologian Reinhard Hütter argues that the contemporary plague of pornography is a symptom of a deep spiritual apathy. (28 minutes)
- The final purpose for human beings — Theologian Hans Boersma argues that the beatific vision described throughout scripture is foreshadowed in “this-worldy experiences,” and that, particularly because of the Incarnation, eschatological experience is not only something in the future somewhere else, but is in fact connected with historical experience. (20 minutes)
- The scantily clad public square — Reinhard Hütter on the necessity of the virtue of religion
- Merciless moralism bereft of moral reasons — Dallas Willard explores how moral passions on campuses — and elsewhere — are now immune to rational examination or critique
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 149 — FEATURED GUESTS:
Dru Johnson, Steven L. Porter, Reinhard Hütter, Matthew Levering, David Lyle Jeffrey, and Christopher Phillips
- Ethics as Theology, Volume 2 — Drawing from St. Augustine and figures such as Aelred of Rievaulx, Oliver O’Donovan describes how the Church, communication, community, and friendship all significantly contribute to how we understand the role of love in both ethical and political reflection. (52 minutes)
- Ethics as Theology, Volume 1 — Moral philosopher Oliver O’Donovan discusses the first two volumes of his three-volume set, Ethics as Theology. Among other topics, he reflects on the significance of the thinking moral subject as well as what form of moral inadequacy the “life of the flesh” suggests. (58 minutes)
- Oliver O’Donovan on ethics as theology — Oliver O’Donovan explains how moral deliberation always occurs in anticipation of the eschatological fulfillment of redemption. (9 minutes)
- Discerning the spirit of the age — Oliver O’Donovan on the difficult but essential task of reading our times
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 134 — FEATURED GUESTS:
Chris Armstrong, Grevel Lindop, Michael Martin, William T. Cavanaugh, Philip Turner, and Gisela Kreglinger
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 133 — FEATURED GUESTS:
Darío Fernández-Morera, Francis Oakley, Oliver O’Donovan, Thomas Storck, John Safranek, Brian Brock, and George Marsden
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 127 — FEATURED GUESTS:
Christopher Shannon, Kevin Vanhoozer, Oliver O’Donovan, Rebecca DeYoung, Thomas Forrest Kelly, and Calvin Stapert
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 107 — FEATURED GUESTS: Victor Lee Austin, Ellen T. Charry, Anthony Esolen, Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Allen Verhey, and Calvin Stapert
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 106 — FEATURED GUESTS: Adam Briggle, John C. Médaille, Christopher Page, Christian Smith, Herman Daly, and Thomas Hibbs
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 105 — FEATURED GUESTS: Julian Young, Perry L. Glanzer, Kendra Creasy Dean, Brian Brock, Nicholas Carr, and Alan Jacobs
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 96 — FEATURED GUESTS: David A. Smith, Kiku Adatto, Elvin T. Lim, David Naugle, Richard Stivers, and John Betz
- Caitrin Nicol: “Brave New World at 75” — Caitrin Nicol combines a survey of contemporary review of Brave New World with thoughtful reflections on happiness and freedom. (43 minutes)
- Yuval Levin: “The Moral Challenge of Modern Science” — Yuval Levin calls for a more deliberate awareness of how science shapes how we ask and answer moral questions together. (44 minutes)
