Right to Happiness: Check Yes or No

Reading: We Have No Right to Happiness, Lewis

The question is this: do we have a right to happiness? The problem with so simple a question, however, is that it can be approached from a number of directions, each coming up with a different response. One might question what happiness is, one might question what rights are. Someone else might ask whether we are asking from an American point of view, or a religious point of view. Still someone else might simply question C. S. Lewis' approach on the subject entirely.

I think, for the benefit of the audience that will read this, that it would be easiest to separate the question into two different approaches. There is the classic American viewpoint, and there is the spiritual, religious, or (more accurately), Christian viewpoint.

The American answer is rather simple. After all, it's stated in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." America is traditionally called the Land of Opportunities, and it holds that we do have the right to happiness. This country was founded on the idea that any man, regardless of race, color, or creed, has the right to seize or create opportunities in order to attain the lifestyle we call the "American Dream." C. S. Lewis only limits such to "all lawful means," which is further described: "that is, by all means which the Law of Nature eternally sanctions and which the laws of the nation shall sanction."

And so America's answer is yes, we have the right to happiness.

It's bigger than that, though. While a society may be telling us that we reserve the right to achieve whatever circumstances will make us happy, we as Christians are used to another answer.

The Christian perspective comes from a full knowledge and understanding that the simplest form of existence is far ore than we could ever deserve. We have no right to live, much less to be happy. This isn't to say, of course, that we cannot be happy, or that we should deny ourselves happiness. Rather, God has uniquely structured things in such a way that we have the capability to be happy in the most deplorable of situations. This comes from a deep humility, and a full understanding that because God has canceled such a heavy debt that we owe (because of our own sinfulness), every mere breath of air is more than we could rightfully ask for.

And so, according to Christianity, we have no right to happiness, but because of God's grace, we have the gift to be happy at any time, in any situation.