99. Is pleasure helpful or harmful?
99. IS PLEASURE HELPFUL OR HARMFUL?
Is pleasure inherently dangerous, deceptive and tempting, or is it inherently innocent and good, or is it neither and just neutral?
As is stated in (Aristotle’s) Ethics, (natural,) appropriate pleasures increase activity . . . whereas pleasures arising from other sources are impediments to activity. Accordingly there is a certain pleasure that is taken in the very act of reason, as when one takes pleasure in contemplating or in reasoning; and such pleasure does not hinder the act of reason but helps it, because we are more attentive in doing that which gives us pleasure, and attention fosters activity.
On the other hand bodily pleasures hinder the use of reason . . . by distracting the reason. Because, as we have just said, we attend much to that which pleases us. Now when the attention is firmly fixed on one thing, it is either weakened in respect of other things or it is entirely withdrawn from them; and thus if the bodily pleasure be great, either it entirely hinders the use of reason by concentrating the mind’s attention on itself, or else it hinders is considerably (I-II,33,3).
Pleasure is in itself an inherent good. For “at God’s right hand there are pleasures evermore” (Ps 16:11).
Pleasure is good because it motivates good acts. Food tastes pleasant, and that motivates us to eat, and gain strength. Exercise, sports, hunting, writing, puzzle solving, imaginative creativity, music, love-making—all these are good for us, and God made them pleasant to motivate us to seek them out.
St. Thomas speaks of a great pleasure that many people in our society never think of: the pleasure of learning, the pleasure in the very act of reasoning (i.e., discovering truth) or, even more, in comprehending and contemplating and appreciating the truth attained.
In Heaven the tremendous pleasure of the Beatific Vision will motivate us to enter into it more deeply, and that deeper understanding will produce even more pleasure, which in turn will motivate us to enter into it more deeply, forever. We will never be bored, because God is infinite (literally infinite!) and we are forever finite, so there will be new truth and new pleasure at every moment. “Such pleasure does not hinder the act of reason but helps it.”
Extrinsic, alien pleasures do hinder the use of reason, by distracting it. It is difficult to solve philosophy problems when making love, either rightly, to your spouse, or wrongly, in fornication or adultery.
God invented pleasure. How Satan must enjoy it when he persuades us to feel automatically guilty about it, to think “this feels so good that it must be wrong.” That’s even stupider than the opposite error, “it feels so right that it can’t be wrong.” Kant taught that duty and inclination were by nature enemies. The Catholic Church teaches the opposite: it will not canonize a saint without evidence of great joy as well as heroic virtue. Joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit. (You could say that joy is deep pleasure, or that joy is the deepening of happiness as happiness is the deepening of pleasure.)
If Christians had believed that, and lived it, they would have converted the world. For everyone wants joy. Joy sells. (Fake joy sells too, but not for long.)
It’s not too late to begin the apostolate of joy.