63. Why nothing but God can possibly ever make you completely happy
63. WHY NOTHING BUT GOD CAN POSSIBLY EVER MAKE YOU COMPLETELY HAPPY
I know St. Thomas says that only God can make you happy. But isn’t that a matter of faith, not reason? And isn’t that true just for the saints, or for religious people? Why does he have to impose his values on everyone else? Is there a logical, necessary, universal reason for this exclusivism?
It is impossible for any created good to constitute man’s happiness. For happiness is the perfect good, which satisfies the appetite altogether; else it would not be the last end, if something yet remained to be desired. Now the object of the will, i.e., of man’s appetite, is the universal good, just as the object of the intellect is the universal true. Hence it is evident that nothing can satisfy man’s will except the universal good. This is to be found not in any creature but in God alone, because every creature has goodness by participation. Wherefore God alone can satisfy the will of man. . . . Therefore God alone constitutes man’s happiness.
Augustine says: As the soul is the life of the body, so God is man’s life of happiness (I-II,2,8).
Your body is much smaller than the universe, but your heart is much bigger—infinitely bigger. Your heart is that which loves, that which desires, that which seeks, that which hunts and hungers for happiness. Your heart has a hole in it, like a keyhole. It is a very strangely shaped hole, but, then, Christianity is a very strangely shaped religion. Neither of these two shapes is obvious, both seem at first sight surprising, even incredible, but they match.
They match in size as well as shape. The keyhole is bigger than the universe. The entire universe isn’t a big enough key to turn that lock and open the secret of your heart. You are a God-sized keyhole, a God-shaped vacuum, an infinitely deep canyon that you keep trying to fill with finite rocks.
Either nothing fills it, and life’s deepest desire, unlike all other desires, is meaningless because it points to nothing real; or else God alone can fill it. Take your choice. Choose ultimate meaninglessness if you wish. Perhaps you can’t be definitively proved to be wrong. But what a stupid choice it is! What do you get out of that? What can you possibly gain? Or choose ultimate meaningfulness if you wish. Perhaps you can’t be definitively proved to be right. But what can you lose? And what a glorious choice it is! What an adventure, what a hope, what a meaning and light and love and purpose that choice infuses into life! If you love life, why not believe, surrender, accept God’s marriage proposal to your soul? You have nothing to lose but your pride and your misery. (They always go together.)
St. Thomas does not claim to prove here that God will satisfy your soul. But he does prove that “God alone can satisfy.” That is, he proves (1) that nothing but God (the true God, the real God, the God of love, not the gods of paganism or modernism or Phariseeism) can satisfy your deepest longing, and (2) that God can. Whether He will or not is up to His will and yours: His will to give and yours to accept. Gifts must be freely given and freely received. In fact He will make love to your soul and make it spiritually pregnant, but He will not rape you. He leaves you free to say No. You just have to trust Him for the first part, His willingness to give. But the second part, your willingness to receive, is up to you.
God is not an option for “religious people” (whoever they are). God is the only game in town. God is the very life of your soul as the soul is the life of your body. That’s the point St. Thomas makes in quoting St. Augustine. (All of St. Thomas is really only an enormous elaboration and explanation of St. Augustine, especially his most famous saying, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, and (therefore, that’s why) our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”) The point is simple: Your body isn’t happy without your soul. A body without a soul is a corpse. And your soul isn’t happy without God. A soul without God is a spiritual corpse, a zombie. There are real zombies: spiritual zombies, not physical zombies. Jesus came to earth to save the zombies. Jesus died so that He could put life—His life—into your soul.
He does this in an astonishing way: you drink His blood. Really. (I warned you it was a very strangely shaped key!) That’s what He said (Jn 6:53). Salvation is a blood transfusion.