Boethius, The Consolation 3.41

. . . Then said she, “Since these are your feelings, I think there is but little trouble left me before you may revisit your home with happiness in your grasp. But let us look into the matter we have set before ourselves. Have we not shown that complete satisfaction exists in true happiness, and we have agreed that God is happiness itself, have we not?”

“We have.”

“Wherefore He needs no external aid in governing the universe, or, if He had any such need, He would not have this complete sufficiency.”

“That of necessity follows,” I said.

“Then He arranges all things by Himself.”

“Without doubt He does.”

“And God has been shown to be the absolute good.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Then He arranges all things by good, if He arranges them by Himself, whom we have agreed to be the absolute good. And so this is the tiller and rudder by which the ship of the universe is kept sure and unbreakable.”

“I feel that most strongly,” I said; “and I foresaw that you would say so before, though I had a slight uncertainty.”

“I believe you,” she said, “for now you bring your eyes more watchfully to scan the truth. But what I am going to say is no less plain to the sight.”

“What is that?”

Since we may reasonably be sure that God steers all things by the helm of goodness, and, as I have shown you, all things have a natural instinct to hasten towards the good, can there be any doubt that they are guided according to their own will, and that of their own accord they turn to the will of the supreme disposer, as though agreeing with, and obedient to, the helmsman?”

“That is so,” I said, “and the government would not seem happy if it was a yoke upon discontented necks, and not the salvation of the submissive.” . . .

—from Book 3, Prose 12

I sometimes imagine the central argument of the first half of the Consolation like a tripod, where the intersection of three fundamental terms provides a stable structure for living life. Happiness. God. The Good. The simplest of images can often help ground an idea.

From the inside of me, I see that I need happiness above anything else. All other proximate things I may prefer or desire will be of no use to me at all if they are not in service to that ultimate end. Happiness is not when I simply gain this or that in the world, but when I gain that which satisfies all that I am within my own nature, that which leaves nothing to be desired.

From the outside of me, I see that the world, as mysterious as it may first appear, reveals itself to be subject to causality, purpose, and order. All changing, imperfect, and finite beings are only possible through unchanging, perfect, and infinite Being. The many only exist by the One. The Greek may call it Logos. The Hindu may call it Brahman. Boethius and I may call it God.

In between these two, I see the binding principle of what is good. I reach outward from within me to find rest in that to which nothing greater can be added. This is happiness, the object of my longing. All of reality itself also reaches outward toward me, expressing the total greatness, the all-inclusive harmony, the profound beauty of existence. This is God, the source of who and what I am.

The good is the middle term. Happiness is the desire for the most complete and self-sufficient good. The most complete and self-sufficient good is embodied in God. Therefore happiness is the desire for God.

Sometimes I pull away one of the legs of the tripod, and then I wonder why my life collapses. I despair whether I can ever be happy. Or I remove the Divine from the picture. Or I forget completely what it even means for something to be good. I thereby separate myself from my purpose, quite confused about my self-imposed misery.

Being a crewman on the ship will hardly get me anywhere at all, without the rudder of the good, and Divine Wisdom at the helm.

Whatever it may be, and to whatever degree it exists, it is within the nature of anything created to make itself complete, and thereby to aim at what is supreme. One might say that it strives to be rejoined to its source, to return to where it came from. I again come back to the insight that on its own it is nothing, but united to the whole it is everything. It acts of itself within the motion of all things.

I am especially in awe, even quite honored, that it is within my own human nature to act according to reason and will, and that therefore my actions follow from my own understanding and choice. To continue Boethius’ analogy, I am not treated as a slave on the ship, but as a volunteer. It will be up to me if decide to cooperate in the voyage, or sulk stubbornly in my berth.

Written in 10/2015