Oct 9, 2009
Why do many Christians feel the need to differentiate joy and happiness?
Joy and happiness have different connotations, but such overlap in meaning that contrasting them seems linguistically inauthentic.
But we still try. Why?
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I guess I would quibble that it’s not linguistically inauthentic. Perhaps if you’re using joy in the context of happiness, but the meaning of joy is so much more rich… Consider it pure joy when you face trials of any kind… happiness doesn’t work there.
Happiness is fleeting. Joy is steadfast and long suffering.
“Joy is…long suffering,” well said.
Because we like to spiritualize even mundane speech. It’s plain silly.
I think it’s because the world can only stoke up your happiness, which is a shallower and more intense version of the same sensation that is joy. The Kingdom perpetuates joy, which is a much more pervasive and deeper version. It’s like the difference between “puppy love” between people who recently met, and the love that same couple would feel after thirty years.
I don’t know why. Perhaps it similar with “like” and “love” when we come to how we are suppose to feel about people? You don’t have to like someone but you are suppose to love them. How does that work? A deep affection is there in place of a surface emotion? I struggle with that.
Happiness is surface / Joy is deep?
I tell my four-year-old Love is wanting the very best for someone.
You can ‘love’ someone without ‘liking’ them because ‘love’ is an action toward a person which lies in ones choice to do so. Liking someone is an emotional response that one has little control over.
Yep. In the same way, happiness is an emotional response you have little control over, while joy is a decision you make to rest in the hope of God. Joy, like faith, is a decision that you make only by the gift of God’s grace. Joy is not “happiness, only more so.” It is a different kind of thing.
Joy is a fruit of the Spirit and comes from the Spirit. It can be irrational/illogical like loving one’s enemies or having peace in a storm or faithfulness when circumstances look bleak. (I not disagreeing with you, just adding.)
I agree, Abraham. The way the Bible uses “happy” is in the sense of “blessedness” and that, too, is the heritage of the Christian (Psalm 128:2). Joy, rejoicing and this happiness do overlap, such that the distinctions people make between them misinterpret God’s desire.
Happiness is based on what happens to you, whereas joy is found in the promises of God. You can have joy when bad things happen to you only if you are in Christ.
There is overlap in meaning of the two words, but two different words are needed to show who God really is.
I thave heard the distinction defended so that we can rejoice always and still mourn with those who mourn.
But, however you coin the terms, I would never call and unhappy person joyful.
The only way I can explain it is that during times of true suffering I have experienced something deeper than happiness–a sort of linguistically inexplicable joy.
Exactly. You directly observed a difference between “happiness” and “joy.” They are two different and independent concepts. No spiritualizing necessary.
I don’t know if they necessarily need to be differentiated, but I think they do need definition. At the very least it will cause you or the person you’re talking to to evaluate how the words are being used.
Actually, it’s simply a matter of observation. The ancient Greeks philosophers even made the distinction between fleeting happiness and a permanent sense of a fulfilled life. In the Christian context, joy is (like love) independent of feelings. Joy is what enabled Paul and Silas to sing in prison and virgins to be martyred in the Colosseum with serene smiles. You would call neither of those “happy” in those situations, but you can’t deny that there is a “joy” there.
Perhaps your dissatisfaction with the terms comes from modern evangelical sappy misuse of them.
The presence or absence of distinctions isn’t nearly as important as what we do with the distinctions, and why. They make a poor guise for self-righteousness – “Well you’re happy, but you don’t have the joy of the Lord that I have. Mine’s deeper.”
Why? Because of C.S. Lewis.
“Lewis used the word Joy to connote the highest definition of imagination, that is the sense of awe at the presence of the Objective Realty, the Absolute Truth, which lies outside of ourselves. [H]e distinguished these kinds of experiences of Joy from happiness and pleasure by observing their common quality as that of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction…”
(link)
I’ve heard them repeatedly differentiated as above in sermons. Is this difference authentic? Can someone provide the Greek and Hebrew words translated “joy” and “happiness” and show the difference between them? A quick look at Strong’s shows quite a bit of overlap.
Until I hear evidence to the contrary, I wonder if this is a cop-out. What about the times we are commanded to “rejoice” “leap for joy” “consider it pure joy” or “be joyful”? I’ve seen many people who were obviously unhappy claim to have “joy” on the inside.
It’s similar to why people say that Eskimos have more words for snow. Christian culture deals with joy/happiness more than other cultures – the concept is more important to Christian culture than others – and that is reflected by Christian vocabulary.
Plus, we’re shaped by the songs of our early childhood which teach us the difference – I’ve got joy (joy joy joy) down in my heart; but if I’m happy (and I know it) it exists in my clapping hands and stomping feet.
Brilliant analogy!
Abraham, I totally agree with you.
In an 1884 case called Butchers’ Union Co. v. Crescent City Co., Justice Samuel Miller wrote: “Among those unalienable rights, as proclaimed in [the Declaration of Independence], is the right of men to pursue their happiness…so as to give to them their highest enjoyment.”
So one way to say it would be to say happiness is protected by our courts, whereas joy is not.
I suppose John 15 would give us reason to believe Jesus protects our joy, so long as we abide in Him.
But big picture, I agree with you. If the different words are meaningful to people, then let them soak in those meanings. Otherwise, let them both speak for what comes in the presence of God.
If I’m not mistaken, Jefferson’s understanding of happiness is informed by the classical understanding of it that has prevailed for about 3000 years. He used happiness in the philosophical sense of “eudaimonia,” which is much closer to the sense in which we use the word “joy.” Eudaimonia refers to a permanent, non-emotional state of being in which one’s potential and purpose is fulfilled. The Greeks concluded that you could not say that a man was “happy” until his life ended because eudaimonia could only be measured by an entire lifetime.
And it must be noted that only the *pursuit* of eudaimonia–not eudaimonia itself–is guaranteed by our political documents.
Hi Tim,
Thanks for the reply. I’m learning satire doesn’t always translate well online. But I did learn something from you, so I’m grateful (this last part isn’t sarcastic)…
ct
Or I guess I should say, my entire reply to your comment wasn’t meant to be sarcastic.
Ah. My bad. Thanks for the clarification.
Because it makes us sound theologically correct.
I agree Abraham! As your dad has said, the Bible is indiscriminate in its use of pleasure language.
Many of the common Greek words for happiness, pleasure, gladness, and joy are all used with virtually the same meaning in the New Testament.
If this was Facebook, I’d give you a thumbs up…
One of our elders brings up your point time and time again.
His claim (and I would agree) is, in scripture, happiness and joy are both rooted in our circumstances: That while we were still sinners, Christ dies for us.
What better circumstance is there?
I don’t know what to say: only that I have felt utterly miserable and still found joy (happiness?) in God’s provision of eternal pleasures with him, while living in what is the closest to hell I’ll ever get. Pain seeps out of every pore, and yet I strive to find a way to explain the joy (happiness?) that God gives, even while he takes away.
I agree.
We DO have two distinct concepts we’re trying to communicate–satisfaction based on circumstances/certain desires being met vs. satisfaction that transcends circumstances/certain desires being met.
However, it’s only inaccurate imposition to say that a comparison of happiness and joy expresses that distinction.
I understand the desire to express the distinction concretely…we just need a more appropriate way to do it.
I think we differentiate because “happy” is used by everyone. Anyone, believer or not, may ask, “Are you happy?” or say, “You look happy”, but I think we would rarely hear a non-believer ask, “Are you joyful?” or say, “You look joyful” I feel like, on the surface, “happy” is a more worldly word than “joy”. However, as Christians, we should know that being happy in Christ is just as “spiritual” as being joyful. There doesn’t have to be a fleeting vs. eternal distinction.
My church differentiates between them, saying that happiness is temporary and joy is eternal. Happiness is usually uncontrolled and often rooted in sin. Joy is usually sober and peaceful… I don’t see any real Biblical basis for this, though.
I think we should just distinguish between deadly pleasure/happiness/joy and holy or godly pleasure/happiness/joy. Or… joy found in anything other than God, and joy found in God.
maybe it’s because non-Christians don’t seem to use the word “joy” much anymore. when they do, it’s usually describing pure childlike delight, or maybe a sublime/near-spiritual concert experience.
to some extent, i think it is an “artificial” distinction to make, for the reasons you stated, Abraham. however, it MAY be, as C.S. Lewis showed, pedantically useful to co-opt similar terms in the language and give them your own shades of meaning because you’re trying to make a conceptual distinction. i don’t KNOW that labeling concepts with a single word helps people conceptualize better, but it’s a rhetorical device used so often that maybe it does work.
What is the “need” driving such distinction-making? Either uncertainty about what a particular useage is (and scared to death of “misusing” Scripture) or desiring to impress and use something learned in Vine’s yesterday.
“Joy” is a christianese word that you won’t find outside of churches except rarely. Outside churches people talk about enjoyment or enjoying, which, though it is of the same root, means something a bit different. Linguistic inauthenticity, brother Piper, from the community that turned fellowship into a verb?
One word: C.S. Lewis
It’s important to do that because we need to distinguish the eternal from the temporary. But it often feels irrelevant because much of the world doesn’t get this “joy” we speak about, until people come to Christ.
I don’t differentiate. I don’t think scripture does either, so why try to pull at the edges of language to make a distinction that isn’t there?
I wonder if rather than pulling at the meaning of the words, it might be more helpful to make the distinction of what you are finding happiness or joy in. Happiness/Joy in God lasts, happiness/joy in stuff and circumstances doesn’t…
Myrddin, +1. I think it’s probably because we like to distinguish between short-term (happiness) and long-term (joy), or between something caused by an event (happiness) and an attitude (joy) or a character trait. But for me it’s mostly, like Myrddin says, because of CS Lewis’ writing on the subject.
The distinction, taken from C. S. Lewis, is often abused into a Gnostic distinction between earthly blessing and unearthly (that is, de-earthed) ecstasy. And then we take James as speaking primarily of a Buddhist-like detachment in perspective that will get us to not view suffering as suffering.
Rubbish. We believe in real and substantial hope on earth as it is in heaven, not dead faith’s change of perspective. We believe the Beatitudes are objectively true, not subjectively to be discovered in the mind.