‘Seek first the kingdom’

The instinctual connection between wealth and happiness is deep and strong in the human consciousness. At the founding of America this linkage was so significant that the signers of the Declaration of Independence adapted the Lockean formula, “life, liberty, and pursuit of property,” updating it to the more famous trio of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” This could be plausibly read as a spiritualizing of the more worldly Lockean perspective, since “happiness” in the 18th century understanding could not be simply reduced to material terms.

Modern economics and psychology have grappled with the relationship between wealth and happiness, with economics more often focused on the former and psychology on the latter. A common distinction is made between “objective” and “subjective” well-being, with objective well-being corresponding to the realm of economics, material goods, and observable phenomena, while subjective well-being has to do more with senses of self-worth, enjoyment, and good feelings.

Undoubtedly some level of material, objective wealth is an element of human flourishing, as are subjective feelings of pleasure and contentment. But even when combined these two elements of human experience do not exhaust the possibilities for blessedness. Indeed, it is with this more expansive understanding of blessedness, prospering, or flourishing that we can move beyond merely temporal, material, and psychological perspectives on happiness. There is an undeniable and irreducible spiritual element of human nature that must be reckoned with.

This missing dimension of human reality limits the power of economics, psychology, and all other social sciences to explain the human person in a comprehensive sense. The Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer described the problems with “a secular form of pastoral care” that can reckon with sickness and health but not with the spiritual significance of sin. The Reformed theologian and statesman Abraham Kuyper argued powerfully that the vision of the human person has significance for whatever form of scholarly inquiry or discipline is under examination. “Man, be he a fallen sinner or an evolving product of nature,” contends Kuyper, “shows up in every department and every discipline as ‘the subject that thinks’ or ‘the object that invites thought.’”

The partial explanations offered by economics and psychology might be true in a limited sense, but without a spiritual aspect they run aground when they try to explain complex realities like happiness and its connection to material goods.

The problem has proved so vexing that it has been described as a paradox. If material wealth is a good thing, and more is better than less, then why do there seem to be objectively observable limits to the subjective good experienced by the increases in wealth? This paradox seems to be a social as well as an individual phenomenon. That is, at the level of societies there seems to be a point at which increases in economic growth do not correspond to increases in happiness or “subjective well-being.” And this seems to be the case at the macro level of community as well as the micro level of the individual person. There are levels at which increases in income not only do not contribute to increases in happiness but actually can reduce measures of subjective well-being.

Part of the solution to this seeming paradox is very clear: It simply does not follow that because something is good then that thing is good in infinite quantities. Food is good to eat, but if we consume too much of it then we cause harm instead of promoting our body’s health. We need oxygen to live, but it is possible to overdose on oxygen. We need water to survive, but we cannot live in an ocean.

Wealth is good, and we need it not only to survive but to thrive. But when our pursuit of property is disordered and untethered to more ultimate goods, it leads to sickness and sadness rather than health and happiness. “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you,” Augustine confessed to God.

Jesus teaches us clearly: “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15). Likewise Jesus taught us to pray for material goods, but only as properly related to spiritual goods. “Give us our daily bread,” we ask, but we also petition God to “forgive us our sins.”

The solution to the paradox of wealth and happiness is, in the end, spiritual. God knows that we need material goods. But he also knows that we must enjoy them only in proper relationship to spiritual goods. “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,” Jesus instructs, “and all these things,” that is, whatever we need, whether clothes, houses, cars, or paychecks, “will be added to you.” Understanding this deep truth and putting it into practice will not only make us happy but indeed blessed, as “the poor in spirit” and “those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Matthew 5:3,6).