How To Find Happiness In Prison (and Other Hard Places)

Bad things happen to everyone. About 1,500 years ago, life quickly went from very good to about as bad as can be imagined for Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius. He came from a well-connected family, married an aristocrat, and held various high posts in the government. His aristocratic lifestyle enabled him to pursue his true passion (philosophy), and he had the good fortune of seeing his sons hold the highest office they could hold. Then, suddenly, King Theodoric accused him of treason. Boethius subsequently languished under house arrest in Pavia—far from the gears of power and his philosophical library—until he was executed in 524.

Boethius went from on top of the world to being crushed on the bottom—something that could happen to any of us. Despair crept in. His response was to write an enduring piece of philosophy: The Consolation of Philosophy. This classic book has been beloved by Christian thinkers like King Alfred and Thomas Aquinas. C. S. Lewis counted Consolation as one of the 10 most influential books in his life.

The great central question of Consolation is what happiness is and how we find it. Although Boethius enlists Stoic and Platonic thought to aid him, the book is flooded with the theology of Augustine, which helped frame his Christian faith. That’s what makes this book a Christian classic.

Wheel of Fortune

Boethius begins Consolation in lament. Yet his sorrow is abruptly pushed aside by the arrival of Lady Philosophy, who engages him in a philosophical dialogue for the rest of the work.

Boethius went from on top of the world to being crushed on the bottom—something that could happen to any of us.

Like most of us, Boethius had been seeking happiness through the things Fortune had provided. But Fortune abandoned him. Rank, position, wealth, health, pleasure—most people seek these in their pursuit of happiness. None will last.

Earthly things can be snatched away in an instant. The wheel of Fortune turns. He who is a king one day is a pauper the next. The moral: If you trust your happiness to Fortune, you’ll lose it. Boethius argues,

In order to see that happiness can’t consist in things governed by chance, look at it this way. If happiness is the highest good of rational nature and anything that can be taken away is not the highest good—since it is surpassed by what can’t be taken away—Fortune by her very mutability can’t hope to lead to happiness. (2.4)

Though ultimate happiness doesn’t come from the things of this world, Boethius doesn’t reject finding some good in this life. For example, he affirms the good of family. Nevertheless, Lady Philosophy pushes Boethius beyond a family focus and into a quest for ultimate happiness.

Beyond Stoicism

Where on earth can we find true happiness? So far, we’ve been swimming in pretty Stoic waters. But here, Boethius departs from Stoicism. Whatever good one may find in Stoicism, it can’t bring us (or Boethius) the true happiness we seek—as recently demonstrated in Thomas Ward’s book about Boethius, After Stoicism.

As Boethius and Lady Philosophy dialogue back and forth, we see that true happiness can only be found in God. God himself is the only truly happy One. Moreover, Boethius argues that God is happiness itself:

Since it is through the possession of happiness that people become happy, and since happiness is in fact divinity, it is clear that it is through the possession of divinity that they become happy. But by the same logic as men become just through the possession of justice, or wise through the possession of wisdom, so those who possess divinity necessarily become divine. Each happy individual is therefore divine. While only God is so by nature, as many as you like may become so by participation. (8.5)

We can only find happiness insofar as we participate in the divine nature, one of many Augustinian truths Boethius expresses. As Peter wrote, we become “partakers of the divine nature” through God’s promises (2 Pet. 1:4).

The object of Consolation is to engage in philosophical discourse on the question of happiness. Though Boethius doesn’t hand us a devotional guide on how to partake of the divine nature, he’s no half-hearted, half-pagan Christian philosopher. He takes us a step beyond the cold, almost impersonal deity of pagan Stoicism, into the arms of the loving God into whose likeness we’re being formed.

Perennial Answers

Boethius reminds us that much of the human experience is universal. The final books of Consolation address the perennial questions we all face: the problems of evil, suffering, and the prosperity of the wicked.

Christians can rest in the knowledge that God is in perfect control of everything.

Ultimately, the great consolation from these final chapters is that God is in control. Truly good things—those that most exist and have the most real power—can never be taken away from those who are found in God. Christians can rest in the knowledge that God is in perfect control of everything. He sees all history in a simultaneous instant of perfect love and sufficient power.

Consolation is an enduring example of Christian thought. Boethius’s questions well from the deepest pit of disappointment. His answers, driven on inexorably by God’s good gift of logic, rise to point toward happiness in God. Everything else is a temporary good.

It’s unlikely most of us will be thrown into prison or lose everything as Boethius did. Yet The Consolation of Philosophy provides perennial answers for the persistent questions we face about evil in this world. It encourages our hearts and enlightens our minds. That’s why it’s worth rediscovering as a forgotten classic.