In Christian Counseling it is important to point your spiritual children to truth–not necessarily happiness. When I say happiness, I mean subjective happiness. On numerous occasions, happiness poses as an illusion. While the initial feeling appears good, the ultimate ending is destructive. Subjective relativism proposes a variety of truths and what constitutes happiness varies with each person. While at the lowest level, happiness can correspond with individual like and dislike, happiness in its truest sense is an objective reality. It is objective in that it satisfies man’s every desire and end. What corresponds with this and leads to this?
Truth leads to happiness. This is what as counselors, one must lead their spiritual children too. Ultimate truth which is God and his moral law is the only way to the Beatific vision which is perfect happiness. While not correlating truth and happiness as one thing, we are pointing out that a certain way of life that corresponds with the source of truth and happiness which is God is necessary for man.
Socrates pointed out that for things to be done correctly, one must follow a proper
procedure. Shoemakers, sewers, and farmers for example all follow a certain way to produce their product. If they deviate from this, then failure is the end result. If they follow the procedure, then success and happiness follow. Socrates believed that there was a proper way of living as well. If we followed the proper procedure, then happiness would result.
Hence as a counselor, if we truly want to lead our clients to happiness, we sometimes have to state the truth even if it dampers their subjective ideals on what happiness is or what they think it should be.
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Mark Moran, MA