The Gospel of Happiness: How Secular Psychology Points to the Wisdom of Christian Practice

February 13, 2020
Posted by Administrator

Labels: aquinas, christopher kaczor, ethics, eudaimonism, featured books, Gospel of Happiness (book), moral psychology
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In 2019, St. Augustine’s Press released the 2nd edition of The Gospel of Happiness: How Secular Psychology Points to the Wisdom of Christian Practice by Christopher Kaczor. Dr. Christopher Kaczor is professor of philosophy at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Dr. Kaczor’s research on issues of ethics, philosophy, and religion has been in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Huffington Post, and National Review, as well as on NPR, BBC, EWTN, ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, MSNBC, TEDx, and The Today Show.

From the publisher’s description of The Gospel of Happiness:

Just as Aristotelian metaphysics provided a new basis for the natural theology of Aquinas’s time, so too, positive psychology provides a basis for a natural moral theology in our own time. this book marshals the empirically verifiable findings of positive psychology that show the wisdom of the Christian tradition. Christian warnings about the dangers of greed, coveting a neighbor’s goods (social comparison), and pride find an empirical verification. Likewise, positive psychology vindicates the wisdom of Christian teaching on the importance of forgiveness, of gratitude, of humility, and of serving one’s neighbor. moreover, positive psychology also can be a service to Christian believers by helping them in their struggles with willpower, by providing new motivations for prayer, and by helping them identify their signature strengths. Finally, this book argues, in a variety of ways, that it is folly to think that even the best of psychology can serve as a replacement for Christianity.