Prince and happiness

"All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves."  Pascal, Pensees

With the passing of Prince, the world lost one of its most creative Christians.  One things about Prince that probably most will not know, is he was very conservative -- for instance, against gay marriage -- in his views. 

It is fascinating to me on what level thoughtful Christians -- brilliant Christian minds like Prince, and Robert George, Larry Wall and John Piper -- think opposing things like gay marriage fits in any way into the story of Christianity and the life of Jesus. 

In epistemology, a defeater is a belief that cannot be held with other beliefs. In Scripture, there are two clear defeaters of understanding our place in this world to be anything other than helping to alleviate suffering and promoting rights, justice and mercy, and both are from Paul (well the second may not be). 

In Galatians 2:20 Paul writes, "I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I live. Not me, but Christ (inside me). And the life I live in the flesh I live by (meaning Jesus') the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me". 

In Hebrews, one of the most well known verses in the Bible, 8:6. " And without Faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek Him."  

The Galatians verse makes it clear we do nothing. But even more so, its the Hebrews verse. What are we doing when we seek God? Are we realizing we are fools or thieves or worse? Are we "repenting"? Are "we seeing the light"? Or are we doing what every man and woman since we outcompeted the Neanderthals and were provided a soul have done? 

Pascal via Hebrews is of course right. Even women and men that seek God do so out of reward -- out of lust and pursuit for happiness.  How we take that to mean we should spend any God-given energy on blocking the pursuit of happiness of others seems to me quite strange. In fact, it seems to me we know from the life of Christ exactly what we should be spending our energy on, which looks much different.