Right to Happiness

(In response to "We Have No Right to Happiness" by C.S. Lewis)
After reading paragraph one I was pretty sure I understood where Lewis was going with this article. I had assumed that he was stating that yes we do have a right to be happy, but this is only in certain situations and obviously not in the case of Mr. A. and Mrs. B. I too, "Can understand a right as a freedom guaranteed me by the laws of society I live in," and "as a claim guaranteed me by the laws, and correlative to an obligation on someone else's part." This is where Lewis brings up an excellent point by stating the motive for Clare's belief, "She meant that he had not only a legal but moral right to act as he did." This brought the factor of morality into my thought process of this argument. This made me think. I almost felt shorted. When beginning this article I had hoped to find an article preaching that we all had a right to be happy in Christ Jesus. I had hoped that this was going to build upon the other articles about us having joy on earth but a greater joy in heaven. But it does not.

Lets say there is a law that says you can go wherever you want to go. Does this mean that you can drive your can off of roads and into people's backyards ruining everything in your path? No, no it does not. This simple means that following all other penned and unwritten laws you may go wherever you want. One rule does not supersede all of the others, rather, a rule has to correlate with other laws. Not only must it reaffirm all other laws that are written, it must also pass the natural and moral laws.

C.S. Lewis goes on to say that Clare has never condoned a drunkard's actions simply because he was happy when he was drunk. It is here that one looks at himself and says, he's caught me. As much as I want to be able to say that everyone has a right to be happy, it is clear that this is not the case. I also believe it is here that Lewis changes the scope of his article. He then goes on to describe what is really at the heart of the argument. Not that man seeks happiness, but that man seeks "happiness" through temporary sexual impulses. This is where it became clear to me. This article does have correlation to the other articles we have read. It speaks of denying ourselves in the here and now, in the short term, because the things we experience here on earth are only fractions of the ecstasy that we will experience when we are living our eternal lives with him in heaven.

"To be in love involves the almost irresistible conviction that one will go on being in love until one dies,... not merely frequent ecstasies. /... When two people achieve lasting happiness, this is not solely because they are great lovers but because they are also.. good people; controlled, loyal, fair-minded, mutually adaptable people." People under control, denying themselves, picking up their crosses, and following Christ into eternal life.