Is it legitimate to correlate ‘blessedness’ and ‘happiness’? ‘Happiness’ can be an equivocal term, as it is used in different ways. If I were going to be precise I would describe the blessed man thus: one who is in a condition essential to true happiness and ultimately culminating in perfect happiness. This would guard against several misconceptions. It would prevent, for instance, the thought that in this life even the holy man’s happiness is without admixture of sorrow or pain. It would serve, by the addition of the adjective ‘true’ to distinguish ‘happiness’ from ‘pleasant sensation’. It would emphasize not so much the emotional condition as the objective grounds for that condition –not the rejoicing, but the reason. However, I think there is an advantage to using happiness without making these qualifications. For one thing, ultimately, happiness and evil are absolutely opposed. In this time things are not yet in their full development; the wheat and tares are yet together. And so in this time certain forms of happiness do coexist with certain forms of evil. But this is only because neither happiness nor evil has yet come to its mature condition. In principle they are utterly opposite; and that entire opposition will be manifest at the end of the age.
A text which could seem to be against this statement is: ‘blessed are they that mourn’ (Matthew 5:4) points us to the more technical description of happiness given above; and by its paradox it invites us to think more deeply. Those who truly mourn will be truly comforted; their position is a happy one, though the process of mourning is not always attended immediately with subjective comfort. To put it simply: blessedness is objective and subjective. In time, of course, these two shall meet and merge when God wipes away all tears from our eyes. In the present time, we recognize the objective blessedness; in recognizing it, of course, we also partake of the subjective element, the happiness.
Are we happy? Yes. God is our God, and “happy is that people whose God is the Lord.” Do we always feel happy? By no means; but there are always grounds for happiness, and those grounds are totally opposed to evil.