The Call to Happiness: Eudaimonism in English Puritan Thought [Hardcover]

In The Call to Happiness, Nathaniel A. Warne examines how sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Puritans adopted a eudaimonistic conception of ethics in their writings. He shows how classical eudaimonism within the Puritan context is related to other areas of theology, ethics, and politics, and that the idea of divine calling or vocation fits within Puritan eudaimonism. Warne further shows how work can also be understood as an aspect of human flourishing when illuminated from within this tradition of Christian eudaimonism alongside the doctrine of calling.Nathaniel A. Warne (PhD, Durham University, UK) is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Notre Dame in the Center for Social Concerns and also ministers in the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Indiana.

Nathaniel A. Warne is that rare thing: a rigorous philosophical theologian who is also deeply humane. This book is about how some of the most impressive people in the Christian tradition have wrestled with what it truly means to be happy  not just in theory, but also in practice. He not only understands the Puritans sympathetically in their own context, but also draws out their lessons for our own age, when the idea of 'happiness' has become so impoverished. Anyone who wants to enrich it again will benefit from reading this book. Alec Ryrie, Durham University

This illuminating book will be a welcome conversation partner for contemporary discussions on flourishing. Nathaniel Warnes well-researched treatment of the Puritan perspective of happiness carefully integrates their themes of virtue, contemplation, vocation and calling, and friendship that clearly reveals that the partial happiness of this world pales in comparison with its fulfillment in heaven. This insightful book deserves a wide readership! Tom Schwanda, Wheaton College

Few words explain our modern system of value better than happiness. We instinctually trust something as good if it makes us happy. Yet few ideas are more dl.