One of the central questions in Theology involves the nature of God.  While religious studies employs different standards of proof that other disciplines in philosophy, one longstanding method has involved looking for logical consistency among different traits proposed.  In this lesson, the Polish philosopher Leszek Kołakowski calls for us to think about the question of God’s Happiness.  In answering this question, it requires that we both think about the nature of an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and omni-benevolent entity and to think about the notion of Happiness.

The students should start by answering and sharing their answers to the first two discussion questions first.  After this, they should read the Leszek Kołakowski article http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2012/12/20/is-god-happy/.  The teacher should also be prepared to talk about how happiness is measured in recent empirical studies.  A useful guide to this is found at http://worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl/hap_quer/introtext_measures3.pdf.

After reading the article, the students should answer the remaining discussion questions below.