What is Real Flourishing?
You find this website, cock your head to one side, and scratch your head. You mutter under your breath. “Real flourishing? What is real flourishing?”
Great question.
Answering this question is the goal of this website and the aim of all the content that I write. My mission is twofold: to define true flourishing and to help people learn how to achieve this state in their own lives.
While you may visualize flourishing as a thriving garden, abounding with produce, this term extends far beyond agriculture. At its core, real flourishing is a holistic endeavor striving towards the well-being of our bodies, souls, and minds. In this article, I will define flourishing and then explain the six components that characterize a life of true health and vitality.
What is REAL Flourishing?
The concept of flourishing can be traced all the way back to the great philosopher, Aristotle. Human happiness, the highest good for Aristotle, is living well or doing well.[1] Aristotle coined a term for this highest good: Eudaimonia. He says that, “we agree that the ultimate good consists in the best kind of life for a human being.”[2] So, how does one achieve this “good life”? By pursing well-being in all realms of life.[3] Aristotle’s practice of Eudaimonia, equated here with flourishing, is not merely about intellectual excellence. For Aristotle, the pursuit of flourishing is a holistic endeavor “involving the interaction of reason, emotion, perception, and action in an ensouled body.”[4]
We are faced with the question: how do we achieve Eudaimonia?
To answer this, I will rely on a valuable resource by Tyler J. Vanderweele, titled A Theology of Health: Wholeness and Human Flourishing. Vanderweele expands on Aristotle’s concept of the good life. According to Vanderweele, “when the person is living in a state in which all aspects of their life are good, we might refer to that state as human flourishing.”[5] God’s good design entails the complete health of a person. Taken a step further, Christian flourishing is achieved when all aspects of a person’s life are ordered as intended by God.[6] Thus, true health will involve physical, mental, social, and spiritual well-being.[7]
Now, what about the fact that we are fallen creatures who dwell in a fallen world, corroded by sin? Living in a fallen world does affect our pursuit of flourishing—we must remember that because our world is not perfect, neither will our flourishing in this life be perfect.
Take heart: we can still experience flourishing in this life. Just not complete flourishing. But this is where the hope of Jesus and the Gospel comes in! Through Christ, Christians can flourish in this life and rest in the hope that Christ died to make us spiritually whole. We can rest in the fact that one day He will return and restore us to the complete life that we were designed for, communing with Him in the presence of God.
With the knowledge that believers await their final Eudaimonia in the life to come, we can still pursue the good life in a broken world. As we live in the in-between on this earth, we have a purpose: to bring God glory. And one key way to bring Him glory is to seek a life of flourishing in the following six areas.
How Do We Achieve Real Flourishing?
Vanderweele lists six aspects of human life that must be good and balanced to achieve true flourishing.[8] Because I think that these points are all encompassing, I will use them as my rubric for real flourishing.
1. Spiritual Well-Being
We must be right with God to experience flourishing. He is our Creator, the maker of mankind and the maker of the good. We cannot experience real flourishing in this life, or the life to come, without accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior through faith and living a life aligned with God’s word.
2. Relationships and Community
Without strong human relationships, forget flourishing! God has created us as communal beings. We can see this innate desire throughout our culture. From Facebook groups to online chat rooms, to pickleball leagues, to Cook Out parking lots—people crave community. We can see community in action in the analogy of the body of Christ. Some people are hands and some are feet, but we all need each other to thrive as the church body (Rm 12:4-5).
3. Virtue and Character
A flourishing life is not merely an external pursuit. We have to turn our gaze inward and refine our virtue and character to thrive. Aristotle believed that the truly flourishing person would act in accord with virtue, which could be cultivated through habits informed by reason.[9] Aristotle explains that, “the happy life seems to be a life in accord with virtue, which is a life involving serious actions, and not consisting in amusement.”[10] For Christians, a truly virtuous life is built on the foundation of God’s word.
4. Meaning
God has designed us as teleological beings. We are crafted by the Master Craftsman with a purpose, with teleology. Mankind was created as image bearers of God, to showcase His glory on the earth. Thus, because we are created with meaning, we innately crave meaning in life. This quest for purpose is threaded throughout our culture, from coming-of-age movies to the search for identity.
5. Happiness
This links back to Aristotle’s concept of Eudaimonia, in which happiness is a good that we seek for no other end than itself. Whether we are seeking it through helpful modes or not, we are all striving for the good life through happiness.
6. Health
According to Vanderweele, we are souls that “are embodied, and the health of the person thus includes that the body is healthy.”[11] You will find that this is a significant part of my content. I love sharing all things health and wellness from recipes, to non-toxic tips, to women’s health research, to exercise ideas, to biohacking. But. I always strive pursue physical health in the context of total flourishing. Our physical health is a component of our well-being, but not an isolated part.
Final Thoughts
Now, the question is answered: real flourishing is the pursuit of spiritual, communal, internal, teleological, and physical well-being. Remember, flourishing is not a moment or a destination. Flourishing a way of life. It’s a journey.
As I strive to honor God through holistic well-being, it is my desire to share content to help you do the same.
So, welcome here, friend! Ask yourself the question: Are you really flourishing?
Footnotes:
[1] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Terence Irwin (Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2019), 380.
[2] Irwin, Nicomachean Ethics, xvii.
[3] Irwin, Nicomachean Ethics, xvii.
[4] Thomas Nagel, “Aristotle on Eudaimonia,” Phronesis 17, no. 3 (1972): 252–59.
[5] Tyler J. VanderWeele, A Theology of Health: Wholeness and Human Flourishing (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2024), 13.
[6] Vanderweele, Theology of Health, 14.
[7] Vanderweele, Theology of Health, 10.
[8] Vanderweele, Theology of Health, 15-22.
[9] Vanderweele, Theology of Health, 19.
[10] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 193.
[11] Theology of Health, 16.