Should alleviating suffering always be the primary goal in treatment? This paper proposes that suffering can best be understood in the context of the flourishing life, from the intersecting vantage points of positive psychology, philosophy of theology. We further argue that in this context, we can articulate a role for suffering. Suffering can be understood as a marker of disordered living, a means of cultivating characteristics that are essential to the flourishing life, or an opportunity for worldview orientation. In sum, the role of suffering is not to endure it for its own sake, but for the sake of cultivating the flourishing life. Finally, we will consider some implications of this conceptualization for the practice of therapy.

Although character formation has always been a central goal of education, efforts to promote character education in schools have, in the last century, always been hampered by an inability to adequately define character. We offer the concept of the flourishing life as the appropriate context for defining and developing character. This concept, which includes a robust understanding of character, has historically prevailed in Western thought. We first recover some of the historical discussion, and then consider essential elements of the good life in light of this historical discourse and the findings of the social sciences, including the focused work on the flourishing life coming out of positive psychology. Finally, we consider some implications of a well-formed understanding of human flourishing for Christian higher education.In 1966, more than 80% of incoming college freshmen endorsed "developing a meaningful philosophy of life" as their top value (Astin, 1998). "Being very well off financially" lagged far behind, with only 45% of the freshmen endorsing this value as essential or very important. Forty years later, these two values have basically traded places, with "being very well-off financially" topping the charts, and "developing a meaningful philosophy of life" lagging far behind with only a 48.1% endorsement (Liu, Sharkness, & Pryor, 2008). Presumably this change is a reflection of deeper things. Identifying one's top value in life is a very fundamental question, rooted in a deeply embedded though perhaps unarticulated vision of what constitutes a good life. These students are pursuing financial well-being, one must assume, because they believe it is the key to personal well-being. To put the matter simply, they are not seeking a "meaningful philosophy of life" because they already have a philosophy of life: seeking financial well-being. They have not come to college to find a philosophy of life; they have come to college to get on with one.

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Recent controversies over integrating modern science and Scripture have led to faculty firings and wholesale changes in academic programs. An underlying question is the relationship between science and general revelation. This article argues that modern science and general revelation are not the same but the relationship between them depends upon the approach one takes to the object of general revelation. The article concludes with guidelines for integrating general and special revelation faithfully.