How should the Greek word makarios be translated in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3ff)?  It is tempting to use the more contemporary word ‘happy’.  But (writes Scott McKnight), this is problematic:-

“Happiness” is about inner contentedness and material flourishing. That is, many today think it is a right not only to have life but to have a good life. Here are several suggestions now about what happiness means.

1. Primarily happiness is understood as a subjective “feeling good about oneself and one’s life and one’s situation.”
2. Happiness has become both a right and achievable now.
3. The pursuit of happiness never ends; it is instead a “hedonic treadmill.” Once the center is pleasure or feeling good, that center becomes a source of unending demand for more and more.
4. Happiness research shows that it is largely the comparative that satisfies the subjective: that is, one becomes happy by comparing herself or himself with others who have less, and as long as one has more, one is happy. But those studies also show that diminishment in happiness enters once one has more than the necessities of life.
5. We also have learned that happiness is rooted in genetics: certain temperaments and dispositions are more capable of achieving this subjective sense of feeling good than are others: those who are sociable, active, stable, and conscientious tend to be more “happy.” Not only is happiness genetic, but it is connected to our life span: we reach the nadir of happiness at age 44 and after that it’s a gentle stroll of increasing happiness all the way home.
6. Happiness can be generated falsely by the imagination. Our capacity to dream and to put things in the context of what we think our reality eventually will be creates greater chances of happiness, whether that imagined future ever occurs or not.

Sermon on the Mount (The Story of God Commentary Series)

While recognising the measure of truth found in the thoughts noted above, we should note that the quest for happiness is both good and inevitable.  The question then becomes, ‘In what (on in whom) do I find my happiness?’; and, ‘How shall I find it?’  Shall we seek it in the created things, or in the Creator?

Pascal wrote:-

‘All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.’ (Pensees, p. 113, thought #425).

And Jonathan Edwards said, concerning happiness:-

‘It is not only natural to all mankind, but to the angels; it is universal among all reasonable, intelligent beings, in heaven, earth, or hell, because it flows necessarily from an intelligent nature. There is no rational being . . . without a love and desire for happiness. It is impossible that there should be any creature made that should love misery, or not love happiness, since it implies a manifest contradiction; for the very notion of misery is to be in a state that nature abhors, and the notion of happiness is to be in such a state as is most agreeable to nature.’

This being so, we choose ‘blessed’ over ‘happy’ for the beatitudes, not because the pursuit of happiness is wrong, but because it is too often pursued with the wrong goal, and by the wrong means.  ‘Blessed’ describes the condition of those who live under God’s favour.  And they are happy indeed.