Is God Happy? Selected Essays

Happiness is difficult even for Kołakowski (1927–2009), who rose quickly to professor of philosophy at the University of Warsaw until 1968, when the Communist regime's grip tightened and he left Poland for Berkeley, CA, and All Souls, Oxford. In this collection of 28 essays, ten of which appear for the first time in English, Kołakowski is preoccupied with religion (mostly Christianity) and the Stalinist twists and outcomes of Marxism. The remainder of his writings center on the theory of history and the history of philosophy. Kołakowski's Jesus is not God but rather a troubled man teaching love and opposing legalism. In some places, the author touches upon a possible apocalypse (e.g., in "Our Merry Apocalypse") but sees us, like God, as struggling with glimpsed fundamental values amid a sea of troubles and finds no final pattern in history or philosophy.