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This chapter outlines one Christian theological account of human flourishing, with its roots in the Reformed Protestant tradition, but also drawing on other Christian traditions and disciplinary perspectives. Human flourishing is understood as the fulfillment of God’s good purposes for human creatures and (following the Reformed theologian Karl Barth) includes the dimensions of relationship with God, relationships with others, living a physically embodied and integrated life, and living out a particular vocation in a particular place and time. This theological account of flourishing is brought into dialogue with current social-scientific models of well-being, particularly hedonic and eudaimonic models, and points of agreement and critique are identified. Finally, the chapter suggests a few ways in which this theological account might have practical implications for the measurement and promotion of well-being or human flourishing.

Measures of well-being have proliferated over the past decades. Very little guidance has been available about which measures to use in particular contexts. This chapter provides a series of recommendations, based on the present state of knowledge and the existing measures available, of which measures might be preferred in which contexts. The recommendations came out of an interdisciplinary workshop on the measurement of well-being and are shaped around the number of items that can be included in a survey and also based on the differing potential contexts and purposes of data collection such as, for example, government surveys, multiuse cohort studies, or studies specifically about psychological well-being. The recommendations are not intended to be definitive but instead to stimulate discussion and refinement and provide guidance to those relatively new to the study of well-being.