Thomas’s View of Ultimate End

Thomas begins the second part of Summa Theolgiæ with the treatise on happiness or man’s purpose. He starts slowly and builds his case over five questions. We are going to walk through the treatise and explain what is needed to understand the context of Grisez’s objection. The first article of question one asks, Does man act for an end? Thomas argues that a human act is a free act that flows from man’s reason and will. Activities that flow from a power are shaped by its object, and the object of the will is “an end and a good.” (I-II.1.1) Thus Thomas concludes all human acts are for an end.

In article four of the first question, Thomas argues that there must be an ultimate goal to human life. If there were not, then “nothing would be desired (appeteretur), no activity would be finished, no desire (intentionis) would come to rest.” (I-II.1.4) The essential ordering of acts in both the order of intention and execution require a first in order to have motion. And having a first requires having an ultimate end.

Thomas makes the stronger point in article six that not only does man have an ultimate end, but everything he wills is willed for the ultimate end. He offers two arguments for this. We have already seen that human acts are for some end. Thomas argues that if the good willed is not desired as the perfect (ultimate) end, then it must be desired as tending toward it. Utilizing a premise observed to be true in both art and nature, Thomas claims that a start is only made in order to come to a finish. Thus any good willed that is not the ultimate end is an anticipation of that perfect good.

The second argument is from an analogy. Aquinas asserts that the ultimate end “with respect to rousing desire (appetitum) is like the first mover with respect to other motions.” (I-II.1.6) In other motions secondary movers are only set in motion by the first mover. And, concluding from the analogy, secondary ends (objects of desire) do not attract except as subordinate to the perfect end.

This is enough background to get to one of the more important claims Thomas makes. In article five, Aquinas is arguing that each man can only have one ultimate end at any given time. As a premise in his first argument Thomas claims, “The ultimate end ought so to fulfill a man’s whole desire (appetitum) that nothing is left beside for him to desire (appetendum). Now this would not be the case were something else outside it still wanted (requiratur).” (I-II.1.5) This is a crucial premise for Grisez’s second argument. It is the first appearance of this principle (2a), and it is the one that Grisez references in support of his use of it.ⁱ

Moving beyond question one, Thomas examines what this perfect good or beatitude is. He spends question two excluding things that some pursue as ultimate end. He concludes that beatitude can be found in no created good, for “the object of the will (voluntatis), that is the human appetite (apetitus), is the Good without reserve, just as the object of the mind is the True without reserve. Clearly, then, nothing can satisfy man’s will (voluntatem) except such goodness, which is found, not in anything created, but in God alone.” (I-II.2.8) So the object of our happiness can only be God.

In question three, Thomas is concerned with what happiness is. In article one Thomas observes that there are two sides to an end. First there is the end itself, which is what the previous question was about. Second, there is the attainment and enjoyment of that end. Question three is concerned with this second element, what is beatitude on the side of the happy subject. According to his normal way of proceeding, Thomas begins with the general and narrows it
down.

In article two he establishes that beatitude is an activity, for “activity is the full expansion” of a being. (I-II.3.2) Thus, beatitude must consist in man’s culminating actuality, which is his culminating actuality. This culminating activity is not found in our sensitive part (I-II.3.3), the will (I-II.3.4) or in practical reason (I-II.3.5). Instead, beatitude is found in man’s highest activity, which is “when his highest power is engaged with its highest object.” (I-II.3.5) Thomas claims that the highest power is our speculative intellect and its highest object is divine good. Thus, in article eight he concludes that perfect beatitude can consist only in the intellectual vision of God.

Before looking at question four, it will be helpful to understand some distinctions Aquinas makes in how he discusses the elements of happiness. In question three article three Thomas explains three ways a part can belong to happiness: as a constituent or essentially, as an antecedent and as a consequent. Thomas thinks that the essence of happiness is in an activity. (I-II.3.2.ad 2) Yet happiness has properties that are not constitutive of its essence and yet are, in a sense, essential. As risibility is a consequent essential property to a rational animal so is delight a consequent essential property to happiness.ⁱⁱ Although it is implicit in the above distinctions, it is important to note that these distinctions mean beatitude has accidental elements. Relating this to the distinction between perfection according to essence and well-being, perfections according to being are accidental to happiness.

In question four, Aquinas examines what elements are required for happiness. In article one he discusses different ways that something can be required for another. He concludes that pleasure or delight is required for happiness as an accompaniment. Thus something not essential to happiness can be required in some way.

Finally, in article five, Aquinas asks Whether the body is necessary for man’s happiness? He answers no and offers two reasons. The second is relevant to our inquiry. He has already shown that happiness is constituted by the intellectual vision of God. The mind requires the body for its activity when its thinking relies upon images. But the vision of God is not communicated through images. Thus the body is not required for happiness and the soul can be happy without it. But as we have seen the body does enter into happiness as a perfection of its well-being.

Objection one argues that the body is required for happiness because the completion of happiness presupposes the completion of human nature. But human nature is not complete without the body. Thus the disembodied soul cannot be happy. Objection two is similar but argues from happiness being complete activity. Complete activity presupposes existing completely, which the separated soul does not have. Thus the separated soul cannot have beatitude. The first two objections Thomas offers to this article clarify his reasons for designating the body an accidental perfection of happiness.

Thomas’s replies to the first two objections make two points. First, “happiness is a perfection of the soul on the part of the intellect, in respect of which the soul transcends the organs of the body; but not according as the soul is the natural form of the body.” (I-II.4.5.ad 1) ⁱⁱⁱ So happiness is a perfection of the intellect in its body transcending activity, not as it is the form of a body. Second, Thomas gives a metaphysical argument that the disembodied soul has a
kind of completeness. The being of the form and matter in a thing is identical; it is the being of the composite. But the human soul subsists. (I.75.2)^iv Thus the disembodied soul maintains a kind of completeness or perfect existence, and thus it has perfect operation. Thus the disembodied soul can enter into the essence of beatitude.^v With this background we can begin our response to Grisez’s arguments.

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i Grisez., 39.

ii “And so it is manifest that not even the delight resulting from the perfect good is decisive point of happiness, but a sort of essential property or result of it.” (I-II.2.6).

iii English Dominican translation.

iv Thomas Aquinas, Man, vol. 11 (I.75-83) of Summa Theologiæ, trans. Timothy Suttor (1968, repr., USA: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

v Part of objection three is also answered by this reply. Thomas objects, “happiness is fulfillment for a human being. Now a soul without a body is not a human being. Therefore happiness cannot lie in a soul without a body.” His reply is short, happiness is a man’s in respect his mind, so that happiness can still be his, somewhat as an Ethiopian’s teeth, in respect of which he is said to be white, can stay white even after they have been extracted.” Grisez takes this reply as off base, “By assuming that the separated soul is a human being, that reply misses the objection’s point.” (Grisez, 50n) Instead of making an ungrounded assumption, Thomas clearly just did not think the point needed repeating since he had made his argument in the previous paragraph. Although Grisez does not deal with Thomas’s argument that the disembodied soul has completeness, he does offer textual support that Aquinas thought the soul was incomplete without the body. But this seems to be a given, instead the question is What kind of completeness and incompleteness does a disembodied soul have?