Question Three: On Formal Beatitude

S. Th. I-II, q. 3; C. Gent. III, 35, 26, 37, 40, 44.

30. State of the Question. - Formal beatitude (eudaimonia) is the possession or fruition of the Highest Good. The Highest Good is God. But since God is a good distinct from us and external, we shall not be blessed unless in some way we are joined to Him Himself. Hence, although as to cause or object it is something uncreated, nevertheless beatitude itself according to essence or form is something created existing in man himself.

Whence it is now asked by what created mode that attainment is made, or what is that union with God by which subjective beatitude is constituted (q. 3, a. 2).

31. Thesis I. Formal beatitude consists in the most perfect knowledge of God which man can acquire according to his capacity, and in the love following upon it. - It is proved:

1. Formal beatitude consists in the conscious conjunction of ourselves with the beatifying object, God.

But God, as immaterial, cannot be attained directly and formally by sense, but only by the mind, that is, by immaterial faculties, intellect and will; for He is an intelligible good, not a sensible one.

Therefore formal beatitude cannot consist except in an act of intellect and will, or in knowledge and love. But it is knowledge relatively most perfect according to each one's capacity, so that nothing remains to be desired by him; otherwise it would not be our ultimate perfection or true beatitude.

2. From St. Thomas after Aristotle: formal beatitude consists in an act, not of the inferior and sensitive part, but of the intellective part, and indeed in the contemplation of God and the love following upon it. For:

a) it is not in potency or habit, but in act, because the ultimate perfection of man is in act and operation, which is the ultimate act of the one operating. For since potency is ordered to act, nothing is perfect unless it is in second act. Whence a thing is said to be for the sake of operation (a. 2);

b) it is in the operation, not of the sensitive part, which man has in common with beasts and by which he cannot be joined to God, but in the operation of the most excellent part, which is especially proper to man, namely, of the intellective part (a. 3);

c) it is in the best operation of the intellective part, namely, with respect to the best object: spiritual faculties are fully perfected and satiated only when they fully attain this object, through contemplation of the Highest Truth and fruition of the Highest Good. Therefore beatitude consists in the knowledge and love of God; and indeed in the most perfect degree possible (a. 5).

3. "Each thing tends into the divine likeness as into its proper end" (or proper good; for every being is perfect insofar as it participates, according to its capacity, in the goodness of the highest good). "Therefore that through which each thing is most assimilated to God is its ultimate end. But the intellectual creature is most assimilated to God by the fact that it is intellectual: for it has this likeness before other creatures, and this includes all others. But within the genus of this likeness, it is more assimilated to God according as it actually understands... God Himself; for God, by understanding Himself, understands all other things. Therefore to understand God is the ultimate end of every intellectual substance" (Contra Gentiles III, 25).

4. Hence the Scriptures and the Fathers call the end of man eternal life. But life is the motion of a living being proceeding from itself, and is not in habit but in operation: namely, it is the vital operation by which it lives in second act. This life is the knowledge of God, according to John XVII, 3; it is the love of charity (I Cor. XIII, 8-13) and intimate friendship (Apoc. XIX, 7; XXI); and in this our beatitude consists (Mt. V, 8; XXV, 21, 34, 46).

32. Thesis II. In the present order of Providence, beatitude is not natural, consisting in the abstract, mediate, and analogical knowledge of God, even though most perfect, but supernatural, consisting in the immediate, intuitive, and proper vision of the divine essence.

The natural end is that to which we would have been destined if God by gratuitous goodness had not elevated us to the supernatural end, the vision of Himself in Himself. Now the natural end is the attainment of God known by reason alone, or abstractive contemplation of God through creatures, but in the most perfect mode by which it could be done by our powers, namely, by a science of the whole universe so perfect that nothing naturally knowable would remain; for if nature possesses all things to which it can arrive by its own powers, now all its absolute desires are fulfilled and nothing remains to be desired. This is our natural happiness, owed to nature.

But now we are destined to a supernatural end beyond the exigencies and powers of our nature, namely, to seeing God in an intuitive mode, face to face, without medium, that is, to seeing and loving God and enjoying Him in the same mode (although not in the same degree) as God sees and loves Himself and enjoys Himself, so that we participate in the divine life itself (St. Thomas, I, q. 62, a. 1; Q. D. De Veritate 27, a. 2).

Thus we shall have not only natural happiness, but we shall be sharers of divine happiness itself.

It is proved:

1. From the Scriptures. a) St. Paul, describing the state of final perfection, teaches that it is in the vision of God, face to face (I Cor. XIII, 12). The expression "face to face," according to Hebrew usage, always indicates the presence of person to person; and to see face to face signifies intuitive vision in itself, especially because it is opposed to mediate knowledge (through a mirror), and to imperfect and obscure knowledge (in an enigma), and to analogical knowledge (in part). Hence the Apostle adds: then I shall know even as I am known, that is, by God; but God sees us intuitively; therefore we also shall intuitively see God.

b) St. John, who called eternal life the knowledge of God (XVII, 3), adds that in it we shall see God as He is, because we shall be like God (I John III, 2), who sees Himself; but God sees Himself intuitively; therefore we also, being like Him, shall so see Him.

2. From Tradition, whose witnesses are Benedict XII in the constitution Benedictus Deus (1336), and the Council of Florence (for the union of the Greeks) after the Council of Vienne (a. 5), which define as a dogma of faith that beatitude is the vision of God. But this is supernatural, as we know from the Vatican Council, session 3, chapter 2 and canon 3.

3. These things being posited, St. Thomas proves from reason that the natural end can no longer satiate man, nor therefore be perfect happiness: man is not perfectly blessed so long as there remains for him something to be desired and sought. But the intellect seeks perfect knowledge of the very essence of things: thus, seeing an effect, it naturally desires perfectly to know the very essence of the cause, insofar as this is possible to it. But the human intellect knows the effects of God and thus knows that God is. Hence there remains to it a natural desire to know perfectly the very essence of God (which we know from revelation to be possible), and thus it is not yet perfectly blessed unless it sees that essence (a. 8).

1. We add: insofar as it is possible..., which we know from revelation to be possible. For the argument of St. Thomas is not stringent and rigorous unless it is first known that the vision of God is in fact possible for us in the present order; and this we know only from revelation, but it was proved in I, q. 12, a. 1; otherwise there would not be an efficacious and absolute desire of seeing God, but merely an inefficacious and conditioned desire of seeing Him "if it were possible," a desire of such sort as does not impede beatitude and need not be fulfilled, since that is naturally impossible. But if you should say that such a restriction is not added by St. Thomas, and therefore is not to be supplied in his argumentation, then the argument would have to be regarded either as one of mere fittingness, not as apodictic, or as showing that special obediential potency which is naturally in man and by which he is capable of being elevated to the vision of the divine essence.

From this it follows that natural beatitude is not happiness simply and absolutely perfect, as being not the whole happiness possible in itself which can befall man, but is only perfect in a certain respect and relatively for the natural state alone; but in the supernatural order of elevation to the intuitive vision of God, it can no longer in any sense be called perfect. Whence the Scholastics are not accustomed to call the natural ultimate end perfect happiness, but reserve the name for the supernatural ultimate end of the vision of God.

33. Thesis III. Beatitude, although according to its quasi-physical essence it embraces the three acts of vision, love, and fruition, according to its logical or metaphysical essence consists in the knowledge of God alone.

This is the opinion of St. Thomas, while Scotus places beatitude in the act of love alone, but St. Albert the Great, St. Bonaventure, and Suarez require both acts, of intellect and of will.

In beings, essence can be considered in two ways: a) completely in the concrete, for the complex of all the elements which constitute a thing in its species and distinguish it from others, and this is physical essence; b) abstractly and in its fundamental element, for the perfection which first and per se constitutes a thing and distinguishes it from others and is the root of all things which pertain to the thing, and this is metaphysical or logical essence. These notions can be applied to beatitude, but analogically, because it is not a per se being but only an action and therefore an accident. Now we say that beatitude, if it is considered completely according to all essential and necessary elements, embraces an act not only of the intellect but also of the will; but if it is considered according to its fundamental element as the very attainment of the highest good from which the other goods flow, or as the action by which man primarily attains and possesses the highest good, we say that it is only an act of the intellect.

It is proved:

1. Negatively: beatitude does not consist in an act of the will, namely, of love or joy, because that act cannot be the attainment of the highest good.

For the will is inclined to something and by affection alone is terminated at the thing and attains it, but not effectively and really. But inclination is not the attainment of the good; otherwise it would suffice to will something intensely in order to possess it (a. 4).

And indeed every act of the will toward the good is either an inclination toward an absent good, and then it is not the attainment of the thing; or a quieting in a present good, and then it supposes possession and attainment already. Thus in species: fruition or rest in a possessed good does not make the possession of the good but follows it; desire is a tendency toward an absent good; and love abstracts from the presence and absence of the good, by which therefore no good is made present. Therefore no act of the will makes us possess God, nor is it the essence of beatitude.

2. Positively and assertively: beatitude consists, at least partially, in an act of the intellect.

For the essence of beatitude is the act of the power most proper to man and most noble. But this is the intellect, both because its object is more universal, more simple, more immaterial, and more abstract, and because it is the power nearer to the soul and from which the will itself arises. Therefore (a. 5).

Nor should you say that the will is nobler, which moves the intellect itself. For, on the contrary, "first and per se the intellect moves the will: a) For the will as such is moved by its object, which is the apprehended good; but the will moves the intellect as if per accidens, namely, insofar as understanding itself is apprehended as good and so is desired by the will. From this it follows that the intellect actually understands, and in this very thing precedes the will: for the will would never desire to understand unless first the intellect apprehended understanding itself as good. b) And again, the will moves the intellect to operating in act in the mode in which an agent is said to move; but the intellect moves in the mode in which an end moves, for the understood good is the end of the will. But the agent is posterior in moving than the end, for the agent does not move except on account of the end. Whence it is apparent that the intellect is simply higher than the will, but the will is higher than the intellect per accidens and in a certain respect" (Contra Gentiles III, 26).

3. Positively and exclusively: beatitude consists in the act of the intellect alone. - For:

a) The essence of happiness is the attainment of the highest good, which is an intelligible good. But the highest intelligible good cannot be possessed except by the act of intellect alone: for the will is borne toward an object outside itself and is only an inclination toward it, whereas the intellect apprehends the object and draws it to itself, and thus sets it before itself as present and is joined to it really and effectively, and so truly possesses it. Therefore the essence of happiness is obtained not by the will but by the intellect alone.

b) The essence of beatitude is the first act which truly attains God Himself and is the root of all the other things which are required for beatitude. But this is the act of the intellect alone, because it first attains God and is the root from which love and joy necessarily arise. Therefore the essence of beatitude is the act of the intellect alone, not of the will (a. 4).

34. Corollaries.

From the aforesaid things it can be concluded with St. Thomas:

a) That beatitude consists more in the speculative intellect than in the practical (a. 5), which is clear from three things: first, because the best object of the intellective power is the divine good, which is not the object of the practical intellect but of the speculative; whence beatitude especially consists in the contemplation of divine things; secondly, because contemplation is especially sought for its own sake, whereas the act of the practical intellect is not sought for its own sake but for the sake of action; but actions themselves are ordered to some end. Whence it is manifest that the ultimate end cannot consist in the active life but in the contemplative; thirdly, because in the contemplative life man communicates with higher beings, namely, with God and the angels, to whom he is assimilated through beatitude; but in those things which pertain to the active life, animals also communicate in some way with man. And therefore ultimate and perfect beatitude wholly and principally consists in contemplation.

b) That beatitude nevertheless does not consist in human speculative sciences (a. 6).

c) Nor does it consist in the knowledge of spirits (a. 7).

35. Observations.

1. Love joins one to God in a new and thus more perfect mode, but only affectively, not really. And although the will tends to the possession of God, it tends to this mediately, through the act by which God can be possessed, namely, through the act of knowledge.

2. Beatitude is the object of the will as appetible, but not as attainable. Likewise beatitude is the attainment of the ultimate end, not as of an appetible good alluring the will, but as really possessed by the intellect.

3. The act of the intellect is ordered to love and delight, not as a means to an end, but as cause to effect and essence to the consequent property.

4. Beatitude is ultimate perfection by way of attainment of the good, but not by way of property and complement.

5. The metaphysical essence need not be the highest good, nor fulfill all desires, nor render one perfectly blessed formally, but only radically and fundamentally: in the same way, rationality alone does not render man perfect formally but fundamentally.

6. The act of the will is more perfect than the act of the intellect by moral perfection, but not by physical and natural perfection except in some way per accidens; and it is never more perfect in the genus of attainment and possession.

7. For the beatific vision there is required on the part of our intellect the divine light of glory, which elevates and strengthens the intellect and renders it capable of intuiting God (Council of Vienne, a. 5); on the part of the object no intelligible species is required. These things are explained in dogmatic theology.

8. The beatific vision is not owed to nature, because there is not given an innate appetite for obtaining it, but only an elicited natural appetite, not efficacious, however, but inefficacious and conditioned, that is, insofar as that vision is possible; namely, there is innate in the rational creature only an immediate obediential potency, which by positive ordination does not postulate the vision of God or incline to it, but which is apt to be elevated to seeing God. This is explained in the same dogmatic theology.

9. Beatitude does not consist in the insertion of God into the essence of the soul (as Henry of Ghent and John of Ripa said), because only operation renders us perfect and conscious of the possession of God; nor in the uncreated vision of God communicated to the creature (as the Master of Bonne-Espérance willed): for the act must be from within and proceed from the one operating; the action of God is not intrinsic to us and does not proceed from us; therefore it does not render us blessed nor seeing God.