Question Two: On Objective Beatitude

21. Thesis I. According to Catholic doctrine, the beatitude of man does not consist in created goods, neither external goods, nor internal goods of the body or soul, whether these are taken distributively or collectively.

This must be proved by parts. For the proof it is necessary to consider the conditions required for beatitude, which are not found in the aforesaid goods. For beatitude is the state perfected by the aggregation of all goods, or the stable possession of the perfect good which totally quiets the soul. Hence, that some good may be able to beatify man, perfectly complete and satiate him, it must be:

a) perfect in itself, or ultimately appetible for its own sake and not for the sake of another;

b) sufficient and supreme, or filling all legitimate aspirations of the intellect and will;

c) stable and unfailing.

These things being posited, it must be said that man cannot obtain his beatitude in created goods: whether external goods of fortune, or goods of the body, or goods of the soul, which, although under a manifold respect they are desirable, lack the three aforesaid conditions (q. 2, a. 4).

22. The first part A is proved: Beatitude does not consist in external goods, such as riches, dignities, honors, reputation, glory, power, etc. For these:

a) Are not desirable per se, but only on account of another, namely, on account of man, insofar as they either help toward acquiring goods of soul or body: thus riches are sought for sustaining life or enjoying pleasures; power is given on account of the republic and serves happiness as a means; or they rather suppose and follow perfection: thus honors, reputation, and glory do not make excellence, but suppose some excellence to be in man, of which they are the sign and testimony.

b) They are not sufficient, because they do not exclude every evil, since they are common to good and evil men; indeed evil can come from them. For often the more riches and honors abound, the more they inflame desire; not rarely also, after some time, they bring in disgust and weariness; furthermore they are indifferent to good and evil, so that someone can use them badly, whence perfection is more in the good use of them than in the things themselves. Besides, those who have all these can lack many other things necessary for happiness, such as health of body, wisdom, tranquility of soul, etc. Therefore they do not fulfill all the legitimate aspirations of man.

c) Nor are they stable: for they are easily lost by some misfortune; hence they are acquired with labor, retained with solicitude and anxiety of fear, lost with sorrow, and at last at the time of death they pass away.

d) Beatitude is acquired by interior principles, namely, by our studious acts of intellect and will, and perfects man intrinsically, since man is naturally ordered to it; but those things are rather from exterior causes, indeed often from fortune.

This the Scriptures teach: concerning riches, Mt. V, 3; Eccli. XXXI, 8; Eccles. V, 9; Ps. LXI, 11; concerning honor, III Kings X, 24 and XI, 4; concerning reputation and glory, Is. XL, 6 sq.; concerning power, Wis. VI, 1 sq.

23. The first part B is proved: Beatitude does not consist in goods of the body, which consist in health, strength, vigor, beauty, sensual pleasure, and delight of the senses:

a) By their nature they are subordinated to goods of the soul, whence they are not to be sought on account of themselves; nor are they truly useful except insofar as they serve the operations and perfection of the soul. The very being of the body is not the end, because it is not the highest good: for the being of the soul is more principal, because the being of the body depends upon the soul and not vice versa. Hence goods of the body are ordered to the soul.

b) They do not fulfill all the legitimate desires of man, for they are common to beasts and men, and therefore they do not satiate the nobler appetites of the soul, nor constitute the proper end of man, nor exclude all evils, but are common to the good and the evil. Indeed, when someone immoderately indulges bodily delights, the powers of the soul are depressed, and man becomes like a beast, since he is delighted with the same pleasures and rests in them against the right order of reason.

Moreover, delight per se is not principally beatitude, but its accident, which follows total or partial beatitude; a fortiori bodily delight, which follows a sensible good that pertains to the body, and therefore is not the perfect good of man.

c) Besides, how uncertain and unstable they are, there is no one who has not experienced it (cf. Gen. III, 19; Wis. II, 1-9).

24. The first part C is proved: Beatitude does not consist in goods of the soul.

a) It is not the very substance of the soul, because this must be completed from without, as being in potency to act and to further perfection, for example wisdom and virtue; whence it is not the ultimate end of itself.

b) It is not faculties or habits, because these also are in potency to act.

c) It is not the acts themselves, because they are something finite. But the human appetite tends to universal and complete good; yet any good inhering in the soul itself, even an act, is a participated and consequently particularized good. Hence it is impossible that any of them should be the ultimate end of man. Moreover, acts depend upon the object, and therefore they are perfect and can satiate the human appetite only if they attain the universal true and highest good, which cannot be found in finite things intrinsic to the soul. And therefore the very thing which renders us blessed is not a created good intrinsic to the soul, but exists outside the soul, although the attainment and possession of it is an act of the soul.

Hence specifically beatitude is not wisdom and virtue, which, moreover, in this life do not place us in possession of the complete good. For virtue does not satiate, but makes the appetite right, and can be lost; it is the way to beatitude, and happiness itself is the reward of virtue. Wisdom is a means of acquiring truth, tending toward total and perfect truth. But those things cannot perfectly quiet the appetite.

25. The second part is proved: Beatitude does not consist in created goods taken collectively.

Their unsuitability for beatitude comes not from their quantity, but from their nature, intrinsic imperfection, and limitation, and therefore it cannot be removed by mere accumulation. And no one has possessed or will be able to possess all these things at once. Cf. Eccli. I, 2; XII, 8; 13-14; Ps. LXXII; Eccles. II, 11; Wis. II; Mt. XVI, 21-26.

26. They object that there are many who care little about God and place happiness only in created things. - Response: This moral perversion is a fact of humanity corrupted by sin. This is explained from a twofold cause: 1) from the fact that eternal goods, as invisible and future, seem to us more remote, and therefore affect the mind less; while, on the contrary, created goods, visible and present, appear nearer and procure actual delight. Nevertheless, right reason teaches that eternal and future goods are to be preferred to these transitory and imperfect goods, and faith teaches the same, the Apostle admonishing in II Cor. IV, 17: "For that which is at present momentary and light in our tribulation works above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory in us"; 2) from the fact that men, by indulging earthly pleasures against conscience, have become animal, pursuing sensual delights more than spiritual things; "but the animal man," says the Apostle, I Cor. II, 14, "does not perceive the things which are of the Spirit of God." Yet reason shows that intellectual goods, as higher, are to be preferred to sensible goods, and that all sensible and earthly things will have an end; these things considered, the man who intends to act rightly desires eternal happiness that will endure perpetually.

1. Tanquerey, Theologia Moralis Fundamentalis, n. 17.

27. Thesis II. God alone is the true and complete beatitude of man. - It is proved:

1. Indirectly, from the fact that beatitude does not consist in any created good; therefore in uncreated good, God.

2. Directly: "For beatitude is the perfect good, which totally quiets the appetite; otherwise it would not be the ultimate end, if something to be desired still remained. But the object of the will, which is the human appetite, is universal good, just as the object of the intellect is universal truth. From this it is clear that nothing can quiet the will of man except universal good; and this is not found in anything created, but only in God, because every creature has participated goodness. Hence God alone can fulfill the will of man... Therefore in God alone does the beatitude of man consist" I-II, q. 2, a. 8. Hence St. Augustine, Confessions, book I, n. 1: God, "You have made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You." Cf. Ps. XV, 2, 5, 10; LXXII, 25-26; CII, 5.

They object that the aforesaid argument is not valid. For universal good is either abstract (universal in predicating), and then the conclusion does not follow, because such a good is found in any created good whatever; or it is concrete or complete universal good (universal in being), and then there is a begging of the question, for concrete universal good is nothing but God. - Response:

1. In the argument of St. Thomas, universal good is taken abstractly, but not formally as abstracted from concrete existence, or as good in common, which can be any good whatever; but most broadly as unlimited, and absolutely as every good, prescinding from finite and infinite and not contracted to this or that good. But what is limited exists in individual created beings. Therefore those things are not the universal good which is the beatitude of man. Namely, the power of the intellect extends to every true thing, and therefore the power of the will to every good; whence it is not satiated if it possesses one good, since it can still extend itself to another. Some participated and finite good does not exhaust the extension of the object; only infinite good does this.

1. Thus Cajetan, on q. 2, a. 7 and 8; Sylvius, Medina, the Salmanticenses, Lehu.

2. Even if concrete universal good were understood, the argument could be valid, by understanding good not absolutely, but the complete good of man. But man is able to know not only created and finite truth but also uncreated and infinite truth, and therefore he can also seek uncreated or infinite good. Therefore the complete good of man is not finite good but infinite good.

28. Corollary. - From all these things it follows that the supreme beatitude of man truly coincides with the ultimate end of the universe, and essentially consists in attaining it; and not only in the same object, but also in the same act of knowledge and love, namely, in knowing, loving, and therefore glorifying God. Thus while man pursues the glory of God, the primary end, by that very fact he promotes his own happiness, which is the secondary end because the good of the creature must be subordinated to the good of the Creator as ultimate end; and by attaining his own good, he also glorifies God, and by tending toward his proper good, by that very fact he tends toward the good of the universe. Hence the two ends are really identified, but differ in reason. The highest glory of God is our beatitude, and our highest good can be nothing other than His highest glory. Thus through beatitude man fulfills the ultimate end of the universe, because he proximately seeks objective beatitude as his own good, but at the same time ultimately as divine good.

29. Observations.

1. That God may be the object of human beatitude, there is not required a proportion of entity (that is, of quantitative commensuration or equality) between human nature and God, but a proportion of objective habitude and final relation (of proportionality) suffices, that is, the capacity and ordination of the appetite for attaining Him. Supplement III, q. 92, a. 1, ad 6.

2. In this sense the human appetite can in some way be called infinite according to object and appetition and habitude and capacity, although subjectively, as to being, it is finite. Thus also subjective beatitude is a good of which man is capable as of a thing intrinsic and inhering and therefore finite; objective beatitude is a good of which he is capable as of an object, which is infinite. I-II, q. 2, a. 8, ad 3.

3. Nevertheless man does not seek God so as to possess Him in an infinite mode (which is impossible for a creature), but tends to possess Him as much as is possible by his powers, namely, in various degree according to each one's proper capacity, disposition, and preparation. Ibid., q. 3, a. 8, ad 2.

4. Man does not seek God as a mere means which he uses for beatifying himself, as if God were a useful good which is loved only for the sake of something else, but as the highest good, the cause of beatitude and the source of all perfection and the ultimate end, who is loved for His own sake and to whom, therefore, man himself is ultimately subordinated. In other words, he does not so much seek God for the sake of beatitude, but rather beatitude for the sake of God.

5. On the part of the object, no created goods besides God are essentially required for man's beatitude, because He is the infinite good capable of satiating all appetitions. Yet there are several created, sensible, and bodily goods which pertain to beatitude consequently, but follow as if spontaneously from essential beatitude. For by force of divine possession the blessed one will certainly have the things he reasonably desires.

6. The beatitude of the soul is also the beatitude of all the sensitive and bodily faculties. For man is a being truly substantially one, one nature tending to one end. And therefore the sensitive and vegetative parts do not have a diverse end exclusively proper to themselves, but are subordinated to the intellective part and attain their perfection and their true end when, in the attainment of rational good, they perfectly serve and aid the superior part. Hence when the rational part obtains its ultimate perfection in the possession of God, it attains the end of the whole nature, and by that very fact the other parts are completed immediately or mediately in a mode proportioned to their nature. This will be done perfectly in the other life after the resurrection, because there will no longer be any struggle among the human faculties, but a perfect subordination to one another.