Many people think morality is about rules.
When St. Thomas begins the second part of the Summa Theologiae, the largest part of
the whole work, which is itself broken into two parts, he writes this, "We shall consider
first the last end of human life, and second, those things by means of which man may advance
toward this end or stray from the path."
You see for St. Thomas, human life has a purpose.
Every human life has a goal, an end that brings perfect fulfillment, perfect happiness.
We can say that morality is about two things, what that purpose is and how we achieve it.
To put it another way, what is happiness and how do we become happy?
For now, let's stick with talking about human happiness.
St. Thomas sees the person as a composite of body and soul with all sorts of potential
and capacities that can be actualized.
Everything from our abilities to grow, to walk, to run, to our higher capacities and
potential to think and to love.
He taught what I think most of us would agree with.
When we're acting at our fullest potential, then we're happy.
He argues that while we can point basically to all sorts of things and all sorts of pursuits
in life that bring us some happiness, that if there is a perfect happiness out there,
a happiness that is all fulfilling, that once we have it we won't seek anything else, then
this perfect happiness must be that thing or that activity that is sought for its own sake.
Perfect happiness for Aquinas is that
which you seek for its own sake and not
for the sake of something else.
He goes through all the possibilities:
Wealth, honor, fame, glory, power, pleasure.
All of these though aren't sought for their own sake.
For example, people seek wealth and money to buy things, food, clothes, security.
People seek those things in order to do other things, to live with their family, to stay
alive.
Power, pleasure, all the rest are often fading and need to be continually sought in order
to keep.
Once people have them, there's always something more.
You see perfect happiness, once you have it, there's nothing else to seek.
There's nothing else to gain, nothing else to achieve.
Even the great good of marriage is not perfect happiness.
There is happiness in marriage of course, but couples don't think they have
nothing left to do when they walk out of the church on their wedding day.
It's on to children and raising children and then grandchildren.
There's career, the family home, paying for the car.
There's always more.
We keep moving from one degree of happiness to another, often with struggle and sorrow
mixed in as we pursue that perfect happiness that will satisfy.
We have a hard time thinking it's possible to be perfectly happy.
St. Thomas thought that every creature has a purpose, every creature, from a grub worm to an angel.
When that creature fulfills its purpose, it's perfectly happy.
Figuring out what will make us human beings perfectly happy, St. Thomas focuses on what
is unique about us, what makes us different than grub worms and animals.
It's that we can know and think.
It's that we can love.
Perfect happiness involves thinking and loving, but thinking about what?
Loving whom?
People have different ideas about that.
They have different ideas about what they should love in life and what they should spend
their lives thinking about and pursuing.
That's why people live different kinds of lives.
Given everything we've learned about what St. Thomas teaches about God, we shouldn't
be surprised to learn that he thinks knowing and loving God face to face, what we call
the beatific vision, is perfect happiness.
God is existence itself, and everything that exists, exists by participating in his existence.
Everything that is lovely, everything that is desirable or fun or pleasurable, all of
it is so by participation in God.
For St. Thomas, we are inherently curious creatures made to know things.
We want to know the cause of things.
When we see smoke, we want to see the fire.
Following St. Paul, he agrees that we can see God's handiwork all around us,
all throughout creation.
Those who live in faith can see even more of God's handiwork in Scripture, in the Incarnation
of Christ, in Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection.
We want to know that God.
We want to know that being that is behind everything.
We'll only be satisfied when we know, not only lovely things, but the God who is loveliness
itself, who is good itself.
When we know not only true things, but the God who is truth itself, who is all in all.
That's perfect happiness.
The rest of the second part of the Summa Theologiae is all about how we stay
on that path to perfect happiness to beatific vision.
Once we have that perfect happiness in God, there is nothing else that we will desire
or need, precisely because knowing him, we will know all we can know and love all we
can love.
It's a perfect happiness that can't be taken away.
Perfect happiness can't be had in this life.
We can only be imperfectly happy as we work our way, or better as we are drawn to the
perfect happiness of the beatific vision of God.
This is how St. Thomas Aquinas answers the question of our ultimate purpose.
The rest of the second part of the Summa, both the first part of the second part and
the second part of the second part is about keeping us on the path to God.
That's what morality is about.