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In treating man's last end St. Thomas draws inspiration from St.
Augustine, from Aristotle, and from Boethius. [1004] .
First of all [1005] man, with a rational nature, must know
what he is working for, that is, must know purpose as purpose, as
something which he thinks will satisfy his desire, something wherein he
can find rest. Without an ultimate purpose, known at least vaguely,
man would never undertake anything. As, in a series of efficient
causes, there must be a first cause, so in a series of final causes,
of things which attract, there must be an ultimate cause which attracts
for its own sake. This ultimate purpose, reached last in the order of
execution, is first in the order of attention, is the motivating
center of all else. In illustration, it is to each man what defense
of his country is to the commander-in-chief. Thus all men desire
some ultimate goal which they think will give them complete satisfaction
and happiness, even though many do not realize that genuine happiness,
the ultimate goal, is to be found in God alone, the Sovereign
Good.
In the second question St. Thomas shows that no created values,
neither riches nor honors nor glory nor power, neither bodily advantage
nor pleasure, not even knowledge or virtue, can give man ultimate
contentment, because the object of man's will is good as such,
unlimited and universal good, just as unlimited truth is the object of
man's intelligence. The will can find lasting repose only in the
possession of what is in every way good, universally good. But this
universal good can be found, not in creatures, since they, all and
singly, are but limited participations in good, but only in God.
Note that the object to which our will is proportioned is not this or
that particular good, subjective or objective, but universal good,
unlimited good, as known, not by sense and imagination, but by the
intellect, by man's higher intelligence.
Here lies another proof of God's existence. [1006] This
proof rests on the following principle: a natural desire, founded,
not on imagination nor on error, but on the universal amplitude of
man's will, cannot be vain or chimerical. Now while each man has
this natural desire of complete happiness, both reason and experience
show that this desire cannot be satisfied by any limited and finite
good, because, since our intelligence knows good as universal and
unlimited, the natural amplitude, the embracing capacity of our will,
illumined by our intelligence, T is itself universal and unlimited.
Further, this desire is not conditional and inefficacious, as is the
desire of the beatific vision, which is founded on this conditional
judgment: this vision would be for me perfect happiness, if it were
possible that I should be raised to it and if God would raise me to
it. But the desire now in question is natural and innate, since it is
founded on a judgment not conditional but absolute, arising without
medium from the naturally unlimited amplitude of man's will for good.
Now since a natural desire presupposes a naturally desirable good, the
object of man's desire must be as unlimited as that desire itself.
Hence there exists an unlimited good, goodness itself, wherein alone
is found that universal good to which our will is proportioned. And
this unlimited good can be known naturally, in the mirror of created
goodness.
Hence to deny the existence of God is to deny the universal amplitude
of our will, is to deny that will's boundless depth, which no limited
good can fill. This denial is a radical absurdity, is absolute
nonsense. We have here an absolute impossibility, inscribed in the
very nature of our will, whose natural desire tends, not to the mere
idea of good, but to a real and objective good, because good is not a
mental image but objective reality.
We must note, however, that the specific object of the will must be
distinguished from what is simply man's last end. The will's
specific object is not God, the Sovereign Good, as He is in
Himself, which is the specific object of infused charity. The
naturally specific object of man's will is good taken universally, as
known by man's natural intelligence, an object which is found
participatedly and limitedly in everything that is in any way good, but
which as good, simultaneously real and universal, is found in God
alone. God alone is universal good itself, not indeed in the order of
predication, but in the order of being and causing. Thus Cajetan,
commenting on Aristotle's word: "While truth is formally in the
mind, goodness in the objective thing." [1007] Hence we pass
legitimately, by the objective realism of the will, from what is
universal as predicate to what is universal in being.
Had man been created in a state purely natural, without grace, he
would have found natural happiness in the natural knowledge and love of
God, the author of nature. Now our intelligence, far surpassing
sense and imagination, is by nature meant to know even the supreme
truth, as mirrored in the world of creation. For the same reason,
our will, meant by nature to love and will what is good, tends
naturally to love also the supreme good, as far at least as that good
is naturally knowable. [1008] .
But revelation, passing beyond nature, tells us that God has called
us to a happiness essentially supernatural, to see Him without medium
and to love Him with a love that is supernatural, perfect, and
indefective. The essence of that supreme beatitude lies in the act of
vision, the act of seeing God without medium, for by that act we take
possession of God. But love, in the form of desire, precedes that
act, and, in the form of joy, follows that act. Hence love of
God, though it is not the essence of beatitude, is both the necessary
presupposition and the equally necessary consequence of that beatific
vision of God. [1009] Beatitude, therefore, constituted
essentially by vision, brings with it, as necessary complement, love
and joy in the supreme good, in a glorified body, and in the company
of the saints. [1010] .
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