Aquinas on Happiness and the Will

This chapter describes Aquinas’s celebrated effort to incorporate Aristotle’s philosophy—including teleological eudaimonism—into Christian thought. With respect to ethics this involved transforming Aristotle’s rudimentary concept of will or wish (boulȇsis) roughly along the lines established by Augustine. The will (as “rational appetite” for the universal good) becomes the engine driving our search for happiness. It includes aspects such as choice, consent, intention, etc., and its ultimate goal, Thomas argues, is the Beatific Vision of God. This, however, is “beyond the nature” of human beings and can only be achieved through God’s grace. Two critical questions arise: if the Beatific Vision is a reward for right living, this seems contrary to Aristotle’s notion of virtuous action, which is undertaken for its sake; and if the Beatific Vision is beyond the nature of humans, how can we possibly attain it? As Thomas says, nothing is said univocally of God and creatures.