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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 12 page research paper examines the conception of happiness in human terms, according to Catholic theologian and philosopher, Thomas Aquinas. Specifically discussed are Aquinas' views on how what constituted happiness and how man could happily live life. Bibliography lists 5 sources.
Page Count:
12 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_Aquihap.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
view that all attainable knowledge was based "on external sensible things, instead of ... sensations, ideas or language" (Kretzmann and Stump 38). Employing a common sense approach, then, it
is through knowledge that man achieves his ultimate happiness. The Greeks were famous for their rather lofty expectations of man as a higher intellectual being. Mans happiness was
based less on materialism and more on aesthetics. Aquinas took the concept of happiness to its next level -- mans earthly happiness must be concentrated upon ensuring "eternal happiness"
which is acquired after the death of the physical body (Kretzmann and Stump 43). Aquinas was clearly more of a theologian than philosopher, as his most famous work, Summa Theologica
attests. Accordingly, he maintained that attainment of spiritual happiness must be mans ultimate goal. Man is naturally drawn toward the pursuit of happiness, in Aquinas view because all
rational beings possess a will which instinctively seeks out happiness (Kretzmann and Stump 146). Aquinas maintained that everything man sought to learn and know had one basic goal --
attainment of happiness (Kretzmann and Stump 146). This, of course, that man is possessing of free will which enables him to choose his own path toward happiness. Aquinas
wrote, "The very fact that the human being is rational necessitates its being characterized by free decision [liberum arbitrium]" (Kretzmann and Stump 146). Of course, Aquinas embraced the Christian
view that happiness was the means to an end -- the enjoyment of an afterlife in heaven. Aristotle had noted in Nicomachean Ethics that there is an ideal of what
happiness should be, but this can never be satisfactorily achieved on earth: "Why then should we not say that he is happy who is active in conformity with complete excellence
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