Book contents
- Commentary on Thomas Aquinas’s Treatise on Happinessand Ultimate Purpose
- Commentary on Thomas Aquinas’s Treatise on Happiness and Ultimate Purpose
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Analytical Table of Contents
- Ante Studium (Before Study)
- Epigraph
- Commentator’s Introduction
- General Prologue of St. Thomas Aquinas to the Treatiseon Happiness and Ultimate Purpose
- Question 1 Man’s Ultimate Purpose
- Question 2 Where Does Complete Happiness Lie? Failed Candidates
- Question 3 What Then Is Complete Happiness In Itself, And In What Does It Really Lie?
- St. Thomas’s Prologue to Question 3 What Then Is Complete Happiness in Itself, and in What Does It Really Lie?
- Question 3, Article 1 Whether happiness is something uncreated?
- Question 3, Article 2 Whether happiness is an operation?
- Question 3, Article 3 Whether happiness is an operation of the sensitive part, or of the intellective part only?
- Question 3, Article 4 Whether, if happiness is in the intellective part, it is an operation of the intellect or of the will?
- Question 3, Article 5 Whether happiness is an operation of the speculative, or of the practical intellect
- Question 3, Article 6 Whether happiness consists in the consideration of speculative sciences?
- Question 3, Article 7 Whether happiness consists in the knowledge of separate substances, namely, angels?
- Question 3, Article 8 Whether man’s happiness consists in the vision of the divine essence?
- Question 4 What Complete Happiness Requires
- Question 5 How Complete Happiness Is Finally Attained
- Afterword So What Is Our Ultimate Purpose? What Is Happiness?
- Index
Question 3, Article 1 - Whether happiness is something uncreated?
from Question 3 - What Then Is Complete Happiness In Itself, And In What Does It Really Lie?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 October 2020
- Commentary on Thomas Aquinas’s Treatise on Happinessand Ultimate Purpose
- Commentary on Thomas Aquinas’s Treatise on Happiness and Ultimate Purpose
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Analytical Table of Contents
- Ante Studium (Before Study)
- Epigraph
- Commentator’s Introduction
- General Prologue of St. Thomas Aquinas to the Treatiseon Happiness and Ultimate Purpose
- Question 1 Man’s Ultimate Purpose
- Question 2 Where Does Complete Happiness Lie? Failed Candidates
- Question 3 What Then Is Complete Happiness In Itself, And In What Does It Really Lie?
- St. Thomas’s Prologue to Question 3 What Then Is Complete Happiness in Itself, and in What Does It Really Lie?
- Question 3, Article 1 Whether happiness is something uncreated?
- Question 3, Article 2 Whether happiness is an operation?
- Question 3, Article 3 Whether happiness is an operation of the sensitive part, or of the intellective part only?
- Question 3, Article 4 Whether, if happiness is in the intellective part, it is an operation of the intellect or of the will?
- Question 3, Article 5 Whether happiness is an operation of the speculative, or of the practical intellect
- Question 3, Article 6 Whether happiness consists in the consideration of speculative sciences?
- Question 3, Article 7 Whether happiness consists in the knowledge of separate substances, namely, angels?
- Question 3, Article 8 Whether man’s happiness consists in the vision of the divine essence?
- Question 4 What Complete Happiness Requires
- Question 5 How Complete Happiness Is Finally Attained
- Afterword So What Is Our Ultimate Purpose? What Is Happiness?
- Index
Summary
Everything the Creator creates is created; the Creator Himself, however, is not created. He is not a contingent being, so that something else caused Him to exist; He is a necessarily existing being, the cause of all else that exists. So to ask whether our beatitude or supreme happiness is “something uncreated” amounts to asking whether our beatitude is something concerning God Himself.
After all that has been said already, it may seem obvious that the answer is “Yes.” In fact, it may at first seem that St. Thomas is merely repeating the question he asked in Question 2, Article 1! However, the question can be taken in two different ways. What St. Thomas demonstrates is that though in one sense the answer is “Yes,” in another sense it is “No.”
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020