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?
- Question 4 What Complete Happiness Requires
- St. Thomas’s Prologue to Question 4 What Complete Happiness Requires
- Question 4, Article 1 Whether pleasure, or delight, is required for happiness?
- Question 4, Article 2 Whether in happiness vision ranks before delight?
- Question 4, Article 3 Whether comprehension is necessary for happiness?
- Question 4, Article 4 Whether rectitude of the will is necessary for happiness?
- Question 4, Article 5 Whether the body is necessary for man’s happiness?
- Question 4, Article 6 Whether perfection of the body is necessary for happiness?
- Question 4, Article 7 Whether any external goods are necessary for happiness?
- Question 4, Article 8 Whether the fellowship of friends is necessary for happiness?
- Question 5 How Complete Happiness Is Finally Attained
- Afterword So What Is Our Ultimate Purpose? What Is Happiness?
- Index
Question 4, Article 5 - Whether the body is necessary for man’s happiness?
from Question 4 - What Complete Happiness Requires
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?
- Question 4 What Complete Happiness Requires
- St. Thomas’s Prologue to Question 4 What Complete Happiness Requires
- Question 4, Article 1 Whether pleasure, or delight, is required for happiness?
- Question 4, Article 2 Whether in happiness vision ranks before delight?
- Question 4, Article 3 Whether comprehension is necessary for happiness?
- Question 4, Article 4 Whether rectitude of the will is necessary for happiness?
- Question 4, Article 5 Whether the body is necessary for man’s happiness?
- Question 4, Article 6 Whether perfection of the body is necessary for happiness?
- Question 4, Article 7 Whether any external goods are necessary for happiness?
- Question 4, Article 8 Whether the fellowship of friends is necessary for happiness?
- Question 5 How Complete Happiness Is Finally Attained
- Afterword So What Is Our Ultimate Purpose? What Is Happiness?
- Index
Summary
It might seem that whether happiness is possible after the deaths of our bodies is a matter of concern only to Christians. In St. Thomas’s view, not so. For reasons explained in the Discussion, he believes that the immortality of the soul is not only a teaching of the Christian faith, but a bona fide conclusion of reason, so even non-Christians should believe it. If this truth was not entirely clear to pre-Christian philosophers (and it wasn’t), the reason is not that they could not have discovered it, but that even though they could have, they simply didn’t. What does come uniquely from faith is the doctrine of the general resurrection: That after a period of time, the separated souls of the dead will be reunited with their bodies.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020