St. Thomas on why Beatitude is found in God alone

It should be prefaced that the following is in no way to be interpreted contrary to the magisterial statement of Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, in which he insists upon the possibility of God creating intellectual natures (humans and angels) without ordering them to the beatific vision. This insistence is important for ensuring our recognition of the gratuity of the supernatural order, a fact so emphasised by, amongst others, P. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P., as against the dangerous ideas that were popular in the 'new theology.' To be sure, as Garrigou himself recognises, an intellectual creature such as man even naturally has a desire to see God face to face in the beatific vision (and this natural desire shall be the topic of our discussion below), but, without grace, this desire remains conditional and inefficacious (furthermore, it is also, as is abundantly clear from the various texts of St. Thomas, an elicited rather than an innate desire). Nevertheless, the following deals with the notion of 'perfect beatitude.' Perfect beatitude is such a perfect good that so totally satisfies the appetite, that there is nothing else to be sought after. It turns out that such a beatitude is proper to the Divinity, and cannot be attained by an intellectual creature's natural powers. An intellectual creatures's level of natural beatitude or, more properly, felicitas is always capable of increase without reaching the immediate vision of the Divine Essence. At any rate, the will's natural ordering towards universal good means that, implicitly, it calls out for, as it were, at least a natural knowledge and love of God (it might not possibly will these things, but I mean that God, at least naturally obtained, is objectively wherein the will's desire for good is found). The very nature of the will means that it cannot be satisfied with any good other than God. But, as we shall see, the nature of the intellect means that it only reaches its greatest perfection when its object is God directly. And, when the cause of nature is known by the light of natural reason, a natural desire, albeit conditional and inefficacious, is elicited to see the essence of that cause in itself. Hence, the will can only be perfectly or totally satisfied - that is, so satisfied that nothing further is left to be desired or sought after - by God as obtained by a direct intellectual vision of his essence. With supernatural grace, which is at the same time very fitting for God to give but also free and gratuitous for him to choose to give, there is infused supernatural hope, a far loftier desire than the merely conditional and inefficacious natural desire for utterly perfect beatitude. 

According to St Thomas, beatitudo can defined as "the perfect good of an intellectual nature" (ST Ia Q.26 a.1: Nihil enim aliud sub nomine beatitudinis intelligitur, nisi bonum perfectum intellectualis naturae). Only in God, who possesses total perfection essentially, can there be an entire identification of esse and bonitas. Creatures are good secundum quid by merely existing, since their esse by itself is a certain good thing, but to be good simpliciter, they must acquire some further perfection or act (Ia Q.5 a.1). In physical things, the form perfects the matter as its first act, but the form itself is ordered towards operation as a further perfection. This is also true for angels, in whom there are distinctions between their essence, the actus essendi which actualises that essence, the powers that flows from that essence, and the operation which the angel is ordered towards as the perfection of its nature (Dionysius, Caelest. Hier., cap. XI: caelestes spiritus dividuntur in essentiam, virtutem, et operationem). Like God and angels, humans are intellectual, and like angels and material things, humans are creatures. Therefore, for humans, beatitude is a perfection to be acquired and an end to be obtained.

 

St Thomas calls beatitude a perfect good which totally satisfies the appetite (Ia IIae Q.2 a.8: Beatitudo enim est bonum perfectum, quod totaliter quietat appetitum). Since beatitude is the perfection of an intellectual nature, we are here dealing with the rational appetite, the will. It is precisely because of the nature of the intellect and will that a being with intellect and will cannot be perfectly satisfied by anything other than God. The intellect presents to the will its fundamental and natural object, which is universal goodness (ibid: Obiectum autem voluntatis...est universale bonum). The will is a power of soul which is defined as being an appetitus for such an object. Because beatitude is a perfect good which totally satisfies the rational appetite, a good would not be beatitude si adhuc restaret aliquid appetendum (ibid). And because the object of the rational appetite is universal goodness, it will not be totally satisfied with a good that falls short of universal goodness (Nihil potest quietare voluntatem hominis nisi bonum universale). Therefore, any good that falls short of universal goodness will not be beatitude. St Thomas then says that the will's desire for bonum universale cannot be satisfied in anything created but only in God, since all creatures have only participated goodness (Quod non invenitur in aliquo creato sed solum in Deo: quia omnis creatura habet bonitatem participatam). As was said above, only God is identical with his own goodness and possesses his entire goodness and perfection essentially. Everything created neither possesses its partial goodness of mere esse simpliciter essentially, nor its complete goodness. Its substantial act of esse is received from an extrinsic cause and its complete good is achieved by further perfection, namely the acquiring of any accidents necessary for its perfect operation, and ultimately by that perfect operation (Ia Q.6 a.3). This means that everything created possesses goodness by participation and not per se. Therefore, no created thing can be that in which is found the unqualified and unlimited goodness that alone can correspond to the will's appetite for universal goodness. The will's appetite for universal goodness is an appetite for goodness itself, which everything created participates in but falls short of. However, God is complete and unlimited goodness itself. As the argument of the Fourth Way goes, the maximum in any genus will be the cause of that genus. So also, the maximum in being and goodness will be the cause of all being and goodness. The maximum of goodness will be that which has goodness per se, which is the ultimate cause of anything which has participated goodness per aliud. Therefore, God is that which can totally satisfy the rational appetite (Ia IIae Q.3 a.1: ultimus hominis finis est bonum increatum, scilicet Deus, qui solus sua infinita bonitate potest voluntatem hominis perfecte implere). The rational appetite is at rest at the attainment of this good, needing nothing else for its contentment: beatitudo perfecta...habet congregationem omnium bonorum per coniunctionem ad universalem fontem totius boni; non quod indigeat singulis particularibus bonis (Ia IIae Q.3 a.3 ad 2).

 

As well as focusing on the nature of the will, we shall now turn to the nature of the intellect, which tells us more about how the greatest good, God, is to be perfectly obtained. If the perfection of anything is the greatest level of goodness and actuality it can reach, given its nature, and if, as has been said, everything created is perfected and made good by an operation superadded to its substantial being, then man will be perfected by his best operation. Therefore, beatitude, the perfect good of man, will be the optima operatio hominis (Ia IIae Q.3 a.5). It follows intuitively that this will be the operation of the best power with respect to its best object (ibid: Optima autem operatio hominis est quae est optimae potentiae respectu optimi objecti). St Thomas holds that the best power in man is his intellect and that its best object is God (Optima autem potentia est intellectus cuius optimum obiectum est bonum divinum). 

 

In Ia IIae Q.3 a.7, he argues that the proper object of the intellect is truth (proprium autem obiectum est verum). Arguing from a similar point to the will's appetite for perfect and universal goodness, St Thomas says that anything which has truth by participation, when contemplated, is not able to make the intellect perfect with the greatest perfection (Quidquid ergo habet veritatem participatam, contemplatum non facit intellectum perfectum ultima perfectione). Connecting truth and being, St Thomas says that everything which has being by participation has truth by participation. Because all creatures have esse by participation, they all have truth by participation, whereas God is veritas per essentiam. Therefore, God is the object able to make the intellect perfect ultima perfectione. But only that which perfects the intellect with ultima perfectione can be perfecta hominis beatitudo. Anything less than this will be imperfecta, relative to the perfect beatitude of the intellect knowing the divine essence. 

 

Another argument deals with both the intellect and the will, and argues why the vision of the divine essence itself must be perfect beatitude. In Ia IIae Q.3 a.8, St Thomas argues from the natural desire to know causes to the desire to the know the first cause as he is in himself. The intellect has for its object quod quid est, or the essentia rei. Therefore, the perfection of the intellect is relative to how much it knows the essence of something (unde intantum procedit perfectio intellectus, inquantum cognoscit essentiam alicuius rei). According to St Thomas, we can know the existence of God by reasoning from created effects that there must be a first efficient, exemplar and final cause and primum ens, who is pure and infinite act, being, goodness, and perfection. By natural reason, the way of causality can get us to a first cause, the way of remotion can lead us to deny any composition in that first cause, and, by the way of eminence, we can reason that such a purely simple first cause must have all perfection eminently. However, this demonstrative reasoning does not get us to see the divine essence in itself. Since the proper object of the intellect is quod quid est or the essentia rei, and the perfection of the intellect is proportionate to how far is knows some essence, when the human intellect reasons to the existence of such an infinitely perfect first cause from its effects, there is a natural human desire to know the very essence of that cause in itself (Et ideo remanet naturaliter homini desiderium, cum cognoscit effectum, et scit eum habere causam, ut etiam sciat de causa quid est). This is a desire of admiratio, which prompts inquisitio. No inquisitio will be sated until it reaches the knowledge of the essence of the cause it is wondering at (Nec ista inquisitio quiescit quousque perveniat ad cognoscendum essentiam causae). However, since man is not perfecte beatus while there still remains something to be desired and sought (quandiu restat sibi aliquid desiderandum et quaerendum), man will not be perfecte beatus unless he sees the very essence of the first cause (Ad perfectam igitur beatitudinem requiritur quod intellectus pertingat ad ipsam essentiam primae causae).

 

According to St Thomas Aquinas, man is of such a nature that he has an appetite for an infinite good. This is because he has an intellect that can conceive of universal goodness, and a will whose object is that unrestricted notion of goodness which the intellect presents to it. No finite, restricted, limited good can match up to such an appetite, so as to fully satiate it. Therefore, only the attainment of an infinite good can fully satiate it. According to St Thomas, the intellect is the faculty which can essentially attain that infinite good. The will shall not be perfectly satiated by anything other than the intellect's direct apprehension of the very essence of that infinite good, since otherwise there remains a natural desire to know the cause as it is in itself. With this desire unsatisfied, there cannot be perfect beatitude, because this is a perfect good which totally satisfies the rational appetite, such that nothing further remains desiderandum et quaerendum.