Yesterday was the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, and today the readings are the Beatitudes. So, why not think about some of the greatest ideas the Angelic Doctor had to offer, about happiness (“beatitudo,” to use his Latin).
Sir Anthony Kenny writes:
It is instructive to read Saint Thomas's discussion of the beatitudes in question 69 of the prima secundae. He offers to reveal their structure by reference to the third chapter of the Nicomachean Ethics, book 1, where Aristotle lists three opinions about happiness. Some people, Aristotle there says, identify it with the life of pleasures, others with the active life, and others with the contemplative life. Taking his cue from this passage, Aquinas tells us that the life of pleasure is an impediment to true happiness; the active life is a preparation for it; and the contemplative life is what it essentially consists in.
The first three beatitudes, Aquinas says, show that happiness demands the rejection of the life of pleasure...
[Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land. Blessed are they who mourn: for they shall be comforted]The next two beatitudes are concerned with the active life... [Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy]
Finally, the remaining beatitudes express the happiness of the contemplative life... [Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven]"
-"Aquinas on Aristotelian Happiness," in "Aquinas's Moral Theory: Essays in Honor of Norman Kretzmann"
Kenny is not quite convinced that Aquinas’ combo of Aristotle on Eudaemonia and Jesus on the Makarios quite works there. He, like Claremont Godfather Harry Jaffa, thinks that here “the Christian texts are distorted to fit the Aristotelian context, rather than the other way around.” Jaffa in his more mature (post T&A) thinking on Aquinas made this point over and over.
But what Kenny adds is crucial: “what is remarkable about this rapprochement is not that it is done successfully, but that it is done at all.” Jesus may not have implied anything about the 3 views of happiness discussed by Aristotle, but Aquinas is doing a philosophical reflection on whether happiness is “suitably” described by Jesus. At the end of the day, Aquinas was going after WISDOM, the truth about happiness; if he accidently didn’t read a text as an author would have read himself, that’s less important.
Aquinas once said: “The study of philosophy is not directed toward discovering what men may have thought but toward knowing what is true.” That’s something every Straussians of who might reject Aquinas for the rare differences with Aristotle ought to consider.
Happy Feast of St. Thomas
Happy, Happy, Happy St Thomas Aquinas and Beatitudes weekend
I'll have to contemplate on that for a while.
Thank you for this! Aquinas and Augustine figure greatly in our family’s faith. We study Aquinas’ writings together often and I think this has also transformed the depth and understanding of our kids’ faith as well.