INTRODUCTION

In the second chapter of the first book of the Summa Contra Gentiles Thomas Aquinas wrote: "I have set myself the task of making known as far as my limited powers will allow, the truth that the Catholic faith professes, and of setting aside the errors that are opposed to it."¹ The Summa Contra Gentiles, which will serve as the chief source of this study, is quite simply a handbook of theology. This is not to say that it is concerned solely with what has been revealed by God. Rather, its contents cover the entire field of theology, both natural and revealed.² Its first three books are devoted to those truths which, while they may in part have been made known directly by God, are also able to be apprehended by the natural light of human reason, that is, philosophically. The final and fourth book of this Summa is concerned with an exposition of what can be called the precise content of divine Revelation.

Because the bulk of its contents are concerned with theological teachings which are likewise philosophically provable, the Summa Contra Gentiles is a fit source not only for theological study of the directly revealed, but also for work of a more philosophico-theological nature, and even for works totally philosophical in content. Indeed, in analyzing certain passages of the Summa, the philosopher or theologian, writing in his or her own field, could well be justified in completely prescinding from the content of the other science.

Yet there are, a number of subjects, treated within this work, in which the theological and philosophical factors are so intertwined, that one finds it impossible to treat one field without becoming involved in the other. Such is the treatment of the question of happiness to be found in the third book of the Summa, from the twenty-fifth to the sixty-third chapters. This study of these chapters aims to establish philosophically that the activity of contemplation is a fulfillment of the nature of man.

The doctrine of faith, accepted by Thomas, that the total, historical, and natural fulfillment of man is to be found in the vision of the divine essence is so overpowering in this section that it prevents the author from stating explicitly that contemplation, as it was clearly understood by Aristotle before, is also an end or fulfillment of man. Further, it also prevents Aquinas from explicitly detailing the proper distinctions whereby, in an examination of the nature of man, both activities (contemplation and vision) can be seen as a total fulfillment each in its own proper sphere. However, this study maintains that both the above non-explicit opinions are implicit in the Thomistic treatment of happiness in these chapters.

Because the witness of Thomas Aquinas is to vision as the end of man,³ and because this witness, while dominant in the latter part of the chapters under discussion, permeates this entire section of the Summa, a philosophic presentation of contemplation as fulfillment must encounter some difficulties. Though the writer has chosen to guide the development of this study as closely as possible along the lines of the Summa, beginning with chapter twenty-five and progressing to chapter sixty-three, for the sake of clarity it has seemed useful to depart occasionally from the precise order of Thomas' thought omitting certain points pertaining formally to theology.

The outline here, following the progression of the Summa, is quite simple. In the first section, an attempt will be made to elaborate Thomas' philosophy of contemplation based upon a discussion of happiness, natural ends, and the intellectual specification of that end. This will draw principally from chapters twenty-five through thirty-seven of the Summa. In the second section an historical and textual presentation will be made of Aquinas doctrine of vision as end of man, a doctrine clearly stated not only in this work but throughout his writings. The purpose of this presentation is not to offer a direct study of the theology of vision, but rather to point up the reasons given by Thomas for holding his position. This presentation will lead in the third and most important section to a comparison of vision and contemplation as natural fulfillments and then to the fundamental philosophical reasoning allowing one to posit two natural ends of man existing simultaneously. The source material for chapters two and three will be drawn chiefly from chapters thirty-eight to sixty-three of the Summa.

In the final and fourth section, an attempt will be made first to restate the teaching of Thomas Aquinas on contemplation as fulfillment of man, with emphasis not primarily on contemplation as an intellectual end, as in the first section, but as perfection of the total person. The discussion will integrate the views of other philosophers to establish and possibly elaborate upon the subject. In the closing pages the relation of contemplation to vision will be seen on a more dynamic level than Thomas Aquinas explicitly worked out or possibly penetrated at all. This will be done through a synthesis of two Thomistic teachings, the understanding of finality through activity as taken from Aristotle's doctrine of "entelecheia".⁴ The inspiration for this attempt is in the sixty-third chapter of the Summa, although its elaboration is derived from other sources. This is not explicitly theological, but involves a philosophic understanding natural activity which historically Thomas accepted as fact.

One final note is offered by way of introduction. The aim of this study, as stated in the title, is to prove that contemplation is fulfillment. But the real issue is hinted at and contained in another word in the title of describing contemplation as "a" fulfillment of the nature of man. Without the establishment of the possibility of two fulfillments for the nature of man, Thomas would need to understand contemplation as found in Aristotle to be a means to vision. Rejecting such a view, the study states that contemplation is truly a fulfillment or end in itself.⁵

CONTEMPLATION AS FULFILLMENT:

THE THOMISTIC TEACHING STATED

Natural End in All Beings

Contemplation as a fulfillment of man finds a radical foundation in Aquinas' teaching concerning natural end or, as he also referred to it, natural desire.⁶ The twenty-fifth chapter of the third book of the Summa Contra Gentiles begins his study of happiness with a consideration of natural desire.⁷ "All creatures, even those devoid of understanding, are ordered to God as to an ultimate end."⁸ Intrinsically a part of every nature is a tendency or inclination, originating in the natural form and tending toward the end for which the possessor of that nature exists.⁹ It is in the study of the nature and finality of this inclination that Thomas establishes, through an argument of induction, man's contemplation of God as the fulfillment of his nature.

All creatures, rational or not, possess an inclination or desire within themselves which is directed by their very nature to a fulfillment of their being. It is vitally important that, although the characteristic qualities of this inclination must be founded upon the particular properties of the nature in which it resides, the inclination itself is in no way dependent upon those properties. The specific nature of this inclination as found in humans is dependent upon one's characteristic intellectuality. Nevertheless, it is not primarily because humankind is intellectual, but because one is a being that one is directed by an inclination to an end. The inclination, or intrinsic tendency, spoken of by Thomas, is found in all intellectual and non-intellectual beings; of its very nature it precedes all knowledge and consequently all volition.¹⁰ While it will be granted later that for the rational creature, intellect must take a part in natural desire, it is necessary to establish here that intellect is not essential to the nature of natural inclination and that the desire said to be contained in this inclination is not to be rooted in the will of that rational creature in the same sense that elicited or ordered volitional acts are therein rooted. For these the principle always applies that nothing in them can be willed unless it is first of all known.¹¹ Natural intrinsic inclination in rational beings, on the contrary, is in no sense dependent upon the pre-cognition or prevolition for its activity.

For a full understanding of the notions at issue in Thomas' treatment of natural tendency in the Summa Contra Gentiles, a number of principles drawn from that work should first be seen and grasped. The three statements to be presented here, taken together, provide an adequate first understanding of the context in which Thomas presents his doctrine and of the spirit with which he approaches this subject.¹² The principles are the following:

1. If one thing is to be the ultimate end of a being, it must be such that once it is attained, nothing more will be desired.¹³

2. That which fulfills a being must in some way be proper to that particular being.¹⁴

3. The ultimate end and fulfillment of a being consists in an operation.¹⁵

The dimensions of each of these three principles, found throughout the section of the Summa under discussion, are manifold and serve to deepen greatly the understanding of natural end and of contemplation as human end. This is particularly true of the third principle. The traditional understanding of human fulfillment, or happiness as it commonly is called, has been drawn from the classic definition by Boethius. Happiness according to Boethius is a state made perfect through the gathering together of all goods. In the almost forgotten understanding of Aristotle, natural fulfillment is not a state, but an activity, an inner dynamic movement toward an end. Because most discussions of fulfillment and happiness in Thomas have overlooked this dynamic, active element of the question, which Aquinas derived from Aristotle, heavy stress will be laid in this chapter upon this particular Aristotelian contribution to the question. In no sense is it to be thought that the Aristotelian understanding of intrinsic final causality is the only approach to a knowledge of human fulfillment. Certainly the more properly and originally Thomistic emphasis upon efficient causality, the action of the creator directing the creature to its created end, is equally to be prized as an approach to a comprehension of the subject. Yet in so far as the approach to the subject through Aristotle's understanding has been underplayed often in the past, and in so far as in the particular section of the Summa under discussion Thomas speaks more of finality than of efficiency, the more ancient understanding of human fulfillment, renewed by Thomas, will be given dominant place in this chapter.

Thomas' teaching on natural fulfillment in this section of the Summa is based largely upon his understanding of Aristotelian finality. More fundamental, indeed, is the teaching expounded by both Thomas and Aristotle and based upon a conception of physical locomotion as the analogical basis for an understanding of all motion, including that from potency to act and from cause to effect. The extremely vital and important relation which exists between Aristotle's understanding of motion and Thomas' conception of natural finality in both rational and non-rational beings is not, however, to be overplayed and thus misunderstood. The relationship to be explained here is not to be taken as a statement that Thomas' doctrine of finality can be resolved into purely physical mechanism which can be applied all the way up the ladder of beings to separate substances with their finality. Rather the point is that Aristotle's, and subsequently Aquinas', understanding of natural finality finds its most illustrative example in the locomotion of physical bodies, just as the potency-act relationship finds its clearest explanation in an understanding of physical movement. Natural finality is an operation, a movement. Though it is not always a physical operation or a local movement, it will be understood with the greatest possible clarity if it is studied through its manifestations in physical operations and local movements.

In the Summa Contra Gentiles, Thomas writes:

The nearer a thing comes to its end, the greater is the desire by which it tends to the end; thus we observe that the natural motion of bodies is increased toward the end. Now, the intellects of separate substances are nearer to the knowledge of God than our intellects are. So, they desire the knowledge of God more intensely than we do.¹⁶

The point made here is that Thomas is drawing an analogy in action between natural desire and movement to natural place in physical bodies, which somehow propels these bodies toward the place where by their nature they must be in order to find their fulfillment.

Motion and end, the object of motion, are essential to a correct understanding of nature in Thomas. Aristotle had spoken of nature not as an efficient cause, but rather as a "power of acting in a specific determinate way, an intelligible, teleological, or functional order of motions."¹⁷ Though Thomas speaks as well of efficient causality in the question of natural end, he has accepted in his understanding of nature this more intrinsically dynamic view as well. All finite nature is to be understood in the context of motion to an end, which ultimately offers fulfillment. As it is the nature of a stone in falling to move to the fulfillment of its fall, so it is the nature of the dog to bark and of the man to seek knowledge.¹⁸ One cannot fully understand nature and therefore natural end in any being, even in totally spiritual being, in the thought of Thomas, unless one understands finality in Aristotle's example of motion to natural place as well, and unless he sees the intimate connection between the two subjects.

To place the explanation of natural desire in the context of motion and finality is not to substitute chance for purposeful direction. Natural motion is determined in the very form of a being. Only extrinsic, accidental motion will lead a being to an end which is not consistent with the fulfillment of its nature. In this sense, properly understood, finality and final cause as regards natural desire can be explained also in the context of formal cause, provided one abstract from the finality of an extrinsic efficient causal force molding the form.¹⁹ It pertains to the intrinsic nature of every form to seek its own end. This search is not that of an intellectually specified will, but a tendency in the roots of the nature itself. In speaking of formal causality there is a distinct danger of confusing tendency with a specified act of willing, especially since Thomas uses the same Latin term of desiderium to denote both.

In this approach to reality, moreover, it is perfectly legitimate to speak of reciprocal causality between the end and the form. In so far as it is the form which of its nature tends to the end, the end determines the form (though not by chance). Finally, in the highest tradition of Aristotelianism, the activity of the form is itself the end.²⁰ Unless this understanding of natural end as an operation of a form directed towards, and yet in its operation somehow already participating, in the end is grasped, natural end cannot be understood in the Thomistic sense.

A further insight into the analogy between natural end and physical motion is to be found in this quotation:

Everything that is moved towards an end naturally desires to be stationed at, and at rest in, that end; consequently, a body does not move away from the place to which it is moved naturally, unless by virtue of a violent movement which runs counter to its appetite. Now, happiness is the ultimate end which man naturally desires.²¹

Once again, the tendency of man to happiness, a specific form, as will be seen later, of the tendency of all being to fulfillment, is understood through its analogical relationship with physical motion. The explanation of this comparison is the same offered above. The new note introduced in this passage is that of violence. Just as the downward inclination of a stone is compared with the movement of a being to its natural end, so also any thwarting of the achievement of that end must be made akin to physical violence. While for the sake of accuracy it cannot simply be said that violence differs from natural motion as external force differs from internal, it is extremely clear that Thomas views the attainment of fulfillment by a being in the order of motion as an activity or operation.²²

The above cited texts witness the connection between natural finality on the one hand, and physical motion to natural place, on the other. A third text from the Summa Contra Gentiles points to the foundation of this connection in the element they both possess in common. "The perfection of intelligible being is present when the intellect reaches its ultimate end, just as the perfection of natural being consists in the very establishment of things in actual being."²³ The attainment of fulfillment by a being is to be seen as the complete actualization of its natural potency. Again the Thomistic doctrine is based on an Aristotelian theory drawn fundamentally from Aristotle's writings in the Physics. After a discussion of the actualization of potential lightness in a light object, the Philosopher continues, "The process whereby what is of a certain quality changes to a condition of active existence is similar: thus the exercise of knowledge follows at once upon the possession of it unless something prevents it."²⁴ As is so common to Aristotle, a principle concerning the spiritual activity of a being is related to an experimental observation in the field of physics. Aristotelian physics is itself primarily founded on a study of motion²⁵ where the relationship between natural end and physical motion is evident. The effect of this point upon a knowledge of contemplation as fulfillment is great. Traditional philosophic thought has often assumed contemplation to be a state, not an operation, and forgotten the dynamic foundation upon which Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas constructed their teaching.²⁶

From the above, some notions concerning the nature of natural end or natural fulfillment can be derived. For our study of the nature of fulfillment on the intellectual level, this explanation of the basic nature of fulfillment is essential.

In attaining its natural end, every natural being, intellectual and nonintellectual, is said by Thomas to have a share or participation in God.²⁷ This participation is based upon the likeness which that being in its perfection bears to the perfection of the divine being. Further, on whatever level or with whatever proximity to God that being in its fulfillment finds itself, if it truly has arrived at its natural end, it is at a definitive point beyond which it cannot proceed. Thomas is insistent in his opposition to a mathematically infinite progression of fulfillments.²⁸ The moment of fulfillment of every being must be in some sense a definite point to which that being has a definite tendency. In keeping with the above treatment of potency and act, this stage of fulfillment must be that of the most total possible actualization, one that completely satisfies the inner appetite of the being. Further, despite the clear emphasis placed on activity in Aquinas, fulfillment properly understood gives the being an unmoving stability in rest.²⁹ In brief, natural end is from the very outset of Thomas' treatment an encounter with and participation in God. Of its nature, it must imply a perfection which for each being will depend upon its proper nature,³⁰ and the characteristics of which will be discovered through an examination of its proper faculties. Thomas repeats again and again that the essential character of fulfillment to be found in any particular being must be drawn from a study of its distinctive proper faculties, from that which separates it from the rest of nature. The distinctive faculty which in the entire Thomistic-Aristotelian tradition sets off the human being from the rest of observable nature is intellect. Hence, it is in the intellect that the natural end and fulfillment of the human person is to be found. This is the next point to be treated here. Once established as the proper and distinctive human characteristic, a study of that intellectuality will reveal that in Thomas that faculty attains its perfection and fulfillment in the activity of contemplation.

Natural End in Intellectual Beings

As it is the intellect which is the proper and highest faculty of the human person, it will be in the intellect that human fulfillment of man will be found.³¹ In a sense, this is the entire burden of chapters twenty-six through thirty-six of the third book of the Summa which is here under discussion. This section of Thomas' work is concerned with an inductive elimination of all other possible objects of human fulfillment as either not proper to man, not concerned with his highest faculty, or not consonant with one or more of the principles of fulfillment cited above. The intellect is the noblest faculty, says Thomas early in his treatment, the only faculty which the human does not share with the rest of the animal kingdom. Thomas' analysis, strikingly enough, includes not only bodily and sense faculties, but the moral virtue of fortitude and the intellectual virtue of prudence as well.³² If the natural end of all beings is union with and participation in God, then surely the intellect must be the highest of all faculties, for while the unity achieved by all the other faculties consists solely in their similarity with God, the intellect attains an intentional union with His very substance.³³ Indeed, on the level of intentionality, the intellect becomes God according to its capacities.³⁴

This human faculty through which one comes by nature to know and thus further by nature to be fulfilled cannot be said in technical language to be directed by its intrinsic nature to any particular object of knowledge. While it is true to say that the intellectual fulfillment of man is to be found in contemplation of God, to say this without further explanation could imply that the natural being of man is directly determined to knowledge of a particular object. Rather it must be said that since the proper end of the intellect is to know,³⁵ the proper end of man must be knowledge of that which is the highest in the order of knowledge.³⁶ For knowledge is a spiritual activity which of its very nature entails the ability to understand every object capable of being known.³⁷ This is not to say that a particular being in possession of this spiritual faculty cannot be limited because of some extrinsic circumstance from grasping all reality. Indeed, the very dual composition of the human being so limits one. But a consideration of the intellect in itself reveals that this faculty is directed by its nature to a knowledge of the highest possible object capable of being known, and, incidentally at this point in our study, to a knowledge of that which is known in the most perfect possible manner. Because the intellect stands as the proper faculty of man, this knowledge of the highest knowable is not only the fulfillment of the intellect, but also the fulfillment of the human person itself. By a process of induction, Thomas Aquinas establishes this highest knowledge possible to humankind to be the contemplation of God. In technical language, the end of the intellect is primarily to know. It is driven by nature to know more and more, to put off all possible ignorance and lack of knowledge,³⁸ so that it can come to a stage of such perfect knowledge that nothing will remain unknown to it.³⁹

Because this tendency is part of the nature of the human person, it is not necessary that the object of that tendency be known by a person.⁴⁰ By one's very nature and its natural weight, one is carried to fulfillment. Here also is found a reason for distinguishing the knowledge of the highest knowable as the fulfillment of the intellect from the more simply stated contemplation of God. The implication could be given in the latter formulation that one would have to know that contemplation of God was a possibility before one could tend towards it. This is far from the truth, yet historically it has been the source of much confusion of terms. What cannot be denied is that the intellect may discover its end (this is precisely what Thomas himself is doing in this context), but the desire for the end which comes from this discovery is of a different order than the natural tendency of man, notwithstanding the confusion caused in the Latin of Aquinas because of the word desiderium. If the object of human tendency had to be determined as an object of knowledge, few would tend to contemplation. This has been the witness of history. Augustine states in the City of God that the ancients held 288 different opinions concerning the end of man.⁴¹ Aristotle states that "even eminent persons" have held varying and contradictory views on the object of human fulfillment.⁴² Virtue, wisdom, pleasure, glory, riches, power, friends, and many other objects of fulfillment have been classic throughout philosophy.⁴³ The object of human happiness cannot therefore be determined by knowledge of it, but must be grounded deep in one's pre-cognitional and pre-volitional nature.

In speaking of this confusion, Thomas draws a distinction between natural appetite (the desiderium of this paper) and "animal" (as derived from anima) appetite, which the soul desires after it has been discovered.⁴⁴ Natural appetite follows the natural form and functions in intellectual beings, without specific knowledge; animal appetite, governed by the principle nil volitum nisi praecognitum, follows an apprehended form either through sense or intellect. One is an internal motion (in the analogical sense of motion), while the other is extrinsically determined. This again is not to say that an intellect cannot further strengthen its desire for fulfillment or specify it through knowing that its fulfillment is reached in contemplation. But with or without specific knowledge, it has no control over the basic fact that it has a natural tendency directed toward knowledge, and indeed toward the knowledge of the highest knowable.

In the Summa Theologiae Thomas summarizes this very important distinction with great clarity.

Every man desires happiness. For the general notion of happiness consists in the perfect good. . . . But since good is the object of the will, the perfect good of man is that which entirely satisfies his will. Consequently, to desire happiness is nothing else than to desire that one's will be satisfied. And this everyone desires. Secondly, we may speak of happiness according to its specific notion, as to that in which it consists. And thus all do not know happiness; because they know not in what thing the general happiness is found. And consequently in this respect not all desire it ⁴⁵

Fulfillment in man is thus in the order of intellect; it is the tendency to know the best possible known, that is, God. As in the nature of all natural fulfillment, this knowledge must be for the human person perfect and ultimate, a total actualization satisfying the will and somehow giving rest. It must be the point of attainment beyond which there is no desire to proceed. As mentioned earlier, in many contexts this actualization is called by Thomas in many contexts happiness. It is not happiness because all men say that it is, or all men desire it by conscious appetite. History disproves this. It is happiness because it is the gravitational pole of human tendency, the knowledge of the highest knowable. We shall see that for Thomas such fulfillment is to be found in the activity of contemplation, as classically understood by Aristotle and as revived by Aquinas. This activity of contemplation will be described in Thomistic terms. The aim here will be not to shed light on all the facets of contemplation (an aim to be pursued later), but to point out those aspects of this intellectual activity which show it to be a true example of natural fulfillment.

Contemplation-Fulfillment of Intellectual Beings

Contemplation is therefore quite simply the natural fulfillment of the human person, the "highest act of man's highest faculty",⁴⁶ an operation which reaches its perfection when exercised upon the highest possible object, God himself. Far from establishing this position on an a priori basis, Thomas proceeds to it through eleven chapters of inductive reasoning, gradually eliminating all other possible ends as each, for one reason or another, is incapable of fulfilling the inner tendency of human nature. Aquinas concludes this section of his study with the following summary statement:

If the ultimate happiness of man does not consist in external things which are called the goods of fortune, nor in the goods of the body, nor in the goods of the soul according to its sensitive part, nor as regards the intellective part according to the activity of the moral virtues, nor according to the intellectual virtues that are concerned with action, that is, art and prudence--we are left with the conclusion that the ultimate happiness of man lies in the contemplation of truth.⁴⁷

The argument throughout this section is classically Aristotelian, the process of induction being almost an exact parallel of that used by Aristotle in the Nicomachaean Ethics.⁴⁸

An analysis of the eleven chapters of the Summa referred to immediately above offers a selection of valuable insights. Unlike all other fulfillments or objects of happiness, contemplation is, first of all, sufficient unto itself, sought after for its own sake, and without reference to any other good beyond it: "contemplative acts are themselves ends".⁴⁹ Unlike pleasure and delight, which look to that which gives the delight for the explanation of their being, contemplation explains its own goodness.⁵⁰ Unlike power or the moral and intellectual virtues, contemplation is not ordered to something else for its fulfillment.⁵¹ Thomas' analysis of contemplation as sufficient to itself is completed with his statement that it above all else needs little external assistance for its operation.⁵² All other operations of man are themselves ordered to something else and that something else is for all of them the knowledge of God.

For there is needed for the perfection of contemplation soundness of body, to which all the products of art that are necessary for life are directed. Also required are freedom from the disturbances of the passions--this is achieved through the moral virtues and prudence and freedom from external disorders, to which the whole program of government in civil life is directed. . . . All human functions may be seen to subserve the contemplation of truth.⁵³

Once again it must be stressed that this Thomistic contemplation, this use of man's highest faculty for understanding the highest object of knowledge, is not a state but an operation. In classical philosophy, from which Thomas drew his inspiration, Aristotle had referred to contemplation as to theoresai,⁵⁴ a verbal or action word, "to contemplate". Contemplation is not therefore in Thomas a stage at which one arrives and comes to a nonactive rest, but rather an activity in the doing of which one already is achieving his finality. To see contemplation in Thomas as a state could well be the most dangerous misunderstanding of his doctrine of happiness. Aristotle had said in his Ethics that in this process of contemplating man became involved in a divine activity. Thomas echoes that thought in calling the operation itself a participation in the likeness of God.⁵⁵ Through contemplation, the human person makes his or her makes his most intimate approach to God--quite the opposite of those who seek fulfillment in the flesh and find themselves drawn progressively away from their true natural end.⁵⁶

Again in the spirit of Aristotle, contemplation is an enduring and unchanging activity, a constant operation which of its nature is endless and errorless, unable to be lost or taken away by the will of men.⁵⁷ In short, it offers man every element of fulfillment which his nature desires. It gives his seeking mind the perfect rest and stability of total achievement.⁵⁸ How Aquinas reconciles the notions of rest and activity is not contained in his treatment in the Summa; it has been the source of much valuable philosophical discussion.

As fulfillment of the entire human nature, which itself is involved in the paradox of seeking rest and yet finding its perfection in activity, contemplation must somehow involve both elements. It is an activity because the very essence of finite nature is to be involved in motion. But while totally involved in motion, simultaneously it must possess its perfect state with full stability . Aquinas discusses the nature of this rest of contemplation from two points of view. On the one hand, perfect rest consists in the contemplative knowledge of the highest cause of all the effects which the human mind observes.⁵⁹ This aspect of fulfillment, which derives from the relationship between efficient causality and ultimate end, is more distinctively Thomistic in origin, Aristotle having centered his discussion of fulfillment almost entirely in the order of final causality. On the other hand, more in the Aristotelian line of thought Thomas speaks of the restful fulfillment attained by the intellect in contemplation in terms of its analogical relationship with the motion of falling bodies and their attainment of their natural place.⁶⁰ Thomas once again calls upon the analogy of physical movement when he observes that motion in a straight line must end at a definite point and cannot proceed to infinity.⁶¹ Only unnatural violence can disturb this natural tendency, which incidentally increases in velocity the closer it approaches its final end until finally it attains its stability and rest. The happy person, Thomas states, is thus fixed in his happiness.⁶²

Thus the perfect fulfillment of man is to be found in the activity of contemplation. This is not simply an imperfect understanding of principles which contain potential knowledge of all, nor a scientific knowledge of "lower things". Rather, it is the understanding of the noblest objects of the intellect, truth and wisdom, and ultimately the "divine" participation which accrues to man in the contemplation of God himself.⁶³ Thus, by induction Thomas takes his place in the current of Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus, that it is in the intellect and its contemplation that ultimate human fulfillment is to be found.⁶⁴

Yet, true to his tradition, Thomas records the strange and mysterious fact, known also to Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus, that despite all the logic of this process of induction, something in reality and in the concrete person points to an area of fulfillment lying beyond contemplation. It is stated by Thomas that the human mind's contemplation of God is limited by the strength of its nature; in the words of Aristotle this is compared to the highest intelligible object "as the owl's eye is to the sunlight."⁶⁵

A Christian may think an easy solution to the mystery to be that man is now aware of the supernatural end destined for him and could not possibly be satisfied with a purely natural knowledge of God. But this answer is valueless for the discussion of this study, for the entire core of classical philosophy, Christian and non-Christian, is clouded with a strange dissatisfaction with its own analysis of fulfillment--a dissatisfaction which cannot be dispelled by a plea that man obviously is not God. In the nature of man, both as nature and as man, there is present a mysterious void. Aristotle hinted at this when he said that men were happy, but only as men,⁶⁶ a statement which in its poignancy seems to contain far more than a simple admission that there are happier beings elsewhere in the order of nature. Plotinus offers a brilliant description of man in contemplation, "radiant, filled with the intelligible light, or rather grown one with that light in its purity, without burden or any heaviness, transfigured to godhead . . . enkindled . . . being in essence God."⁶⁷ But somehow he is forced also to say that same man "will lapse again from the vision."⁶⁸

Further, the glorious description of contemplation given by Plato in the Republic, "And the soul is like the eye: when resting upon that on which truth and being shine, the soul perceives and understands and is radiant with intelligence,"⁶⁹ is also somehow tempered by the philosopher's rather different description of this activity of fulfillment in the Phaedrus, where he states that contemplation is the understanding of the "colorless, formless, intangible essence, visible only to mind, the pilot of the soul."⁷⁰ If this vision of the colorless be contemplation, one wonders how it could possibly fulfill the needs of man so keenly described by Plato in his classic picture of the inherent non-fulfillment of the human state in his account of the formation of the sexes found in the Symposium.⁷¹ Though not directly concerned with contemplation, this passage so emphasizes the internal frustrations of human nature that one is left with the conviction that no fulfillment on any level, short of the supernatural intervention of the gods themselves, could rectify this tragic human situation.

The intellectual optimism of the Greeks is unmistakable, but even in their optimism they cannot successfully hide the ever-present frustration of their real situation. There simply is no solution, and one is left to believe that if there were a solution it would have to be totally on the supernatural level. In the tradition of the classic philosophers, Thomas records this theme of frustration. Yet somehow he does not seem to share the classic view. And here it becomes clear that there is a great difference between Aquinas and his antecedents. To set up the difference in as clear a manner as possible, for it is founded on very complex grounds, it must be said that, in contrast to Aristotle, Thomas is totally optimistic concerning the natural fulfillment of man. He is optimistic because from the very outset of his treatment (and this point was heretofore prescinded from in this paper to allow for an unprejudiced discussion of contemplation as contemplation), his understanding of contemplation includes the eventual total realization of activity in the active seeing of the divine essence. This he knows from revelation to be the Beatific Vision.⁷² In the twenty-fifth chapter, in the introduction to his study of human fulfillment, he has written an amazing series of statements.

Now the ultimate end of man, and of every intellectual substance, is called felicity or happiness, because this is what every intellectual substance desires as an ultimate end, and for its own sake alone. Therefore, the ultimate happiness and felicity of every intellectual substance is to know God. And so it is said in Matthew (5:8): "Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God;" and in John (17:3): "This is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God." With this view, the judgment of Aristotle is also in agreement, in the last book of his Ethics, where he says that the ultimate felicity of man is "speculative, in accord with the contemplation of the best object of speculation."⁷³

If Thomas were without this Christian sense and held contemplation to be the fulfillment of man, though there were still some mysterious failing in that perfection, this study could end here: Thomas would have said what Aristotle said and no more. If Thomas, as a Christian, had held that, through the supernatural intervention of God, man was elevated to a supernatural end, and that vision totally superseded contemplation, again this study would be here at an end, for a treatment of vision so understood would be clearly theological. But the fact is that Thomas did what no other great classic or Christian philosopher has ever done. He stated that the vision of the divine essence was the natural end of man, the natural fulfillment of contemplation.

Again, if Thomas could be understood as saying that contemplation is the fulfillment of man in this life and vision the fulfillment in the next life, the study again could be concluded with the simple statement that whereas Aristotle did not know of the fact of an after-life Thomas simply considered vision to be contemplation as it would exist in this new state. But, though Thomas often uses the term "in this life" in his treatment, it becomes evident with the first serious analysis that this cannot be the distinction he is drawing between contemplation and vision.⁷⁴ He states that the contemplation which fulfills but does not fulfill in this life, fulfills but does not fulfill in the life to come. The only possible solution, and the one pointed to by this study, is that Thomas held that it was possible for the human intellect somehow simultaneously to have two objects of fulfillment, two natural ends.

Having established this possibility, and having separated these two ends according to their proper distinction (which is not the one given above), this study will proceed to the following conclusions: Thomas Aquinas, alone among the great Christian philosophers, holds that, even with the vision of the divine essence accepted as reality, contemplation is still a natural end and natural fulfillment of the human person. Further, contemplation as a natural end in itself has a definite role to play in leading to the attainment of one's other natural end, namely, the natural end of vision.

In conclusion, all things have a natural end. The natural end of substances endowed with intelligence must be found in some operation of the intellect. That operation must be the understanding of God, that is, the activity of contemplation directed upon its highest object. Contemplation is the fulfillment of intellectual creatures, and especially in this context the fulfillment of the human person. But in some sense, contemplation as understood by classic Greek philosophy, is seen to fail as fulfillment. The classic philosopher's answer to the failure was patience in frustration: there could be no answer to the problem. The Christian answer has historically been faith in the Beatific Vision, as superseding contemplation. Thomas Aquinas, writing in a Christian context but strongly attached to the classic tradition, holds a unique position, which will be described in the sections which follow.

VISION AS FULFILLMENT:

THE THOMISTIC TEACHING CHALLENGED

The Influence of Christianity Upon The Philosophy of Human Finality:

Augustine and Bonaventure

Thomas Aquinas has been called a Christian Aristotelian. Whatever particular objections may be raised against this title, there is in the phrase a great element of truth, which might be seen in a clearer light if the title were changed to Christian Classicist. The Thomistic teaching on contemplation as the fulfillment of man has been seen in the first chapter to be in the mainstream of the classic approach of philosophy to the subject of human finality. Along with Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus, Thomas Aquinas centered his analysis of human fulfillment upon the activity of the human intellect. Indeed, it can be further stated that Aquinas' entire study of contemplation is in large part inspired by the discussion of the same subject in Aristotle's Nicomachaean Ethics.

Between Aristotle and Thomas, however, as is quite obvious, came Christianity, a teaching which extrinsically produced a radical change in the history of man and in the history of philosophy. Statements made by Paul of Tarsus, such as "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for those who love him,"⁷⁵ and "I shall know even as I have been known."⁷⁶ as well as by John the Evangelist, such as, "We shall see him (God) just as he is,"⁷⁷ had great effect upon philosophic thought in the Christian era. They caused philosophy to rethink its traditional understanding of the end and finality of man, to rethink, indeed, its entire conception of the nature of man and of nature in general. From the advent of Christ and the writings of the Scriptures, philosophy's understanding of nature is influenced unmistakably by an external force. Thus, to say that Thomas Aquinas is a Christian classicist is simply to point up the fact that he above all others philosophized in the tradition of the Greeks within the Christian context of his times. Thomas' classical views concerning contemplation already have been set forth. What must be explained now is the effect of his Christian faith upon the classical teaching as he formulated it.

The first point to be made is that for Thomas, the end of man simply and unquestionably is the vision of the divine essence.⁷⁸ For the sake of a clear understanding of the position of Aristotelian contemplation in Thomas Aquinas, no mention of vision as treated in the section of the Summa Contra Gentiles under discussion was made in the first chapter of this paper. The historical fact that Thomas held vision to be the final and total fulfillment of man is, however, unmistakable. In the very opening of his study of contemplation, Thomas makes clear that by contemplation he understands the notion of vision as well.⁷⁹ A great portion of Thomas' discussion of contemplation, from question thirty-eight to question fifty inclusively, is devoted to Aquinas' intricate and at times obscure transition from contemplation as understood by Aristotle to contemplation as embracing vision. Indeed, the concluding chapter of the entire treatment under discussion is a concise and literary exposition of vision as the fulfillment of all other possible fulfillments, even of the fulfillment that is Aristotelian contemplation.⁸⁰ There is no doubt that Thomas found in his analysis of man the answer that removed the problem of frustration faced by Aristotle and the classical age, and that he found that answer in vision as the fulfillment of human nature. In his concluding chapter Thomas says:

For there is in man, in so far as he is intellectual, one type of desire, concerned with the knowledge of truth; indeed, men seek to fulfill this desire by the effort of the contemplative life. And this will clearly be fulfilled in that vision, when, through the vision of the First Truth, all that the intellect naturally desires to know becomes known to it.⁸¹

Strongly influenced by classical philosophy, Thomas was also a man of his times, a Christian witness to twelve hundred years of faith. Nor was he the first to encase the object of his faith in the framework of philosophy. Others such as Augustine of Hippo and Bonaventure had preceded him in this task. Yet there is a difference in the approach of Thomas. Prior to Aquinas, the great Christian thinkers who had philosophized upon the content of their faith had been so overwhelmed by the marvels of the love of God they discovered therein, that they tended to throw aside the findings of pre-Christian learning as of little worth. Indeed, they no longer saw need for speculation into the purely natural order. They considered that order to have been superseded, or, further, never to have existed. In their view, the entire natural order had always been directed to the supernatural, though the revelation of this fact had not been made until the "fullness of time".

Thus it was that Christian thought, represented especially by Augustine, abandoned the abstract study of the nature of man, to involve itself in the historical study of his journey to union with God. The entire history of man, including his past, was reanalyzed in the light of the revelation. Man, nature, happiness, finality, indeed all philosophical concepts, were considered to have no meaning if they were not integrated into the fact of Christ and the Church.⁸² For Augustine, philosophy, all science and indeed all history became "progressive, meaningful, and intelligible only by the expectation of a final triumph, beyond historical time, of the City of God over the city of sinful men."⁸³ In Augustine, that city of sinful men was identified with pure nature; this was cast aside as of little value in relation to more lofty supernatural considerations.

Augustine's understanding of nature as therefore not a philosophical concept, but an historical one intimately bound up with supernatural grace for the fullness of its meaning, became the backbone of his establishment of vision as the fulfillment of man. This point is of great importance. As has so often been stated Augustine discarded a strict analysis of the nature of man to consider what he termed the supernatural end of supernatural man.⁸⁴

This approach to the question of finality, while it accepts the same end for man as Thomas accepted, places the entire argument on the level of grace. It is the originality of Thomas that he found the means to place the same argument on the level of nature. A modern scholar of Augustine has strikingly summarize the Augustinian view of nature.

To the best of our knowledge at least, a definition of what man's metaphysical essence could have implied as belonging by right to his nature is not to be found in Augustine. The point of view he takes is always, so to speak, historical and purely factual. God created man in a certain state of nature. If He had created him in another state, even a lower one, it would have been simply another state of nature, both states being in the long run but gratuitous gifts of God. We should not be surprised, then, to see St. Augustine attributing to grace all the gifts which constitute the original condition of man.⁸⁵

Put in another way, for Augustine there is no nature as Aristotle understood it. There never was. Historical nature is philosophical supernature; this supernature is the only state worth consideration.⁸⁶

If Aristotelian finality and locomotion in physics acted as a key in the understanding of natural end in Thomas, an understanding of "natural" end in Augustine finds as its point of departure the Augustinian doctrine of illumination. The presence of illumination in Augustinian psychology establishes the basis of the human supernatural orientation in the action of God deep within man's own nature. Yet it should not be thought that this doctrine was so naively supernatural as to involve an entire assimilation of human knowing into divine activity. Rather, illumination seems to be a metaphorical explanation of the necessary pre-dispositioning of the human mind by God the Creator, enabling it to understand, adhere to and indeed see the truth, the ideas of God.⁸⁷ Further, and again in keeping with the entire outlook of Augustine, a supernatural aid from God is necessary not only for vision, the end of man, but for every step along the way. Once again, Augustine's commitment to the supernatural has obliterated the truly natural. With the necessity of illumination accepted, the arguments of Augustine for vision as the end of man are simply explained. In the first place, the transcendental truth in Augustine is equated with God.⁸⁸

God is actually in the soul as the truth that illumines the mind of every man. . . . Beatitude, however, consists in the possession of the truth, so that the soul is really tending towards God when it is tending towards the truth that beatifies.⁸⁹

The first argument is simple. Once again, as in Aristotle and Thomas, Augustine does not require man to know that precisely to which he tends, for the tendency to beatitude is too deeply ingrained in his nature to require such cognition and volition for its operation. Augustine might be considered traditionally Aristotelian were it not for the one fact that the truth tended towards does not find its roots solely in the nature of man. It is placed in every human person by divine illumination.

In a second argument, again strikingly like and unlike Thomas Aquinas' thought, Augustine argues that every person possesses in his or her nature an image of the creating Trinitarian God. Through self-consideration, not simply self-observation,⁹⁰ each person tends to His image and consequently tends to a likeness of God according to one's own capacity. In speaking of likeness and capacity, Augustine seems to prefigure the participation in, and acquisition of, God's likeness to be found in the Summa Contra Gentiles.⁹¹ But once again it must be remembered that in so far as this image of the Trinity is only to be found in nature as elevated by grace, and in so far as the consequence of this is that nature without such elevation is incapable of imaging God, the view of Augustine stands actually in opposition to the Thomistic approach. Thomas Aquinas, far more than Augustine, adopts a philosophically optimistic attitude towards the entire natural order.⁹²

Finally, in an argument that bears an even greater resemblance to the tradition of Aristotle, Augustine compares the tendency of each soul to the vision of God to the weight which pulls a physical body to its natural place. Expressing his understanding of human tendency in its relation to the motion of falling bodies, Augustine states, "My weight is my love; by it I am borne whithersoever I am borne."⁹³ In similar fashion, he compares this intrinsic desire to the hunger of the body for food.⁹⁴ Yet once again, though Augustine's understanding contains clear connotations of Aristotle's analogy between human desire and physical motion, one must not forget the radical difference which exists between the two philosophers' conception of the nature possessing this desire or hunger. The object of Augustine's study is at all times not pure human nature, but nature as determined to its end through the influence of an external supernatural force.

It is undoubtedly in Augustine that, prior to Thomas, the tradition of Christian philosophy in the question of natural fulfillment is most clearly expressed. It is in Augustine that the current of Christian thought assimilating the natural to the supernatural and leading therefore to the practical annihilation of nature, finds its source. Perhaps the second greatest influence in the study of the human person's natural end in Christian philosophy prior to Thomas is Bonaventure. Bonaventure's philosophy evidences strong Augustinian influences. His statement that the soul "naturally tends towards the one in whose image it has been made, in order that in Him it may be beatified," is fully consonant with Augustine's doctrine of illuminationism.⁹⁵ Yet Bonaventure also contributed personally to the history of the philosophy of human fulfillment. Unlike Augustine, he was acquainted with Aristotle. Like Thomas, therefore, he was faced with a necessary choice: whether to found his philosophy primarily upon Greek classicism or upon his Christian faith. Bonaventure chose faith, rejecting Aristotle's metaphysics for its very lack of faith.⁹⁶ Yet the influence of Aristotle prevented him from ever achieving the totality and the simplicity of the faith-commitment of Augustine. While he accepted the supernaturality of man's inner tendency to vision, he was faced on the other hand with his conviction of the necessity of some special force, totally separate from the nature of man, but necessary for his elevation to the vision of the divine essence. In order to save the truth on both sides of the question, Bonaventure produced what might be called a supernaturalization of the supernatural. He posited a special aid given by God which would bring the already supernatural tendency of nature to its perfect fulfillment. Unaided by this special gift, man's nature could not bring him to an intuition of God's essence, but to what Bonaventure called a "contuition" of God, a direct apprehension by thought of God, yet an apprehension which somehow always eluded man's total grasp.⁹⁷ Beyond this contuition, came the full intuition of God, the final stage of man's ascension to God, the ineffable joy lying "beyond the limit of what can be expressed in words."⁹⁸ This intuition according to Bonaventure could not be attained without God's special intervention.

The Thomistic Analysis of Vision as Fulfillment

Through the influence of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas came to the conclusion that the fulfillment of man was to be found in intellectual contemplation of God. Through the influence of his faith and the writings of Augustine and others, Thomas further held the belief that contemplation of God found its fulfillment in the vision of God's essence. But as with no other author, neither the forces of Aristotle nor those of Augustine could sway Aquinas to such a degree that he could be said to have taken a position in the school of either. The result was the Thomistic conclusion of two natural ends to be presented here. But before the discussion of a double end may begin, it is necessary to see what Thomas himself said concerning vision and to analyze the relationships between his discussion of vision and his exposition of contemplation.

As stated in the opening pages of this section, vision as fulfillment of human nature is evident in Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas' inductive study leading him to this position occupies a great part of his entire discussion of human fulfillment. Having established contemplation as the fulfillment of man in the thirty-seventh chapter of the third book of the Summa, Thomas then begins the complex work of detailing the precise nature of this contemplation in which amid the many acts of understanding fulfillment is totally realized. The work is one of great delicacy, being an attempt to balance the principles of Aristotle with the content of Christian faith. The difficulty of coordinating such divergent principles of knowledge renders Aquinas' thought often difficult and at times even obscure.

The reasoning first presented here, though not so situated by Thomas, contains little difficulty. Though vision is the object of faith, human fulfillment is not to be found in knowledge had through faith.⁹⁹ Indeed, the fulfillment or happiness which comes to one through knowledge by faith is to be found primarily, not in the intellect, but rather in the will. The act of faith is an act of the will, and though the contents of faith must be intellectually assented to as far as the truth of their existence is concerned, that assent is made to truth whose quiddity is essentially and necessarily absent from, and not yet grasped by, the intellect.¹⁰⁰ One cannot believe and know the same object in the same way at the same time. Thomas had said earlier in his treatment that one characteristic of intellectual fulfillment was union with the object known.¹⁰¹ In direct opposition, faith is founded not upon a principle of unity between knower and known, but upon a belief based on authority that what is now intellectually not grasped nor united to the intellect, at some future date will be totally possessed.¹⁰²

Nor on the level of direct intellectual knowledge is fulfillment to be found in an understanding or contemplation of God based solely upon the general and confused knowledge possessed by the majority of people. The knowledge here referred to is that understanding by which men, having grasped the presence of order in the universe, one comes to a rather nebulous intellectual conviction of the need for an orderer to explain what has been observed.¹⁰³ History has proved time and time again that those who achieved this stage of understanding often drifted hopelessly into error, attributing that principle of order either to celestial bodies, to the elements of the earth, or even to men themselves.¹⁰⁴ No knowledge which remains in such an underdeveloped state, which in relation to the heights of knowledge is in such a state of potency that it could almost be compared to prime matter, can justifiably be termed a fulfillment.¹⁰⁵ Further, this is but the beginning, the first step in human knowing, the very opposite of fulfillment or end.¹⁰⁶

Again, the fulfillment of human understanding of God is not to be had in findings through demonstration, no matter how noble that process of learning may be in itself.¹⁰⁷ The first argument employed by Thomas to eliminate this form of human knowledge is of a somewhat different order than any used previously. What is to be the fulfillment of a nature, the Thomistic analysis holds, must be attainable by at least the majority of species having that nature.

The things which pertain to a species extend to the end of that species, in most cases; in fact, things which are of a natural origin are so always, or in most cases, though they may fail in a few instances because of some corruption. . . . In fact, if there have been any men who have discovered the truth about divine things in such a way, by means of demonstration, that no falsity attaches to their judgment, it is clear that there have been few such.¹⁰⁸

The argument recalls one of the most widely-known opinions of Thomas: That few men have the physical disposition, the time amid temporal necessities, the energy, or the maturity to pursue questions in metaphysics, to arrive at the highest truths through the use of their reason in demonstration.¹⁰⁹ Further, knowledge acquired through demonstrative reasoning is never free from the shadows of error, deception, and ignorance.¹¹⁰ The person is ever driven to know more and more, to rid himself of all lack of understanding,¹¹¹ so much so, says Thomas, that even if perchance he should come to a knowledge of all truth through demonstration, he would still be driven to seek an understanding of that same truth according to a higher mode of intellection.¹¹²

This final part of the reasoning set forth to eliminate demonstration is singularly Thomistic, though its fundamental roots can be found in the writings of Aristotle. This is not to say that Aristotle specifically rejected the possibility of the immortality of the human soul, but to say that in fact he did not treat of the activity of the soul after death. In carrying the question of human fulfillment beyond death, though he used Aristotelian principles, Thomas was initiating a new consideration not formulated by the Philosopher. But, as will become clear later, even if Aristotle had chosen to consider human contemplation in the higher mode of existence possible to the separated soul, he would still have arrived at a point of frustration, in which man would once again have to be judged as possessing happiness solely as man.¹¹³

Having eliminated simple knowledge, faith, and demonstration as total fulfillments of the human being, Aquinas then for a rather lengthy part of his study suspends his direct movement into the area of vision. Though still in the context of the traditional Aristotelian analysis of human fulfillment, as found in the Nicomachaean Ethics, Thomas from the forty-first to the fiftieth question of his discussion makes a definite move away from the paths of investigation he had been following. In the forty-first question, he introduces a new perspective to his study, a perspective which is very much to the point of his discussion, but which may also in actual fact be a source of confusion in relation to the entire argument. From the twenty-fifth to the fortieth question, there was but one subject under discussion, namely, the nature of the fulfillment of the human person. Thomas already accepted the answer to this question to be vision of the divine essence. Questions forty-one to fifty, with a brief interruption in question forty-eight, consider a somewhat different problem, one which in the context of Thomas' faith becomes a problem of almost purely theoretic value.¹¹⁴ In this section he attempts an exposition of the highest form of contemplation which would have been possible without vision. What this section offers therefore is a partial solution to the frustration faced by Aristotle in his analysis of human fulfillment. This solution is achieved through joining together Aristotle's understanding of happiness as found in the Nicomachaean Ethics, Aristotle's philosophy of separate substances, and Aquinas' belief in the after-life. The treatment is valuable for a fuller understanding of Thomistic contemplation.

The confusion produced by its position in the entire discussion is due to the fact that it follows upon the section devoted to the elimination of faith, simple knowledge, and demonstration. Hence, the conclusion often drawn has been that the knowledge presented by Thomas here is his understanding of man's ultimate fulfillment, offered in opposition to Aristotle's conception. The treatment is so lengthy and so centrally positioned that for many Thomas' brief statement at the end of it is lost or even misinterpreted. If one fails to take note of Thomas' concluding statement that even this lofty knowledge is infinitely inferior to vision, one can emerge from his or her study with the viewpoint that the radical difference between Aristotle's fulfillment and Thomas' interpretation of that same fulfillment is to be found in the immortality of the soul, rather than in the difference between the infinity of vision and the finite nature of contemplation, as Thomas actually holds.

For the sake of clarity in the discussion of this issue, it would be well here to include the entire first paragraph of the forty-first question of the section under discussion.

An intellectual substance has still another kind of knowledge of God. Indeed, it has been stated in Book Two¹¹⁵ that a separate substance, in knowing its own essence, knows both what is above and what is below itself, in a manner proper to its substance. This is especially necessary if what is above it is its cause, since the likeness of the cause must be found in the effects. And so, since God is the cause of all created intellectual substances, as is evident from the foregoing,¹¹⁶ then separate intellectual substances, in knowing their own essence, must know God Himself by way of a vision of some kind. For a thing whose likeness exists in the intellect is known through the intellect by way of vision, just as the likeness of a thing which is seen corporeally is present in the sense of the viewer. So, whatever intellect understands separate substance, by knowing what it is, sees God in a higher way than He is known by any of the previously created types of knowledge.¹¹⁷

The point made by Thomas in this entire section is as follows. Even though contemplation as understood by Aristotle offers a knowledge, indeed a perfecting knowledge of the highest knowable, it cannot give total fulfillment, for it is not the highest mode of knowledge within the natural capacities of an intellectual substance.¹¹⁸ There is another type of knowledge, proper to a separate substance, which leads through a reflective contemplation of the essence of that substance to an understanding of God so intimate it can be called a type of vision.¹¹⁹ Yet even this type of knowledge, this quasi-vision, is incapable of attaining to the direct vision of the divine essence. Therefore, neither in contemplation in this life nor in the knowledge of separate substances possible in the next is one's inner natural tendency totally fulfilled. In order that one be fulfilled, yet another higher mode of knowledge must somehow be possible.

The development of this section, now to be examined in greater detail, proceeds in the following manner. Some have claimed that since one can understand separate substances in this life,¹²⁰ there is a fulfillment possible to him in his present state more lofty than that provided by contemplation as described by Aristotle.¹²¹ But since all human knowledge in this life is derived through phantasms, one is totally unable to understand, i. e., to have a quidditative knowledge, of separate substances in this present state.¹²² The reason for this conclusion is that even the most abstracted quiddity "includes matter and form within itself" and no separate substance can possess this particular form of dual composition.¹²³ Further, the human intellect cannot even know separate substances through their effects, through, for instance, the movement of the spheres, because in this case the agent is not of the same species as its effect and the "powers of separate substances exceed all the sensible effects which we may grasp intellectually, as a universal power surpasses a particular effect."¹²⁴

Finally, since all intelligible objects known by man are based upon some speculative science, and the essence of separated substances is included under no science of this type, separate substances cannot be known by man.¹²⁵ In a concluding remark on the question of man's understanding of separate substances, which takes the argument back to its basic consideration, Thomas argues a fortiori:

If we are not able to understand other separate substances in this life, because of the natural affinity of our intellect for phantasms, still less are we able in this life to see the divine essence which transcends all separate substances. ¹²⁶

Having established man's inability to understand separate substances, his own essence, or the divine essence in this life, Thomas asks whether man can understand separate substances after death and answers in the affirmative. Once the soul is separated from the body, the possible intellect is enabled by the agent intellect, acting as a likeness of the light present in separate substances, to understand that which is intelligible in itself, i. e. separate substances.¹²⁷ Thomas asks whether the now liberated soul can in its new condition understand the divine essence in the knowledge of vision. As noted above, he answers in the negative, and for many reasons. In the first place, as the divine nature is not of the same species as the separate substance, "not even the same in genus,"¹²⁸ therefore it cannot be understood by the soul in any state of its existence. With or without the phantasm, understanding by a composite finite being always demands a certain comprehension and definition (in its etymological sense) of the understood. But the infinite cannot be defined or comprehended, and therefore the divine essence can in no wise be understood through this type of knowledge.¹²⁹ In conclusion to this question and to the whole treatment of bodiless soul and separate substance, Thomas says that the highest knowledge either can attain of the divine essence is the knowledge that it is. This knowledge lies far beneath the loftiness of knowing what God is. Thus, no nature possessing simply the knowledge that God is can be at rest, in perfect fulfillment.¹³⁰ Thomistic intellectual fulfillment is thus not to be distinguished from Aristotelian fulfillment simply on the grounds of the place in which it is enjoyed.

Joining this entire argument in so far as it concerns this life to his observations concerning faith and demonstration and to the traditional Aristotelian principles of fulfillment, Thomas concludes that total fulfillment is in no way to be found in man's present earthly state. Aside from any analysis of the knowledge process as given above, contemplation of God in this life, as an action in the same state, is subject to all the deficiencies intimately connected with earthly existence. Hunger, thirst, heat, cold, fundamental lacks in virtue, the constant presence of ignorance, interruptions in activity, lack of time, danger of loss, mental and physical sickness, and death itself, all render contemplation as engaged in this life fraught with frustrations.¹³¹ Man finds himself involved in an operation which is far from perfect, beset on all sides with misfortunes. The optimist, even the optimistic naturalist, may say that his is a fulfillment which find its perfection somehow in its participation in some greater and unattainable activity.

A great philosopher of natural fulfillment, Thomas was realistic in saying that man's constantly threatened activity of contemplation was for him fulfillment, but fulfillment solely in the context of the human situation.¹³² The human person is happy as human. Only the man of faith knows that far beyond the highest manifestation of this activity of contemplation, either in this life or in the next, stands the loftiest and most perfect of all activities, the greatest source of finality and happiness, the vision of the divine essence. Only thus can the man of faith who can see clearly that the activity of contemplation is indeed a fulfillment greatly to be desired in its own order of being, see that the vision of God as an active preparation for a higher stage of perfection is a higher fulfillment.

For Aquinas the vision of the divine essence was total fulfillment. This had to be man's fulfillment for through a process of induction he had eliminated every other possible intellectual activity, including even the quasi-vision of separate substances as enjoyed by the soul after death. Every type of knowledge, whether based on an intuition of the substance of the known itself or on a mediation by a species, was not able of itself to provide finality for man. All pointed to a greater fulfillment somewhere beyond. That great fulfillment was vision, the only activity of the intellect that could satisfy the tendency of man and thus discredit the irrational possibility that there could be in the very nature of man an appetite which was essentially incapable of being fulfilled. Within the Thomistic perspective of the universe, it is simply impossible that such an irrational situation could exist. Thomas states it as follows:

Since it is impossible for a natural desire to be incapable of fulfillment, and since it would be so, if it were not possible to reach an understanding of divine substance such as all minds naturally desire, we must say that it is possible for the substance of God to be seen intellectually, both by separate intellectual substances, and by our souls.¹³³

That possibility is actualized in the vision of the divine essence.¹³⁴

Thomas had established early in his treatment that the fulfillment of any being was to be found in its participation in the likeness of God.¹³⁵ It is in vision that man's participation is perfected, for in contemplating the divine essence in a face-to-face encounter, one finds himself totally involved in what is also the highest fulfillment and greatest happiness of God Himself, the contemplation of His Being.¹³⁶ In this the satisfaction of the human tendency is made complete.¹³⁷ That vision is a participation in divine activity is but one of the aspects of this highest mode of contemplation which demonstrates it to be the perfect example of what Thomas, and Aristotle before him, analyzed fulfillment to be. In its own mysterious way, like contemplation, it is both an activity and a source of rest.¹³⁸ Perhaps more than all other fulfillments, vision provides an explanation for this puzzling combination of characteristics. As a participation in the divine activity, it is participation in the eternality of God, an endless operation, never wearisome and never boring. Yet because it totally transcends time and change, it never seems to be an activity, but rather an eternal act: one always accomplished, yet never accomplished; one always fulfilling, yet always fulfilled.¹³⁹ To continue the paradox, it is endless, for it is an activity which can never be lost, never be discontinued by the will of the contemplator, never snatched away by the violence of men. Yet, though seemingly always deepening in its richness, it is always at an end, always such that if it were, per impossibile, isolated at any point for examination, it would at that point be totally fulfilling, a source of total happiness.¹⁴⁰

Thomas offers a further lengthy commentary on the nature of vision,¹⁴¹ which does not appear to have a vital influence on the question of natural end. The simple point to be made is that in Thomas Aquinas vision of the divine essence is the natural fulfillment of the fundamental tendency of the human person. It is the fulfillment of one's every desire, the perfection of every other possible source of completion and happiness. Not only in the intellectual order is vision the highest fulfillment, it is so of all other orders of perfection. It is the total perfection of the moral life, for the good perceived in the divine essence is of such compelling worth that the will is rendered unable to follow the diverse paths of evil. It is the culmination of human honor, for it offers to man union with God who is higher than all earthly powers. No one stands in higher renown than one blessed with the vision of God, for he or she stands not only in the renown of men, but is so honored in the eyes of God as well. Vision is the plenitude of wealth, for in vision one possesses Him who possesses all else. It fulfills man's bodily desires for pleasure, for it bestows on him an eternity of delight, unmixed with sorrows, undisturbed by threat of loss. Long before Thomas, Boethius had established a definition of happiness which Thomas saw actualized in his analysis of the vision of God. Truly, the vision of God is "a state of life (one might guess that Thomas would have preferred an 'activity of living') made perfect by the accumulation of all goods."¹⁴²

Contemplation in the thirty-seventh chapter of the Summa Contra Gentiles was declared to be the fulfillment of the inner natural tendency of human nature. Yet in the sixty-third chapter of the same book under discussion, vision is said to perform the same role, indeed to be the fulfillment of all fulfillments. It has been purpose of this second section to delineate the argumentation whereby Thomas arrived at his understanding of vision. The next section will set forth the reasons, drawn from Aquinas himself, which justify positing such a two-fold natural end.

BOTH CONTEMPLATION AND VISION AS HUMAN FULFILLMENTS:

THE THOMISTIC PROBLEM RESOLVED

Introductory Notes

It is clear from the first and second sections that Thomas Aquinas somehow maintains the existence of two different, if not separate, ends or fulfillments of the natural inclination of the human person. Having already eliminated the distinction between this life and the after-life as an adequate explanation of this double fulfillment, it would be logical here to initiate immediately a study of the proper distinction, as found in the writings of Thomas. But before this study can be directly undertaken, a number of preliminary steps must be taken. The first is an analysis of the position of the supernatural in Thomas' understanding of vision. The second is to list some texts in the Summa Contra Gentiles in which the problem of the double end seems to lead Aquinas into difficulties.

It must be recalled that the divine nature cannot be located among sensible species, nor can it be grasped by a separate substance or separated soul through an analysis of its own essence. Rather, the divine essence can be understood by the human intellect only if that essence itself acts as its own intelligible species, not informing the human intellect to be sure, but rather enabling it through a contemplation of that species to see what it otherwise could not.¹⁴³ This is to strengthen a finite area of vision by an infinite power, extending that vision into a new area of understanding.¹⁴⁴ Because this is the strengthening of one power or nature by another higher power or nature, it cannot be effected by the lower power. "A lower nature cannot acquire a higher nature except through the action of the higher nature to which the property belongs."¹⁴⁵ Thomas strengthens this point by drawing an analogy from natural fulfillment on the lowest, physical, level of nature: water cannot become hot by itself, but needs a higher "specification" by fire.

Four brief reasons justify this position. In the first place, it is "the special prerogative of any agent to perform its operation through its own form."¹⁴⁶ As the divine operation is the contemplation of the divine essence, should any nondivine agent participate in this operation it must act through the divine form. Secondly, "the form proper to any being does not come to be in another being unless the first being is the agent of this event."¹⁴⁷ God must act upon the human intellect in order that the latter come to the vision of the divine essence. Thirdly, "if any two factors are to be mutually united, so that one of them is formal and the other material, their union must be completed through action coming from the side of the formal factor."¹⁴⁸ Since the divine intelligence is the agent of the intellectual information, it must be the source of the action. Finally, "whatever exceeds the limitation of a nature cannot accrue to it except through the action of another being."¹⁴⁹ Again, using the physical example that water is unable to flow upward, Thomas makes it clear that, though vision is the natural end of man, it cannot be achieved by the natural action of man.¹⁵⁰ It is a natural end supernaturally achieved. While this factor of supernatural achievement is concerned solely with the way to the end, with the method of the attainment of fulfillment, and therefore cannot stand as a proper distinction between vision and contemplation, it does give an initial direction toward the final solution.

A second pointer to a solution to the problem of two natural ends existing simultaneously is the subtle shift of approach or point of view which occurs in the midst of Thomas' analysis of fulfillment. It has already been established that one cannot say that Thomas centers his discussion on Aristotelian contemplation from the twenty-fifth through the thirty-seventh chapters of his treatment, and then after the thirty-seventh chapter initiates a consideration of a totally new subject, that is, vision. It is clear from the opening paragraphs of his study that Thomas orientated his entire discussion to the conclusion of fulfillment in vision.¹⁵¹ Yet it seems odd that Thomas has no difficulty in accepting the entire Aristotelian corpus of principles when treating contemplation, but then immediately upon his first mention of vision as in opposition to other types of contemplation, begins a subtle, but unmistakable, reinterpretation of those principles. The change of emphasis cannot be attributed to the fact that vision is an object of revelation. In this context, where the entire discussion is encased in an Aristotelian framework, vision is being considered as a natural fulfillment of man. It would seem, therefore, that the principles of Aristotle should apply in their unaltered originality. Yet this is not the case.

In the beginning of his discussion, for instance, Thomas stated that the fulfillment of any being was to be found in the perfecting of that being and to the extent that it participated "somewhat" in God's likeness.¹⁵² In the spirit of Aristotle, Thomas saw perfection as limited by the ability of the particular being and did not promise any degree of absolute perfection for any being. As has been stated often, human beings were considered happy, but happy as humans. By a process of induction, human happiness was found to reside in contemplation of God. This was Aristotle's conclusion. It was necessarily a fallible one, not in so far as it stated that human fulfillment was to be found in the intellectual possession of the highest knowable, but rather in so far as Aristotle's personal interpretation of the particular and specific nature of that fulfillment was subject to error. The perfection of man is more technically stated not as knowledge by contemplation, but as knowledge of more and more, as the putting off of ignorance.¹⁵³

Yet it must be conceded that the arguments used by Thomas against simple knowledge and demonstration as fulfillments are not based upon an experience of a higher knowledge more perfectly offering this fulfillment. Rather, he bases his new approach upon a direct analysis of simple knowledge and demonstration to show that in themselves, rather than by comparison with something else, they do not contain absolute perfection. But in the Aristotelian framework there had never been a necessity for absolute perfection. The very characteristics of these species of knowledge used as arguments for exclusion by Thomas are the ones considered by Aristotle as establishing human fulfillment precisely as human. The presence of error, potency, and imperfection in simple knowledge and demonstration render them non-fulfilling in the Thomistic understanding. According to Aristotle, who was also aware of these imperfections, these same forms of knowledge were declared to be the source of human fulfillment.¹⁵⁴

Briefly, therefore, whereas for Aristotle humans are happy as humans, for Thomas in their present state humans simply are not happy.¹⁵⁵ The requiring of ever-perfecting fulfillment in human happiness is quite obviously Aristotelian, but the demanding of perfect fulfillment for this happiness is a new addition to the argument. Some have interpreted Aquinas to hold that such a demand implies the rejection of contemplation, as Aristotle understood it, as able to fulfill human nature. Rather, this study will conclude that in some sense Aquinas must hold for more than one type of fulfillment on the natural level.

The Thomistic Teaching on the Duality of the Natural End

The object of the remainder of this section will be to justify the position that Aquinas maintains the philosophic possibility of a double natural end. His analysis of the inner tendency of human nature reveals that it is simultaneously directed to two different, but strongly interconnected, "natural places. " The principle behind this position of Thomas is not stated in the Summa Contra Gentiles, where that principle finds its application. Rather, it is drawn elsewhere from the writings of Aquinas, from the Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate. In the fourteenth question's second article entitled, "What is Faith", Thomas states:

Man, however, has a twofold final good, which first moves the will as a final end. The first of these is proportionate to human nature since natural powers are capable of attaining it. This is the happiness about which the philosophers speak, either as contemplative, which consists in the act of wisdom, or active, which consists first of all in the act of prudence, and in the acts of the other moral virtues as they depend on prudence. The other is the good which is out of all proportion with man's nature because his natural powers are not enough to attain to it either in thought or desire. It is promised to man only through the divine liberality. "The eye hath not seen. . . . This is life everlasting.¹⁵⁶

The point of this text is that the ultimate finality or fulfillment of man is in some sense two-fold. Somehow, in Thomas Aquinas, there are two ultimate ends of man, two natural ends, as has been implied elsewhere in the Summa Contra Gentiles itself. It should be noted in the text of the Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate that Thomas' consideration of the supernatural is limited to the question of the required means of attaining to vision, and does not pass judgment on the nature of the tendency of that end itself. To justify how two separate, if somewhat connected, activities can both serve as ultimate ends is a difficult task, made more difficult because Thomas stands alone in the main stream of Christian thought as maintaining such a solution to the question of natural human finality. As seen above, great thinkers before him tended to transform the activity of contemplation into at best a preparation for vision, considered as the sole ultimate end of man. After Thomas, many who follow his thought have concluded to a single end for man.

The famous Thomistic commentators, Thomas de Vio Cajetan and Dominic Bañez, for example, rejected Thomas' position that vision was a natural fulfillment of man. Faced with Thomas' own words, Cajetan accused Aquinas of being mistaken on the subject. Surely vision could be an object of the natural desire of man, if by natural desire was meant "an elicited yet determined operation of the intellectual appetite following cognition," which Cajetan referred to as actus secundus. But if by desire one meant actus primus, the natural tendency, Cajetan considered the Thomistic position to be untenable.¹⁵⁷ Cajetan admitted the presence in the nature of man of an obediential capacity for vision, but placed this passive capacity far below the active drive of a tendency. This interpretation is definitely at variance with the Thomistic understanding, for Aquinas knew of the concept of obediential capacity, had used it elsewhere in his works, but chose in this context to speak rather of natural tendency.

In the same tradition as Cajetan, holding that there exists only the one natural fulfillment of man, contemplation, Dominic Banez added to the view of Cajetan a reason for Thomas' treatment of vision in the context of natural desire. Placing natural desire on the level Cajetan termed actus secundus, Banez held that Thomas was simply presenting an argument ex convenientia or contra repugnantiam, stating that there was no contradiction involved in natural intellectual being desiring through the natural powers of its will what had been supernaturally revealed.

On the opposite side of the argument other philosophers have continued the Augustinian tradition of vision as the sole fulfillment of human tendency. Not only does Duns Scotus consider vision as the only end of man, but he seems to take the entire argument out of the Aristotelian-Thomistic, and possibly even the technically Augustinian context. The radical basis for an understanding of Thomas' double finality, as will be explained in detail later, is the teaching of Aristotle and Thomas that the fundamental tendency of man as an intellectual being is not to know in contemplation or to know in vision, but simply to know more and more, the most general formulation possible. The reason for the generality of the statement is that while the natural tendency is in itself an intellectual process, the human person being an intellectual being and acting according to this mode, the particular end of this tendency cannot be dependent upon one's knowledge. As was stated above, the witness of all philosophy is that the majority have been mistaken as to the particular object of their fulfillment.

For Scotus, however, the natural tendency of man is not this general drive, but rather a particular appetite, particularized by his historical, redeemed situation, whereby man "necessarily and perpetually and in the highest way tends to beatitude, and this in particular." The distinction drawn here is absolutely essential for an understanding of the issue. Whereas in Thomas the desire is general and is fulfilled upon attainment of an end, in Scotus it is particularized in the very nature of the will. (Immediately it should be apparent that the distinction of fulfillments is therefore not to be found in the desire itself, but in the level of being, natural or supernatural, upon which the being attains its end.) Placing vision as the particularized object of human desire, Scotus is, therefore, forced to reject contemplation as fulfillment in any way. If the will desires vision, it cannot be satisfied in any way, on any level, by something else. This is further corroborated by the fact that the mention of levels of being implies Thomistic analogy, a teaching again rejected by Scotus, who himself considered the object of human intellect as not ens analogice consideratum, but ens universale.¹⁶³

How then does Scotus explain the fact that the human intellect in this life cannot attain the object of its desire? Unable to speak of levels of being, Scotus is forced into the position of saying that it is either the will of God, a higher voluntarism, or a defect existing in the human state, caused possibly by sin, preventing the intellect from seeing the divine essence, and forcing man now to see God as dimly as one in this life sees by the light of a candle.¹⁶⁴ Thus, the fact that man does not presently possess the fullness of his desired happiness is explained either through a voluntaristic principle or through a moral fault. The entire position, on the one hand, offers a confusing picture of the natural order, even implying the possibility of injustice on the part of the orderer himself.¹⁶⁵ On the other hand, the position seems to dispense entirely with the supernatural aid demanded by Thomas to elevate nature to the capacity of direct vision of God.¹⁶⁶

The explanation of natural end by Henri de Lubac is somewhat in the same line. Again in the Augustinian tradition, de Lubac considers man as he exists in his present historical situation, that is, (though the word is admittedly theological), redeemed. Man is "not a thing of nature", de Lubac states;¹⁶⁷ there is no order of pure nature. Further, given the will of God, such an order is inconceivable. Rather, there has always existed and exists now only one order, which is "supernatural", better called "superadded".¹⁶⁸ De Lubac is not stating that the natural has an exigency for its complementing supernatural. His position is that given the totally gratuitous will of God creating things as they are, man is of necessity directed to finality in vision. Once again, there appear a dominance of voluntarism and a weakening of absolute necessity as understood by Thomas. It is in no sense a question of presupposing natural beings upon which is bestowed a supernatural and gratuitous finality; the entire order, neither natural nor supernatural in the common understanding of those terms, is gratuitous. "The divine generosity does not presuppose receivers; it prepares them", a commentator of de Lubac explains.¹⁶⁹

Again, as with Scotus, difficulties emerge. If within the very nature of being--that whole nature being a univocally gratuitous establishment--there is a fundamental and necessary tendency to vision, how can de Lubac justify what he chooses to call superaddition?¹⁷⁰ One must credit the logic of de Lubac's thought. He cannot be challenged to justify the natural, as in the case of Scotus, for he has eliminated the natural; similarly he has eliminated the supernatural. But the philosophic mind, it would seem, would require his further rejection of the superadded to perfect the unity of his system. So long as he leaves some room for distinction, he must justify the passage of being from one level to the other, the question faced by Thomas and answered by the need for aid from the higher level of activity.¹⁷¹

Thus it is not in the elimination of either vision or contemplation as natural fulfillments that the correct understanding of natural end as conceived by Thomas Aquinas is to be found. For while Thomas' faith convinced him that the final end and consummation of all human desire is to be found in vision, a proper understanding of the very tendency directed to this vision, together with a proper distinction of the notions of nature and supernature, reveals that for man there must be a two-fold natural end, a two-fold fulfillment. The basis of the argument, as stated above, is found in the correct understanding of the object of natural desire, which is not contemplation or vision, but rather the knowledge of more and more until full knowledge is attained. It is this knowledge of more and more which, for the rationability of the entire natural order, must be attainable by every intellectual being according to its mode of action. "It is impossible for natural desire to be unfulfilled, since `nature does nothing in vain'."¹⁷² This knowledge of more and more is not to be interpreted as a mathematically infinite progression. Seen in itself, it could be considered infinite.¹⁷³ But if there existed no term, no point to end the process, the natural order would still be shrouded in unintelligibility, for the end of human desire would be an ever-receding mirage, never to be attained. Rather, there must be a term of the progression, a definite highest point, the most knowable object, to which the desire to know more and more is directed and at which it is fulfilled. This point is God.

It must be stressed again that God as the end of the process of knowledge is not intrinsic in the process seen solely as process. The process is directed to knowing, and God is the most knowable.¹⁷⁴ Toward this most sublime point the intellect steadily progresses, ever accelerating its polarized movement, the closer it approaches the source of its fulfillment.¹⁷⁵ Thomas never abandons the fundamental physical analogue upon which his philosophy of fulfillment is based. Man's natural desire is thus a tendency to knowledge, which knowledge must be of God. Once one attains this knowledge of God, to the highest degree possible on the level of being on which one is acting, one is fulfilled.¹⁷⁶

The fact that there are two fulfillments of intellectual desire can in no way be derived from the nature of that desire, as Scotus tended to do. The fact of two sources of fulfillment, two natural ends, is based entirely upon the philosophic possibility and the theological fact that there are two levels of being in which man can attain the knowledge of God. On the level of being proper to himself, man finds his natural fulfillment, the perfection of his desire to know all possible, in contemplation of God, the highest possible activity proper to his state. On another level of being, not proper to him, but to which he has been supernaturally raised, he also finds in vision his natural fulfillment, the perfection of this same desire to know all possible. On this level, the human person's natural fulfillment acquires the unique quality of exceeding the capacity of his human nature, and therefore of being attainable solely through supernatural assistance.¹⁷⁷ Thomas states, "Although man is naturally inclined towards his final end, he cannot naturally attain it except through grace. This is because of the eminence of that end."¹⁷⁸

Thus it must be concluded that vision is the natural end of man, the fulfillment of all human fulfillments. It is the attainment of human finality upon the highest level of being which is possible to man. But because the absolutely necessary assistance needed for the elevation of man to this high level of being is totally supernatural and therefore not necessary to the proper functioning of the nature of man, to save the rationality of nature as nature, it must be concluded that some form of natural fulfillment must be present on the level of being proper and natural to man. That natural fulfillment is what in the Aristotelian and Thomistic perspectives has been called contemplation. There is no room for the Scotistic view that the human inability to see the divine essence in this present state of being is due to moral fault. If Thomas himself does at times speak of human nature as defective in relation to the vision of God's essence, he should be understood as speaking of nature in comparison with supernature and not as referring to any factor within nature itself impeding the attainment of one's natural end through natural means.¹⁷⁹

As the attainment of natural end is in Thomas intellectual, he has grounded his distinction between the levels of being in that category. On its naturally attainable level of being, human knowledge of all things, and therefore human knowledge of God, falls far short of the vision of the divine essence. In this life, all human knowledge must be mediated by the sensible phantasm and must possess some element of the potency-act relationship in order to be matter for abstraction from the phantasm. Certain elements concerning God, primarily the fact of his existence, can be so understood by the human mind, but the understanding of these elements is infinitely removed from and inferior to the understanding proper to vision. In no way can the essence or quiddity of God be "specified", i. e., reduced to a sensible species in order to be abstracted.¹⁸⁰ In the next life, moreover, in which man's knowledge does attain to a quasi-vision of separate substances, the divine essence again cannot be grasped. In no way can the infinity of God be comprehended and defined by the soul after death.¹⁸¹ Thus, if the limited mind of a separate substance or vision of God is to be considered by Thomas as the perfect fulfillment of man, of his natural desire to know, a new power of knowledge must be communicated to man, this power being the unmediated divine essence itself. But introduction into human knowledge of this new specification is not to be understood as a rejection of the mode of knowing proper to the nature of man and due to him from his nature. This to leads to fulfillment, to a knowledge of God that is perfect and perfecting in its own order of being.

Considering the object of knowledge in the context of being, this distinction between contemplation and vision as fulfillments can be drawn more clearly in the light of the analogy of being. The object of human knowledge is being, but not the univocal being posited by Scotus. All being known by man must be known according to the mode of his own being, and that mode is one of composition, infinitely below the simple being of God, yet proportioned to it by way of analogy. "Knowledge always takes place according to the way in which the knowing subject exists", a commentator explains.¹⁸² Even though with the removal of what Thomas has called the defect of human nature man can come to the fulfillment of vision, still on his own level of understanding, in the mode of composition, he also can attain his fulfillment.

However small the amount of divine knowledge that the intellect may be able to grasp, that will be for the intellect, in regard to its ultimate end, much more than the perfect knowledge of lower objects of understanding. . . . The ultimate end of man is to understand God, in some fashion (quoquo modo).¹⁸³

This quoquo modo fashion of understanding God is the ultimate human fulfillment of contemplation.

Undoubtedly the most striking passages of Aquinas in the particular section here under consideration are the ones which seem to draw a definite distinction between contemplation and vision and attack directly the view that vision is the complement of contemplation, or that contemplation is a means to vision. These are found in the fifty-seventh question of the discussion. A rather lengthy quotation is deemed necessary.

Since the created intellect is exalted to the vision of the divine substance by a certain supernatural light . . . there is no created intellect so low in its nature that it cannot be elevated to this vision. The gap between the intellect, at its highest natural level,¹⁸⁴ and God is infinite in perfection and goodness. But the distance from the highest to the lowest intellect is finite, for there cannot be an infinite distance between one finite being and another. So, the distance which lies between the lowest created intellect and the highest one is like nothing in comparison to the gap which lies between the highest created intellect and God. . . . Therefore, it makes no difference what level of intellect it is that is elevated to the vision of God by the aforementioned light: it may be highest, the lowest, or one in the middle.¹⁸⁵

Just as it requires no greater power to perform a miracle in curing a grave disease than it would to cure a simple one (Thomas' example from the same chapter), the elevation of the intellect to the wonder of vision is in no way dependent upon the stage of contemplation it presently enjoys. It may seem as if the text quoted above is entirely theological. Even with this granted, the point of Thomas' thought is unmistakable. The fulfillment of contemplation is not the same in species as the fulfillment of vision, and while in practice they may have strong connections, they are technically two separate activities, two separate approaches to fulfillment, functioning on two separate levels of being. If vision is the perfection of man's nature, his highest fulfillment, contemplation is also in its own right a perfecting activity of human nature, a fulfillment in its own order of being.

In conclusion, there is no doubt, from textual analysis, that Thomas Aquinas considered the vision of the divine essence to be the final and ultimate end of man. Vision totally and infinitely transcends the feeble and frustrating attempt of contemplation to understand God. In holding this position, Aquinas is simply taking his place as a believer living in the Christian era, and as a theologian echoing the great Christian minds before him. But there is no doubt as well that in searching for a philosophic understanding of his faith, under the influence of Aristotle Thomas pursued pathways of thought radically different from many of his antecedents, contemporaries, and followers. Though it was as evident to him

as it was to Augustine and Scotus that man's natural inclination was directed to the vision of God, it was equally as evident that the truths of faith could not contradict the truths of wisdom, and that one could not simply speak of an inner drive of nature to be fulfilled solely in the state of supernature.

It was in his analysis of this inner drive of nature that Thomas found a reconciliation, a solution which showed that the object of human inclination was neither contemplation nor vision, but, as Aristotle had carefully expressed it before him and as Thomas repeated, the activity of knowledge in general, the non-specified knowing of more and more, grasped according to the capacities and limitations of each knowing intellect. Thus it was that Aristotle, who knew only of natural knowledge through abstraction, could posit contemplation as the fulfillment of man, the highest mode of knowledge possible to a being whose understanding comes ultimately and always through sense experience. Thomas, who knew of the after-life, could perfect that contemplation to the quasi-vision of separate substances. But knowing through faith that the total fulfillment of man was to be had on a higher level of being, Thomas could posit vision as the end and total perfection of man. Finally, relying on his basic analysis of human inclination, Thomas could conceive a double ultimate end of man, based upon the existence of two levels of being, in both of which fulfillment was possible.

Contemplation and vision may thus both be said to be fulfillments of the natural desire of man for a knowledge of more and more, for a putting away of all ignorance. What has been said in the preceding two sections concerning the qualities of vision as fulfillment has been said with the sole purpose of elaborating a clear understanding of the role contemplation, the direct subject of this study, plays in perfecting human nature. With contemplation now justified as an end of man, albeit not the most perfect end in the Thomistic framework, an opening has been created for a further study of this activity, no longer simply as the fulfillment of a natural tendency, but in the next section as the final perfection on the natural level of the entire human nature, the total human person.

CONTEMPLATION AS FULFILLMENT:

THE THOMISTIC TEACHING RE-STATED AND AMPLIFIED

With the fact of a double end of man in the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas established, this final section will return to a discussion of its central theme, the nature of contemplation as human fulfillment. In the first section above, the position of contemplation as natural end of man was set forth solely through a consideration of the nature of natural finality as understood by Thomas and as rooted in the physical and metaphysical principles of Aristotle. In this final chapter, an attempt will be made to understand contemplation as natural end, not through this skeletal development, but through a discussion of this "divine" activity as the total fulfillment and actualization of the entire and integrated human person in his present state of existence.

Technically speaking, the most fully developed understanding of contemplation would have to be seen in a study of this activity as it is engaged in by separate substances and by souls after death.¹⁸⁶ But as the purpose of this study is

to discuss contemplation as it exists in the human person as a composite of soul and body, a treatment of this activity in separate substances would not be to the point. This discussion of contemplation in man in his present state of existence will be two-fold. It will consist in the first place of a discussion of contemplation as fulfillment in itself, and secondly, of a philosophical exposition of those characteristics of this activity which serve to make it, though totally separate from vision, the most perfect analogue and associate of vision within the capabilities of man unaided by supernatural assistance. Finally it must be pointed out that though the central theme of this chapter will be a continuation of the discussion of contemplation as natural fulfillment, as found in the Summa Contra Gentiles. However, the material in this section will be extended to include a study of man as fulfilled a total person, rather than simply as a natural being. Hence, a somewhat more diversified use of sources will be employed. The central source for this chapter will continue to be the Summa Contra Gentiles. Its contributions to the discussion will be amplified, however, by material drawn from other writings of Thomas Aquinas, as well as from the works of other philosophers who have addressed themselves to this subject.

First Thomas' contention should be reiterated that on the natural level contemplation is a fulfillment of man, and as such, a source of his happiness, albeit an imperfect source. "Imperfect beatitude, such as can be had here, consists primarily and principally in contemplation."¹⁸⁷ The very possibility of a fulfillment of any type, intellectual or not, on the earthly level of human existence has been a source of great discussion throughout the history of philosophy, both by those philosophers who, because of a lack of Revelation, could offer nothing else as source of greater fulfillment, and by those thinkers in the Christian era, who were faced with the challenge of reconciling the findings of natural philosophy with the content of supernatural Revelation. In the writings of Thomas, there are passages in which he states quite clearly that in no sense can man be called happy in his present state. Yet it is equally true that Thomas speaks of an earthly happiness, which is a participation in the divine beatitude, the only fully perfect state of fulfillment.¹⁸⁸ The basis for this difference of opinion expressed by the same writer seems to lie, as do so many other differences, in the two seemingly conflicting understandings or rather emphases that are possible in the question of the analogy of being. In one sense, all being which is not perfect being or supreme being can be said to be no being at all. This is the negative understanding of reality. Yet, on the other hand, in so far as all participated being derives its being from perfect being and in some sense possesses that being, in that sense it can be said indeed to have being. So also is the question of happiness to be understood. In one sense, no man is happy.¹⁸⁹ In another sense. given his position in life, with its necessary imperfections, man is happy. Through his participation in the beatitude of God, he is perfectly happy in accord with his own limited situation, and this happiness is achieved through the activity of contemplation.¹⁹⁰

It is interesting to note that a passage within the very section of the Summa under discussion here and commonly understood to state that only in vision is fulfillment to be found, is capable of more positive interpretation in the light of the analogy of being. For the sake of clarity in this distinction, the Latin text must be quoted. In the sixty-third question of the third book of the Summa, Thomas states:

Est enim quoddam desiderium hominis, in quantum intellectualis est, de cognitione veritatis; quod quidem homines consequuntur per studium contemplativae vitae. Et hoc quidem manifeste in illa visione consummabitur, quando per visionem primae veritatis omnia quae intellectus naturaliter scire desiderat ei innotescent. (italics added by the writer)

In translation this passage reads as follows:

For there is in man, in so far as he is intellectual, one type of desire, concerned with the knowledge of truth; indeed, men seek to fulfill this desire by the effort of the contemplative life. And this will clearly be fulfilled in that vision, when, through the vision of the First Truth, all that the intellect naturally desires to know becomes known to it.

The point of this statement is that man's intellectual fulfillment is to be found clearly in vision, there being no provision established for any other type of perfecting activity.

There is, however, a variant reading for this passage, in which the words of Aquinas are as follows: "Est enim . . . contemplativae vitae. Et hoc quidem maxime in illa visione consummabitur . . . ei innotescent." The translation of this version would state that it is in vision that man's intellectual desire is "most perfectly" or "most especially" fulfilled, but would make no explicit exclusion of contemplation.¹⁹¹ Without passing judgment on which reading is correct, it would seem that the second version is more in line with Thomas' views on the double end of man. Whether or not the second reading is the one to be accepted, the point remains that in the light of the doctrine of analogy, as contemplation can be understood as fulfillment in its own order of being, so all that is predicated of vision as fulfillment in its higher order of perfection by analogy can be predicated of the state of contemplation.¹⁹²

This approach to an understanding of contemplation is not pursued without justification. It is precisely the approach adopted by Thomas in the Summa Contra Gentiles. His entire discussion of contemplation found in the first part of the section under discussion and drawn from Aristotle's treatment of the same subject in the Nicomachaean Ethics, has been used by Thomas as material in his discussion of vision as well. If the basic principle of the third section of this study be accepted, that the difference between man's tendency to contemplation and his tendency to vision is not to be found in the tendency itself, but in the level of being on which it is in operation, then it must be justifiable to apply what has been said of vision on one level of being to contemplation on another. Naturally, any element of vision which is not directly connected with this activity's position as a fulfillment of human understanding cannot be so transferred to the order of contemplation. With this approach justified, a final review of the position of contemplation as natural fulfillment of man now will be offered.

Contemplation as Fulfillment of Natural Tendency

"The end of man is to arrive at the contemplation of truth."¹⁹³ This was the position of Aristotle and Plato and it is the position as well of Thomas Aquinas.¹⁹⁴ On the level of being which can be entered into by man's natural powers, it is in contemplation that the total actualization or perfection possible to man is attained. An activity perfect in its imperfection, contemplation is the most perfect source of human happiness, human delight and human pleasure possible to man in his present state. More surely than all other sources of human fulfillment, contemplation brings to man the joy that is necessarily connected with all perfection.¹⁹⁵ Of all human activities, it is the most self-sufficient, the one least in need of external aids. Once attained, it is not possessed as a means for the attainment of anything else, but entered into as an end in itself. It fulfills all else, and looks to nothing else for its own fulfillment.¹⁹⁶ In what might be termed a utopian flight of fancy, Thomas Aquinas saw in contemplation the consummation of the entire life of the state. "The whole of political life seems to be ordered with a view to attaining the happiness of contemplation."¹⁹⁷ Aquinas himself more fully expressed this view when he said that contemplation was the goal of man's whole life.¹⁹⁸

Again in the tradition of Aristotle and Thomas, and in perhaps the most obvious application of the analogue between natural desire and natural place, contemplation gives to man the peace of rest in fulfillment, true leisure in a sense that will be explained in a subsection to follow. It "brings to a termination man's natural appetite, in the sense that, once the end is acquired, nothing else will be sought."¹⁹⁹ Though source of total fulfillment and of rest from desire, contemplation also must be, and according to the potential of man in this life is, a continuous and unwearying activity, a permanent operation. Aristotle had stated centuries before Thomas that the permanency possessed by contemplation of its very nature was subject to all the inconsistencies and fortuitous circumstances of the total picture of human existence, that human happiness or human fulfillment was happiness and fulfillment only in a human manner, but of its nature the contemplative process, the process of knowing more and more until all is known, is endless. All can never be grasped by a finite being, because all includes the infinite, which the finite mind cannot comprehend. Yet of all human activity, contemplation represents by itself "the higher and more enduring part in the soul's life. . . . Even on earth, the contemplative moments are the highest and the most condensed."²⁰⁰

Contemplation has been called by both Aristotle and Thomas a divine activity. It is divine because through its operation man is united in an intentional union with God himself. Further, seen in itself, it is the most noble analogue of the proper activity of the divine, for it is the activity of knowing all things, of knowing the self, and in the highest order of cognition known to Aristotle, of knowing its own process of knowing.²⁰¹ In attaining to this reflexive intuition, it achieves the pinnacle of all knowledge, the supreme activity of God. Finally, in the hierarchical view of nature adopted by Thomas, as the highest operation proper to man, it unites him by way of likeness with the beings superior to him, with separate substances and, indeed again, with God Himself.²⁰²

Contemplation as Fulfillment of the Total Person

An analysis of the inner nature of this knowing activity shows it to be the perfection of the nature of the human person and the link joining one in the order of intentionality with the supreme contemplator, God. But there is far more to be understood concerning the fulfillment of contemplation than can be seen in an analysis of its own intrinsic nature. It is only when the effects of this activity upon the existing person in one's situation in life are seen that the full value of the activity can be appreciated, and that contemplation can be seen as the actualization of the total person, as the source of one's "rounded perfection."²⁰³ It is to these effects that this study now briefly turns. They may be described succinctly as, first, the intimate, wonder-filled presence of the contemplated to the contemplator, and, secondly, the a-temporality of the contemplative act.

Presence. The ramifications of contemplation seen in the light of this first effect are startling. Through contemplation, the knower assimilates to himself in the order of intentionality all nature, and indeed God himself. In this activity, one arrives at the highest and most intimate mode of possessing all reality, but also in a most intimate and personal way one becomes all reality.²⁰⁴ One's relation with all the world around and with God may be said to be "beyond all bounds."²⁰⁵ Giving expression to the boundless dimensions of the contemplative act, Thomas says that "it is possible that in a single being the whole comprehensiveness of the universe may dwell."²⁰⁶

In a society where separation and absence have been described and attacked so poignantly by modern philosophers, the very fact that contemplation renders all reality present to the knower shows this activity to be indeed fulfilling. The charge has been made that intellectual consideration of reality does not bring man into contact with that reality, but rather separates him hopelessly from the facts of true existence. Especially this criticism has been made regarding the understanding of the person: that intellectual consideration does not give one the reverence and honor due as a person, but rather objectifies one as a thing. This view greatly mistakes the truly unitive value of the knowledge process. Understanding or knowing a person does not separate one from the knower, but draws one into an intimate unity, an assimilation with the knower which in modern philosophy has come more and more to be referred to as intuition.²⁰⁷ Contemplative knowledge, as one author has put it, is "the intuitive penetration of the essence of a thing . . . the conscious `dwelling' in a truth . . . a communing therewith in awareness of everything it means."²⁰⁸ Perhaps the union achieved between the known and the knower, the presence of the known to the knower, can be understood most vividly through a reference to the meaning of the word "to know" in the Hebrew language. Far from connoting an image of separation, the word "to know" in Hebrew bears strong connotations of intimate union, being applied even to the unity achieved by two persons with one another in the marital act. The marital act was for the Hebrew the vivid realization and actualization of the knowledge one person can possess of another. Far more intimate is the union achieved between persons in contemplation, where the knower and the known are not only physically joined to form one in the flesh, but spiritually are made one in the one being of the knower. Further, if the act of knowledge is entered into mutually, the union of the two persons becomes even more strongly knit, even more personal, and the presence of the two to each other even more total. In Augustinian terminology, while the most abstractive logic may see the known as solely a thing to be manipulated, to be used (uti), the intimate knowing of contemplation grasps the known as person. In this knowledge, the knower enters into the total enjoyment of the known dwelling within his very being, and comes to a joyful and fulfilling rest in its presence within him (frui).

Linked with the presence of the known face-to-face with the knower in the very depths of his nature is the ever deepening wonder and awe brought necessarily by this intimate knowledge. Thomas Aquinas said that the divine never ceases to amaze the contemplator.²⁰⁹ While he was speaking directly of vision, the knowledge of God possible to man here on this earth and the further contemplation by man of the wondrous works of God, though less perfect than vision, never leave him wearied or unwilling to come to a knowledge of more. Again, here is seen the paradox of being ever fulfilled, yet never filled; of being possessed with a total awe at the wonder of God, yet ever able to be further amazed, further filled with wonder.

A-Temporality. Although totally surrounded and penetrated by the wondrous presence of God, the human person in contemplation remains obviously always within the limits of one's finite nature. Yet, in the act of contemplation, more than in any other possible human operation, one is able somehow to transcend the limits of one's state, to step beyond the bounds of time within which one's existence is restrained. Through this act of transcendence one becomes involved in an operation and activity