St. Thomas Aquinas and Human Finality: Paradox or Mysterium Fidei?

The Thomist 64 (2000}: 375-99 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS AND HUMAN FINALITY: PARADOX OR MYSTERIUM FIDEI? PETER A. PAGAN-AGUIAR WheelingJesuit University Wheeling, West Virginia "Then who can be saved?" Jesus ... said, "For man it is impossible; but for God all things are possible." (Mt 19:25-26) I. NATURALLAWTHEORY: METAPHYSICAL OR PuRELY DEONTOLOGICAL? As Heinrich Rommen and Yves Simon have observed, the tradition of natural law is far from monolithic. Within this tradition one can distinguish between "thin" (deontological ) and "thick" (metaphysically robust) types of natural law theory. "Thin" theories emphasize the primacy of the notions of right and duty, whereas "thick" theories stress the priority of the notions of good and human finality. Thomas Aquinas is among the best-known proponents of a "thick" natural law theory embedded within a properly theological framework. One may ask, however, whether a "thick" natural law theory is accessible to unaided reason. Stated differently, must a "thick" natural law theory presuppose divine revelation? The answer to this question depends on whether reason left to itself could know that there is a transcendent, unparticipated good in which alone man could find his ultimate completion-perfect happiness. On this issue scholars are divided. Some Thomistic commentators hold that rational creatures are absolutely incapable of perfect natural happiness, and that this view is strictly consonant with Aquinas's own teaching. From an 375 376 PETER A. PAGAN-AGUIAR Aristotelian-Thomistic standpoint happiness is an act of the speculative intellect engaged in the contemplation of God. This act is strictly natural insofar as it does not exceed the connatural limits of the spiritual creature's intellective power. And the act is perfect insofar as the intellective power is fully actualized. So perfect natural happiness, if it is not absolutely impossible, would consist in a contemplative grasp of the divine nature that fully actualizes the spiritual creature's intellect in accordance with its connatural noetic limits. Aquinas argues in more than one place, however, that the final end of spiritual creatures must be the immediate vision of God. Moreover, Aquinas holds that this vision surpasses the natural powers of finite intellectual natures. Consequently, it would seem that from a Thomistic standpoint spiritual creatures are strictly incapable ofa happiness that is both perfect and purely natural simultaneously. The opinion that perfect natural happiness is intrinsically impossible is reflected in the view that man is endless by nature, a view endorsed recently by Denis Bradley.1 This view is not new. And the contrary view, that man could have been ordered to a natural final end equivalent to perfect natural happiness, has become increasingly controversial, particularly since the publication of Henri de Lubac's influential Surnaturel.2 The point at issue surfaces when considering the following question: Within their own proper order of being and operation, could rational creatures have been fully perfected had they not been foreordained to a supernatural final end? Thomists would acknowledge that without grace finite intellectual natures in the present historical order cannot reach their concrete final end. But Catholic thinkers are divided as to whether unaided reason could know that human nature in the present historical order cannot be fully perfected within the proper limits of its own order of being and operation. 1 Denis Bradley, Aquinas on the Twofold Human Good: Reason and Human Happiness in Aquinas's Moral Science (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1997). Hereafter abbreviated asATG. 2 Henri de Lubac, Surnaturel: Etudes historiques (Paris: Aubier, 1946). HUMAN FINALITY 377 An affirmative answer to this epistemological query would appear to suggest that an inherently supernatural finality, at least as a theoretically achievable possibility, is within the purview of unaided reason if a natural desire, in this case the desire for perfect fulfillment, cannot be in vain. One could not easily avoid the semi-rationalistic overtones of the foregoing affirmative answer without sacrificing the tenet that a natural desire cannot be in vain, that is, without granting that man is endless by nature. But can the claim that man is endless by nature withstand sustained metaphysical scrutiny? And if not, what are the theoretical implications from the perspective of a Catholic philosopher? In this paper I will...