Wisdom, Law, and Virtue: Essays in Thomistic Ethics

Chapter 4: Truth and Happiness

Chapter 4 TRUTH AND HAPPINESS Introduction In proposing ‘‘The Importance of Truth’’ as the theme for this year’s convention, I had it in mind to provide a topic that would lend itself to contributions both theoretical and practical. However, as far as my own contribution was concerned, I was thinking about issues that straddle the borderline between the ethical and the metaphysical. I was thinking of my own education and the extent to which it took place in a milieu that brought home to students the primacy of contemplation. And I was asking myself to what extent the institutions in which I have since taught have succeeded in conveying that same view of human life, a view that I myself consider capital ‘‘T’’ true. And that led me to more universal considerations. If it is really true that human life finds its meaning in knowledge of the truth, and if a society, a culture, be it a nation or a global village, fails to acknowledge that fact, what does that do to the society? Could it not affect the ‘‘will to live’’ of the entire human race? If so, the work of the philosopher ought to include the effort to present knowledge of the truth in such a light that as many people as possible will experience its appeal and, perhaps, live their own lives and guide others in accordance with that ideal. The present study, accordingly, will be on the truth as the goal of human life, that is, on the truth as happiness, according to Thomas Aquinas . Why ‘‘according to Thomas Aquinas’’? I almost always give papers presenting what I take to be the doctrine of St. Thomas. Usually they get placed in the ‘‘history of philosophy’’ category. Generally my aim is  Truth and Happiness  philosophical, and with Thomas, I insist that ‘‘the study of philosophy is not in order to know what it is people have thought, but what is the truth about reality.’’1 However, agreeing as I do with my teacher Etienne Gilson that ‘‘great philosophers are very scarce’’2 and that the soundest approach in philosophical education is to live a sort of apprenticeship with a great philosopher, I have lived an apprenticeship with Thomas Aquinas. That at this relatively late date in my life I am still presenting his views, as well as I can, simply means that I am still an apprentice. But there is another reason I think of Professor Gilson. He focused in his career on the problem of Christian philosophy. Otherwise said, he kept in view the question raised by Thomas Aquinas in the very first article of the Summa theologiae (ST), namely, is there need for a teaching that transcends philosophy? An affirmative answer to that question cannot but affect one’s outlook on philosophy itself. One of Thomas’s considerations in that article is the perennial state of the philosophical mind. When, echoing Moses Maimonides, he speaks of how few attain to philosophical truth and how long it takes them to do so, and when he adds that even then many errors remain involved in the result, he provides grounds for thinking that present-day turmoil in philosophical inquiry is not altogether new.3 The Catholic philosopher surely has reason to welcome guidance from divine revelation.4 And if we ask whence comes that turmoil, we cannot fail to notice that revelation presents us with human nature as a wounded nature. The natural inclinations of the human being are still present, but in a weakened condition. Intellectual judgment is affected, especially in the moral order.5 We should not be surprised if there is deep division among philosophers as to questions about the purpose of human life. Moreover, moral issues dividing philosophers will cast their spell on the contemplative mind itself. As the same Professor Gilson pointed out in The Unity of Philosophical Experience, very often our problems in speculative philosophy have their real roots in moral questions.6 The idea is that were it not for our inclinations, we might be readier to recognize theoretical principles more spontaneously. This was long ago maintained by St. Augustine, speaking of the Manicheans concerning the metaphysics of good and evil. Augustine remarked that what he was saying hardly needed the support of argument, so evident was it, had it not been  Wisdom, Law, and Virtue an issue that touched upon human conduct, or morals, thus...