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95 5 Thomas Aquinas and the Gift of Wisdom In our discussions concerning the nature of wisdom and its pursuit in the con‑ text of education, the writings of Thomas Aquinas are valuable not only as an extension of Aristotle’s thoughts, but also as a departure from them. On the one hand, Aristotle is praised most highly by Thomas as “the Philosopher”; on the other hand, Thomas nonetheless struggles against Aristotle in order to subsume his Greek philosophic enterprise of pursuing wisdom into a Christian theological understanding. Most significantly, in order that Christian faith might be deemed necessary and that Greek philosophy should be seen as deficient, Thomas’s Chris‑ tian philosophizing requires him to demote the Greek sense of sophia from its place of esteem as the highest of all virtues; he does so by rearticulating Aristotle’s discussion of wisdom (sapientia), subdividing sapientia, on the one hand, into a non‑Christian and strictly human knowledge of divine things according to the natural intellectual powers given to human beings to pursue such things; and on the other hand, sapientia‑proper becomes a gift (donum) arising from the presence of the three theological virtues of faith (fides), hope (spes), and love or charity (caritas). Both the moral and the intellectual virtues—along with their respective yet lower forms of wisdom, prudentia and sapientia—are made subordinate to the new “capstone” virtues, which bring with them a form of wisdom unavailable outside of the Christian faith. Happiness as the Ultimate End for Human Beings In his Summa Theologica, Thomas asks whether or not human life has an ultimate goal (ultimus finis). On the one hand, he offers several reasons to deny such an ultimate end. These arguments are similar in tone to those of John Dewey, already studied in a previous chapter. Generally, Thomas provides arguments that aims stretch out indefinitely, that all of our aims may in fact simply be provisional rather than final, and that there can be a series of aims without limit. However, Thomas replies to these contentions that “to maintain an indefinite is to deny it the nature of good which means being an end. The prospect of going on indefinitely is 96 The Pursuit of Wisdom and Happiness in Education tantamount to this. Hence the need of positing an ultimate end.” In other words, whenever there is intention, it is the prospect of the goal in mind that originally moves desire; take this away, and desire would be moved by nothing. Were there no ultimate end, nothing would be desired, no activity would be finished, no desire would come to rest: “Were there no first step to the end, no one would start doing anything or make up his mind, but instead would deliberate interminably.” Thomas asks another question important for our study: “Is there one ulti‑ mate end for all human beings?” This question is a particularly difficult one to answer honestly and reasonably in today’s school setting, where a positive response would likely smack of intolerance, undemocratic sentiment, and be condemned as contrary to the principles of a modern pluralistic society. Besides, there are good reasons, says Thomas, to suppose that there is not one ultimate end for all human beings. For instance, Thomas notes that, were the end the same for all, “men would not choose diverse walks of life, whereas in point of fact they do.” Empirical obser‑ vation of human behavior in the real world lends itself to dismissing the strange notion that there is one final end that all human beings share in common. The actions of human beings are individual affairs. Moreover, “though men agree in their common specific nature, they are quite diverse in their personal proclivities. Consequently their chief aims are not identical.” In other words, although we are all human, this does not mean that we all share the same goals or interests in our actions. However, Thomas overcomes these objections simply by stating “all agree in desiring that ultimate which is happiness (beatitudo).” Indeed, elsewhere in the Summa, Thomas is emphatic that it is beyond the capacity of human beings to will not to be happy. He explains that there are two ways we can speak of the ultimus finis: namely, according to its meaning and according to its mode of realization. As for the first, all human beings, says Thomas, are in agreement, “because all desire their complete fulfillment, which . . . is what the final end means.” As for the second, however...

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