Summa Theologiae Moralis, vol. I: De Principiis

S. Th. I-II, q. 4, et q. 5, a. 4.

The qualities of beatitude, which necessarily follow from its very essence, are distinguished as three in the soul, namely: the highest delight or joy — impeccability — and inamissibility; moreover, a perfect body, adapted to the perfect state of the soul, seems required, which therefore must be raised up by God.

36. Thesis I. The highest delight, or ineffable joy, which presupposes and includes love, necessarily follows from the essence of beatitude.

It is established by the Council of Vienne (year 5) and by Benedict XII: they declare that in beatitude there is the vision of God and enjoyment.

Blessed indeed is the man who attains perfect knowledge of the highest truth and possession of the highest goodness, and understands that nothing is better for himself. Hence the will is borne with all its strength toward this highest good, and accordingly, by loving, it rejoices in that highest good and rests in it.

And indeed necessarily he loves and rejoices so that he cannot not love nor rejoice. Thus we say against the Scotists. For the intellect, with the highest evidence, proposes God as the highest good supremely lovable, and His love as the embrace and enjoyment of infinite good, nor can it represent otherwise because it is free from error, so that there cannot appear even a shadow of evil or of the unsuitable or of that which impedes a greater good in God and in the enjoyment of God; indeed, the intellect cannot but think of this. But the will is essentially an appetite following the intellect. Hence necessarily and at every moment it necessarily loves the highest good and rejoices in its possession. — In other words, the blessed one sees his own beatitude to consist in God necessarily and without interruption, namely, the necessary connection of this object, God, with his beatitude. But no one can will not to be blessed. Therefore the blessed one necessarily wills God and loves and rejoices.

What the Scriptures declare (John 16:22; Matt. 5:12; Rom. 8:18), and set forth by various metaphors of satiety, inebriation, and a torrent of delights (Ps. 35:9; 16:15), so that all evil, sorrow, and sadness are taken away from the blessed (Rev. 7:16-17; 21:4), and they possess the kingdom (Rev. 22:5; Matt. 5:3, 10).

Therefore, the contemplation of the highest truth, God, is the root of all things required for happiness (Boethius, l. 3 de Consol.; St. Thomas, c. Gent. III, 63; Goudin, Phil. p. 3, q. 1, a. 3, c. 3): for it excellently bestows a) sufficiency which riches promise, for God is possessed who alone suffices, and truth is perfectly known as the intellectual nature desires; — b) delight which pleasures promise, because the contemplation of truth is the sole delight of the mind, and it is greater than all pleasures to the extent that it is more spiritual and purer (without the admixture of sadness and anxiety); — c) renown which fame promises, because it makes a man glorious before God and intellectual creatures; — d) reverence which wisdom promises, for he is supremely wise who perfectly contemplates the highest truth and is united to God; — e) security from evils and in goods, which power promises, because that highest contemplation is eternal and cannot be lost, and it most closely unites to God in whom is every good and to whom no evil can approach.

37. Observation. — The delight that accompanies beatitude is caused by the fact that the appetite rests in a good that is possessed; nevertheless, it is not the principal element in beatitude, but vision is stronger than delight, both because the cause is stronger than the effect, and because delight is on account of the operation and not the reverse: for delight consists in a certain quieting of the will; but that the will is quieted in something is only on account of the goodness of that in which it is quieted; therefore, if the will is quieted in an operation, it does this on account of the goodness of the operation and seeks delight in the operation because the operation is its good. And thus the principal good is the operation itself in which the will is quieted, rather than the quieting of the will in it.

38. Thesis II. From beatitude there also follows impeccability, or the rectitude of the will. This is of faith from Benedict XII, and is indicated by the Apostle saying that charity never falls away in the other life (I Cor. XIII, 8); whence this is called the undefiled inheritance (I Pet. I, 4). — It is proved:

1° Sin is the greatest evil; but with this standing, the possession of the highest good is excluded.

2° Sin presupposes error or lack of consideration: for the will wills nothing except under the aspect of good; therefore, for sin it is required that the intellect represent some evil under the appearance of good, or that it not attend to something to which it ought to attend; whence it comes about that it proposes to the will something to be willed here and now, or to be willed in this way, which was not to be willed. But error or lack of consideration, as an intellectual evil, cannot be admitted in the state of the highest good. Therefore ¹

3rd If the blessed could sin, they could lose glory and beatitude, since nevertheless it cannot be taken away from them, as will be said in the next thesis.

This impeccability arises from what is intrinsic, as the Thomists explain against Scotus:

a) From the contemplation of God. Man necessarily wills the ultimate end or beatitude in the abstract, and cannot will anything except in order to the ultimate end or happiness. But the blessed one incessantly and necessarily and always sees that God is the supreme good and perfect beatitude. Therefore he cannot will anything except what is in order to God. Sin, however, is something not ordered to God. Therefore the blessed one cannot sin (I, q. 62, a. 8 et ad 3; I-II, q. 4, a. 4).

Or even: The intellect, contemplating God, clearly sees that God and His will are the highest and every good necessarily to be loved; and hence nothing outside God is good, if it is against Him or not ordered to Him. Whence sin, which is against the will of God, cannot appear good to it. But man cannot will anything except under the aspect of good. Therefore the blessed cannot will sin².

b) From the love of the blessed. By beatific love man is turned by a continuous act and without interruption to God as the ultimate end. But through sin man is turned away from God the ultimate end, or at least deflects from Him. Yet actual aversion and deflection cannot stand at the same time with actual conversion and adherence, which it excludes. Therefore beatific love by a continuous act excludes sin (C. Gent. IV, 92)³.

39. Thesis III. Beatitude is unlosable and eternal (q. 5, a. 4; C. Gent. III, 62).

What faith teaches, as is evident from the Creeds, and from the Fourth Lateran Council, c. 1, and from Benedict XII, and as the Scriptures clearly indicate in many places (Mt. XXV, 46; VI, 20; John X, 28; I Thess. IV, 17; II Cor. IV, 17; Apoc. III, 12); whence beatitude is called an unfading and incorruptible inheritance (I Peter I, 4); a crown incorruptible (I Cor. IX, 25). And indeed:

Beatitudo ought to exclude every evil, which it will not do unless it is perpetual. For the blessed person either would know that his state is not perpetual, and then he would be afflicted with the greatest evil of sadness and sorrow; — or he would not know, and then either he would err by persuading himself that it is perpetual, and this would be the very grave evil of error; or he would doubt and greatly fear lest he be deprived of so great a good, which fear of losing is also an evil. Therefore beatitudo must necessarily be perpetual.

It is so, however, from within, as the Thomists hold against Scotus: 1° From the nature of beatitude in general. Perfect beatitude, from its own nature (and therefore from within), answers the natural desire of man which it ought to quiet. But man, because he will always exist and naturally desires to retain the good and to obtain security of retaining it, desires beatitude not limited in time but circumscribed by no limits. Therefore beatitude, in order to answer that desire, from its own nature ought to be perpetual. 2° From the nature of supernatural beatitude. No cause is given by which the beatific vision could be lost. Therefore from itself it is incapable of being lost. For it cannot cease a) on the part of the seeing subject; because one clearly seeing God to be the highest good cannot, on account of that reason, will to cease from that vision, since he perceives no evil or inconvenience in it; just as neither can he will not to be blessed; b) on the part of the created cause; because the immediate vision of God is above every created cause, which consequently cannot act upon it nor take it away or impede it; c) on the part of the object, God; because God always behaves in the same way and is not distanced from us except insofar as we are distanced from him. For the subtraction of beatitude is a punishment, whence it cannot be inflicted by God the just judge except on account of fault; but fault cannot be in the blessed one, since he is impeccable.

Specifically the light of glory, as a habit that is in itself permanent and permanently given by God, cannot cease: a) nor through its own corruption, since it is a simple quality; b) nor through the corruption of the subject, since that subject is wholly immaterial, wherefore the light is received incorruptibly according to the condition of the receiver and the giver; c) nor through a contrary disposition, which would be nothing other than sin, by which one would voluntarily turn oneself away from God; but sin is impossible, because he who sees God necessarily loves Him.

40. Thesis IV. The body is in no way required for the very essence of beatitude, even physical beatitude; nevertheless, it is required for its integrity and perfection, or for its well-being.

1st Part is on faith from Benedict XII and from the Council of Florence, and it is established from the Apostle, II Cor. V, 6-8: While we are in the body we are absent from the Lord: for we walk by faith, and not by sight. But we are bold, and have a will to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. — It is proved: a) For supernatural beatitude: The intellect for its operation does not need the body except on account of sensible images in which it beholds intelligible truth. But God cannot be seen through sensible images.

Whence perfect beatitude, which is in the vision of God, does not depend on the body. And therefore, without the body, the soul can simply be blessed as to its substance.

b) For beatitude in general: The blessed soul is not blessed insofar as it is the form of the body, but insofar as it is intellectual it transcends all bodily organs and exercises spiritual operations which by their nature are independent of the body. Therefore, for beatitude, as regards its essence, it does not need the body (a. 5, ad 1um).

2ª Part: the body is required for the complete perfection or well-being of beatitude, in the same way as the beauty of the body or the quickness of the mind pertains to the perfection of man, although not to his essence, holds St. Thomas after St. Augustine; to this Scotus, Suarez, and many recent authors object ⁴.

« For, says the holy Doctor, a. 5, since operation depends on the nature of a thing, the more perfect the soul is in its nature, the more perfectly it will have its own operation in which happiness consists ». But the soul with the body is more perfect in its nature than when it has it complete. Therefore it is more perfect in its operation and beatitude than when it has it complete, insofar as it also extends itself to the body so that the body may, in its own way, share in it.

« The soul desires to enjoy God in such a way that this enjoyment itself flows over into the body, as far as is possible; and therefore, as long as it enjoys God without the body, its appetite rests in Him in such a way that it would still wish its body to attain to participation in Him (ad 4)...The desire of the separated soul rests wholly on the part of the appetible object, because it possesses what suffices for its appetite (God); but it does not rest wholly on the part of the one desiring, because it does not possess that good according to every mode in which it would wish to possess it. And therefore, when the body is taken up again, beatitude increases, not intensively but extensively » (ad 5) ⁵

But the body must be perfect: "For since it is natural for the soul to be united to the body, it cannot be that the perfection of the soul excludes its natural perfection; and therefore ... for beatitude in every way perfect, a perfect disposition of the body is required," both "antecedently," lest the body weigh down the soul and so in some way turn it away from the beatific vision, and "consequently, because from the beatitude of the soul there flows a redundancy to the body so that it too may obtain its own perfection" (a. 6).

41. The resurrection of the body is necessary and is demanded by nature itself, whence, says St. Thomas, an evident reason supports it⁶ (C. Gent. IV, 79). — It is proved:

1) From the very nature and immortality of the soul. The immortal soul is naturally united to the body because according to its essence it is the form of the body (Council of Vienne), and therefore it naturally knows nothing except with the concurrence of the imagination, and indeed not pure intelligibles but intelligibles in sense. It is therefore against the nature of the soul to be without a body, as is evident from the fact that our soul vehemently recoils from death. But nothing that is against nature can be perpetual, at least in those who attain their end. Therefore the soul will not be perpetually without a body. But it remains perpetually because it is immortal. Therefore it must be united to the body again⁷.

2) From the end of man, or from the natural desire for happiness. There is naturally in us a desire for complete happiness. But happiness is the ultimate perfection not of the soul alone but of the whole man. But the soul separated from the body is in some way imperfect, just as every part existing outside its whole: for the soul is naturally a part of human nature. Moreover, it cannot have the complete beatitude of man. Therefore, man cannot attain complete happiness unless the soul is again united to the body⁸.

3) From fitting retribution. “From divine Providence, punishment is owed to sinners and reward to those who act well. In this life, men composed of soul and body sin or act rightly. Therefore, reward or punishment was owed to men according to both soul and body. But it is manifest that in this life they cannot attain the reward of final happiness..., and often sins are not even punished in this life. Therefore, it is necessary to posit a renewed union of the soul with the body, so that man can be rewarded and punished in body and soul.”

The body, of course, is the soul's companion and instrument; not merely passive and external, not participating in morality, since it is part of the human composite, but truly animated and a sharer in its works, whether good or evil. For operation belongs not to the soul alone but to the whole composite; not the soul acts or the body, but man himself as such, according to the soul and according to the body, does good and evil. But to the one acting, the reward of the work is due. Reward, therefore, was owed to human beings, both according to the soul and according to the body, whether prize or punishment. And so the soul's union with the body will be repeated, so that man may receive reward and be punished in body and in soul.

The last argument holds also for sinners, but it is only of fittingness, because bodily works are not in themselves good or evil, but only from the communication of the will. The two former ones, however, seem to us compelling, at least for the resurrection of the just; for in the case of the wicked perhaps it could be said that God punishes them by deprivation of their body. And although they hold in themselves for natural happiness, they also prove for supernatural happiness or the beatific vision, because the supernatural order does not destroy the natural order but perfects it.

But the opponents object that the soul has a twofold mode of being, equally perfect, and a twofold mode of operating; nay, that it has a more perfect natural knowledge of God when it is separated from the body; whence it prefers separation. — We deny this: for then it is not understood why the soul so vehemently desires to be with the body and shrinks from separation; nor is it understood why the soul, even in this life, cannot know without dependence on the body. For if the body contributed nothing to the perfection of the human intellect, union with it would be against the nature of the soul. Likewise, the mode of understanding of the separated soul, although it is absolutely and in itself more perfect, is not however relatively to the soul, but is less perfect for it, because it is not proportioned to its imperfection. Cf. I q. 84, a. 7; q. 89, a. 1. 42. Observations. — 1ª The fact of the resurrection is not a mystery properly so called, since reason sees its possibility, nay even its necessity, but the mode by which the resurrection takes place, in a glorious body, is a mystery which reason can neither discover nor understand. On this cf. Th. dogm. in tr. de Novissimis. 2ª St. Thomas notes, in arts. 7 and 8, that for beatitude external goods, which serve for the sustenance and propagation of animal life, are in no way required. For the beatific vision will either be in the soul without the body, or it will be in the soul united to a body not animal and corruptible, but incorruptible and spiritualized, as befits heavenly life. However, the society of friends is required, not of necessity for the essence of beatitude, because man has the whole fullness of his perfection in God, but for the all-round perfection or well-being of beatitude, because man is a social being, and therefore it is fitting that the blessed see one another mutually, and rejoice in their society.