Chapter V. The ultimate goal in general

Tue eight articles may be thus divided: the first four explain the relation of human acts to an ultimate goal, the last four show that this goal is onc, and only one.

An initial question arises: Do not these first seventeen questions treat of human acts from a viewpoint, not moral, but merely psychological? Does he not begin the treatise on morality in question 18?

Answer: As found in human acts, yes, morality begins in question 18. But his first five questions are a moral treatise on the ultimate goal.

QUESTION 1

ART. 1. DOES MAN ACT PURPOSELY?

The answer runs thus: Only in view of a purpose to be achieved can man act deliberately.

Preliminaries

The question is universal: Can man, acting deliberately, ever exclude purpose from his act? Can any human act, which must necessarily have a terminus, come into being without that terminus pre-existing as intention and purpose in man’s mind?

Purpose, then, as here considered, expresses the motive, the reason why, of the human act. It does not mean a mere terminus, as point means the end of a line, or as vacation means the end of a school year, or as death, according to the materialists, is simply dissolution of the body.

Some think this question is useless. Rather, it is most important, since it deals with the very foundation of moral obligation, denied by Spinoza, and the impossibility, denied by Duns Scotus, of any deliberate act being here and now morally indifferent. This importance appears in the difficulties raised by St. Thomas as he begins the question.

1. Purpose cannot be a cause, since cause must pre-exist before effect. But purpose comes at the end, as something we attain by our act.

In this difficulty lies the reason which later led Spinoza to deny that God works for a purpose. All things, so Spinoza, proceed from God geometrically, as the characteristics of a circle proceed, without finality, from the essence of the circle. But he overlooks the truth that geometry has nothing to do with act or with motion.

2. Man surely engages in some actions unpurposely, simply for their own sake, for example, play and recreation. And contemplation, thus Aristotle, being itself the ultimate purpose, has no purpose beyond itself.

3. Man often acts without deliberation, as when, e.g., he inadvertently strokes his beard. Such acts, unintended, are not done purposely.

A. The response is nevertheless affirmative. The thesis runs thus: Man, acting freely, acts for a purpose.

1. Purpose, in the world of action, is parallel to first principle in the world of speculation and contemplation. As man’s mind is carried by principle to conclusion, so is man’s will carried by purpose to the means needed for attaining purpose. This rule suffers no exception. Hence no individual act can ever be morally indifferent. It must be either good or bad.

2. The foregoing argument is borrowed from Aristotle. St. Thomas prepares by division for demonstration. We distinguish “human acts” from “actions of man.” Human acts proceed from man as man, as distinct from irrational animals, as being, by reason and free will, the master of his actions.

Human acts properly speaking, proceeding from man’s free choice, are consequently either meritorious or demeritorious, worthy of praise or of blame.

But “actions of man” (inadvertently stroking one’s beard) signify acts which, being indeliberate, do not characterize human activity as human.

Three Thomistic Corollaries a) All human acts are acts of man, but not vice versa.

b) Indeliberate acts proceeding from man’s mind and will cannot properly be called human acts: first impulses to pride and to unbelief; further, spontaneous acts of wonder, laughter, weeping, speaking; again, indeliberate blasphemy under diabolic obsession; lastly, the acts of children before the age of reason and the acts of the insane.

c) On the contrary, acts of eating, drinking, walking, though they are common to man and beast, are human acts when done deliberately.

Three Doubts a) Man’s very first act of thought, which precedes his first act of will—is this thought a human act? No, because man is not master of that thought.

b) Is beatific love a human act? No, because that act is not free, but necessary. It transcends freedom, hence is not meritorious, though it is morally good.

c) The acts of filial affection toward God, which are not, properly speaking, deliberate, but are elicited by divine inspiration—are these human acts? Yes, because we freely consent to them, and merit by them. Such acts, because they transcend discursive deliberation, are still free.

B. The thesis demonstrated. All deliberate human acts are here in question. Experience itself shows that men usually act purposively. How frequently we hear: Why did you do this? But here we are asking a universal question: Can man, acting freely, ever perform an unpurposeful act? The libertists say no, St. Thomas says yes, and his proof runs thus:

Since faculties are differentiated by their respective goals, acts proceeding from any faculty aim at the goal of that faculty.

Now the goal of the will is good to be attained. Hence every human act aims at some goal to be attained.

To illustrate the major of this argument: hearing is concerned with sound, and only with sound: sight, exclusively with color; mind, exclusively with the intelligible.

To illustrate the minor: the goal of the will is the good, just as the goal of the intellect is the true. Will aims at the good, be that good genuine or counterfeit. And the good, as attracting the will, is purpose, is final cause. It is called good, because it is desirable. It is called purpose and goal, because it moves the will to seek ways and means.

But do not ways and means attract the will for their own sake? If they do, they become an intermediate goal. But, properly speaking, ways and means attract, not for their own sake, but only for the sake of the end, the purpose, the goal. The good which is the essential and adequate object of the will, is found, secondarily, by participation, in ways and means.

Thus the conclusion stands: Every deliberate human act is done for a purpose, to attain an end. Whatever is deliberately willed is loved either as goal, or as way and means. This truth is necessary and absolute, be the good genuine or counterfeit. He who sins deliberately aims at some good, for example, mere pleasure.

An Addition

Scotus rejects this doctrine. He distinguishes three genera of the good: (a) the goal, (b) means and ways, (c) neither goal, nor means and ways. Were God neither our goal nor our way, He could still be loved by us with most genuine love. As example of this pure and neutral love, Scotus points to the inefficacious love of life in Christ when He said: “If it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me. But not as I will, but as Thou wilt.”

The answer runs thus: That inefficacious love of Christ (and of the martyrs) was toward life as a goal, since life is in the line of blessedness, which all men desire by nature. Anything that is desirable can be loved only by its dependence, actual or virtual, on the first and supreme good.

But, says the Jibertist, I will to will—nothing else. Answer: Where no good, not even counterfeit good, is willed, there no act of will is possible. Hence, to repeat, no individual human act can be morally indifferent, i.e., neither good nor bad. This is the common view, against Scotus, the Scotists, and Vasquez. Man, whenever he acts, is bound to act for a good purpose. Where such purpose is lacking (e.g., aa idle word), the act is morally evil. Recreation is good when carried on for a good purpose, otherwise it is bad.

A Confirmation

The thesis holds for all human acts, whether they aim at the goal, or only at ways and means. Acts concerned with choice of means are evidently done with purpose. Acts concerned with the goal, simple volition and efficacious intention, though they do not proceed from a preceding act, still owe their existence to the goal. And they are virtually deliberate by reason of previous knowledge which distinguishes good from evil.

Solution of Difficulties

First. Goal, attained, comes after the act. Goal, intended, comes before, and is cause (final cause) of the act.

Second. Contemplation is the possession of the beatifying object, and joy is a consequence of possession. Hence the total and complete goal has the three elements, object, possession, joy, all welded into one whole. Joy, says St. Thomas, is the will resting in the object attained. Hence joy, while it is not, speaking rigorously, a human act, is nevertheless the com- pletion of the act, is a connatural result of possessing the goal.

Third. Indeliberate acts, although they do not proceed from reason, still do proceed from some natural purpose, held by the imagination, in the form of a habit mechanically acquired.

Goal and Purpose

Definition and division. Goal is the final cause, which moves man to act. Goals are divided, (a) objectively, (b) subjectively. A. Objective divisions 1. The object itself (health):

a) The ultimate object (victory for the soldier, God for man): the object which we desire (God, seen intuitively); the act by which we possess the object (the beatific vision).

b) The intermediate object, desirable both for its own sake and for some ulterior purpose (health for the sake of virtue, virtue for the sake of God).

2. The individual for whom (e.g., a sick man) I desire the good object (health). This individual may be a) superior to me (God, to whom we wish glory)

b) myself (to whom I will salvation)

c) inferior to me (a dog, to whom I wish health).*

B. Subjective divisions 1. The intention of the agent:

a) identified with the natural purpose of the deed (alms to aid the poor): the purpose produced (health by the act of the physician); the purpose obtained, but not produced (pennant after contest);

b) the intention of the agent, not necessarily identified with the deed’s natural purpose (alms, for God’s sake, for vainglory, simply to aid the poor): the agent’s primary in- gratia). Contemplation is not a medium, subordinated to action, but rather a superabundant, fructifying cause of the apostolic action which is its effect.¹

tention (participating in Mass to adore God, battle to defend the fatherland); the agent’s secondary intention, subordinated to his primary intention, not as a mere medium, but as effect, or as natural consequence (honor and salary for the soldier.)

ART. 2. UNIVERSALITY OF PURPOSE

Preliminaries

The thesis is twofold: Purpose, known as purpose, characterizes rational beings, but irrational beings act for a purpose, to them unknown. Against the second assertion there are three difficulties:

a) How can things work for a purpose to them unknown?

b) Only reason can seek ways and means.

c) Where there is no will, there purpose is impossible.

Thus we enter into the question of finality, as found in inanimate nature, in vegetative life, in sense life. St. Thomas, we recall, founded his fifth proof for God’s existence on this principle. Experience, he says, shows us irrational beings, plants and animals, which generally, if not always, follow a steady line toward self-preservation, individual and racial. Now such activity, unexplained by mere chance, shows that such beings, without knowing it, are under the control of purpose. Thus, following Aristotle, he shows the existence of natural finality.

Here, in the present article, he shows that the principle of finality is necessarily universal: every agent acts for a purpose. This thesis is opposed by the materialists, by Spinoza, by all who deny natural finality, even by some modern Scholastics, who hold that this principle presupposes a proof of divine providence.

This principle of finality is of fundamental importance, on it rests the first principle of practical reason: Do good, avoid evil?²

The Argument

St. Thomas first cites Aristotle: not only intellect, but nature too, acts for a purpose. Then he proceeds to show the necessity of finality, and the mode of finality which separates man from beast.

1. The necessity of finality. The argument is indirect. An agent, capable of various acts, will never act at all unless it is determined toward some one of its possible effects. For, if the agent should produce a determined and suitable effect (if the eye, e.g., could produce vision), without tending to that one effect rather than to another, then this effect, unless intended by nature, would be simply without reason for its existence. And this tendency to definite effect must pre-exist in its cause, not actually of course, but virtually, i.e., by the faculty's innate relation to one effect rather than to another. Later we shall see that this passive and innate relationship of faculty to act presupposes an active relationship in the Author of nature.

Further. This principle of finality, just now demonstrated indirectly, is, if we admit the right notion of agent and purpose, in itself evident, Thus it is evident that sight is intended to see, hearing to hear, gravity to hold the universe together. Now this tendency to an advantageous act is the very principle of finality. Faculty, potency, is defined by its tendency to act, and act by its tendency to object. Sight, were it not for its innate tendency to see, might just as well perform an act of hearing. An acorn might grow into a pear tree, or a canine embryo into a lion.

2. Human finality. Purpose, known as purpose, characterizes rational beings. Purpose dictates ways and means. This relationship of end and purpose to ways and means is an intelligible entity, known only by an intelligence whose object is, not color or sound, but the inner realities of things, and their mutual relationships.

Animals do indeed know the sense-thing which is end and purpose, the stall, for example, which draws the horse home. Thus, without intelligence, they act intelligently, or rather, we may say, they are driven intelligently. This intelligence in an unintelligent world points to uncreated intelligence in the Maker of that world.

Purposeful activity, then, has three levels:

a) the human level, where activity is formally directive;

b) the animal level, where the activity is directive, nonformally (materially);

c) the plant level, where the activity is merely executive.

A Recapitulation

All agents act for a purpose: some by knowing purpose as purpose (intelligence uncreated and intelligence created), some by knowing the thing which is purpose (animals); some without knowing (plants and nonliving bodies).

Finality, then, is an analogous concept, found also on the lowest level of existence. However imperfect it may be on this lowest level, it is still a natural tendency to what is best. It is clearest in racial tendencies, where the individual sacrifices its own life for its offspring, in the hen, for example, gathering her brood under her wings against the hawk.

God and Finality

1. The effects of God are done for a purpose; namely, to show forth God’s goodness in which they share.

2. God’s own operations, whether necessary or free, do not, properly speaking, exist for a purpose, because they are uncreated, hence have no cause, not even a final cause.

gj. Still, in a sense, divine goodness is the purpose of God’s free acts. That goodness, though it is not the cause, is still the reason for God’s free acts. God, says St. Thomas, though He is not moved by purpose, still acts for a purpose. God is not His own cause, but He is His own reason.

3“The world was created for God's glory.” D. 1805.

Whata splendid panorama! All things act purposively: God, angel, man, animal, down to the tiniest realities.

ART. 3. DIFFERENTIATION BY PURPOSE

Preliminaries

On this article depend many subsequent questions: specific distinction of virtuous act from wicked act, degrees of sinful gravity, distinction of mortal sin from venial. The initial difficulties are three.

1. Goal, purpose, is an extrinsic cause, whereas the differentiating principle must be intrinsic.

2. That which specifies and differentiates comes before the purposeful activity, whereas attainment of the goal comes after.

3. Purpose would put each human act into one specific class, whereas we know that one and the same act can be done for different ends: objective, subjective, principal, secondary, proximate, ultimate.

The Proof

Listen to St. Augustine: “As is our purpose, culpable or laudable, so are our deeds.” + If we punish to satisfy our anger, the deed is blameworthy. If we punish to preserve justice, our deed is praiseworthy.

The argument in the corpus is not easy. It ascends from the sense-world to the world of spirit and morality. And we must rightly understand the analogy between the bodily act of heating and the spiritual act of the human will. We are seeking the universal metaphysical law of action as action.

The present article first puts down a universal law. Specification, differentiation, arises, not from potency, but from act: from the act which is form and nature, in substances; from the acts which are source and terminus, when we deal with suc-

4 De moribus Ecclesiae, Bk. II, chap. 13.

cessive things. Thus heating, as action, proceeds from the actual heat of the agent, but, as passion, terminates in the actual heat in the patient.

Applying this principle to human acts, we argue as follows.

Major. What is both source and terminus differentiates human acts.

Minor. Goal, purpose, is both the source and the terminus of human acts.

Conclusion. Every human act, whether looked at as action (which commands), or as passion (which is commanded), is specifically differentiated by its goal and purpose.

The major is not merely a truth of experience (a radiator heating the air in the room), but is likewise the expression of a universal law, since any agent, acting by its own specific nature, produces an effect like itself. Action is a specific action, not by reason of the agent as efficient cause, but by reason of the agent’s formal and constitutive principle. Passion, likewise, is a specific passion by reason of the patient’s formal and constitutive principle.

The minor rests on the truth that, in human acts, the goal, as aimed at by the will, is the formal and specific principle of the will’s action. Further, by actually aiming at the goal, the will moves itself to choose ways and means.

Question: Could not St. Thomas argue in a simpler fashion? Could he not say: Actions, like powers and habits, are specifically differentiated by their goals and objects? Now purpose and goal are the objects of the will. Hence all voluntary acts are differentiated by their goal and purpose.

The answer is threefold.

a) Had he thus argued, he would have omitted the analogy between action in the sense-world and action in the inner world of the human will.

b) The metaphysical law of action as action would be omitted, c) We should not have had the distinction between a com- manding action and a commanded action (as when a man, meditating a murder, passes through many acts, psychologically distinct, but morally one).

Difficulties Analyzed

1. The goal is not altogether extrinsic to the act, because the intrinsic act is, by purpose, related to the goal. The goal, as aimed at by purpose, is both the inner source and the inner terminus of the act.

2. The goal comes after the human act in the order of attainment, but not in the order of intention. The goal which differentiates one human act from another is, properly speaking, the goal as existing in the inner intention. As such it differentiates also the execution which tends to the goal.

3. One and the same human act can be directed to different goals, if these goals are hierarchically one, but it cannot be directed to diverse proximate goals. And it is this proximate and primary goal, not the remote goal, nor the proximate secondary goal, which gives each human act its specific moral nature. To illustrate. The stipend given to a priest for celebrating Mass is a secondary goal of his act. To kill a man in order to preserve justice is a good act. But to kill a man in order to satisfy anger is an evil act. The proximate primary goal gives each human act its specific differentiation.

A Corollary

The apostolic life, since it cannot have two proximate and primary goals, aims at contemplation as its primary purpose, whereas its secondary purpose, arising necessarily from its primary purpose, is to give to our neighbor the fruits of our contemplation.

Two Difficulties Analyzed

1. The goal differentiates the internal act of intention and the external act of execution. But does it differentiate both in the same manner? Does not St. Thomas ® say that the interior act is differentiated by its purpose, and the exterior act by its object: giving, as an example, a man’s intention (internal) of committing adultery, and then proceeding to steal (external act) in order to have the money he needs for his purpose?

The answer runs thus: In the present article no distinction is yet drawn between the purpose of the agent, and the purpose of the deed. To illustrate. When the thief intends simply to steal, his purpose differentiates, not only his internal act, but also his external act. But when his intention is to use the ill-gotten money as a means to adultery, he commits two sins, one of theft (differentiated by the money, which is the purpose of the deed), and one of intended adultery (which is his purpose as agent), But even in this case, his purpose as agent (the intended adultery) differentiates also his external act of theft, not indeed directly, but indirectly, through the objective purpose of his sin of theft. The intention of the will, says St. Thomas, is the soul, the form, of the external act, because the will uses the corporeal members as instruments, and external acts are moral acts only so far as they come from the will. He concludes, quoting Aristotle: He who steals for the sake of adultery is, speaking properly, more adulterer than thief.

2. But is not purpose a mere circumstance,® and hence incapable of differentiating the human act? How, then, are we to distinguish purpose as differentiating from purpose as mere circumstance?

St. Thomas illustrates as follows: In theft, the fact that the object stolen belongs to someone else is of the very essence of the act, whereas the amount stolen is a circumstance. The differentiating purpose, superadded by the agent, is not a circumstance. To act bravely simply because bravery is a duty is not a circumstance. But the superadded purpose, to act

Thomas in contrast to many of his commentators, whose haste and precipitation end in confusion and complexity.

1. An ultimate goal seems impossible, because it would be the highest good, and the good is essentially self-diffusive.

2. Since our mind in counting never comes to an ultimate number, why must our will come to an ultimate good?

3. I can will something, then will myself to will it, and so on ad infinitum. Hence voluntary action does not necessarily aim at an ultimate end and goal.

Two Conclusions

A. In goals hierarchically ordered, it is impossible to proceed to infinity.

Before we take up the proof let us note its importance. It involves a truth taught also by the “philosophy of action” ° and the “method of immanence.” But Blondel’s proof reaches a certitude that is merely practical and subjective, whereas St. Thomas, following Aristotle, reaches a certitude that is speculative, universal, and objective. Thus the present article initiates a demonstration of God’s existence, proceeding from man’s natural desire for happiness. The demonstration here initiated will be completed below, where we shall see that beatitude cannot be found in any created good, but only in uncreated good.®

The proof runs thus: Where there is no first in a causal sequence, there can be no second causes, which act only when acted upon by the first cause. But causes hierarchically ordered act only when acted upon by the first. Hence where there is no first in a causal sequence, there can be no essentially subordinated second causes.

In other words, infinite regression is impossible in a hierarchy of causes. There must, in the nature of things, be an ultimate goal, which here and now attracts for its own sake, and not for the sake of some higher goal. Our conclusion,

then, is simply a corollary from the universal principle of causality, efficient or final. Formulated for efficient causality, the principle runs thus: Anything that has a beginning comes from a pre-existing source of its existence, and, ultimately, from an uncreated source. Formulated for final causality, the principle runs thus: Every agent acts to reach a goal, and ultimately for a goal aimed at for its own sake, not for the sake of something else.

Further, the conclusion holds good in the order both of intention and of execution. In the order of intention, it runs thus: Where there is no goal to attract the appetite, the appetite is simply not attracted. Now the first source of intention is the ultimate goal. Were there no ultimate goal, there would be nothing to attract the appetite.

In the order of execution, thus: Where there is no motive for execution, execution can simply not begin. Now the first motive in execution is its relation to the final goal. Without this goal, no agent would begin anything.

To illustrate. A sick man willing health, calls a doctor. Health he wishes, let us say, to pursue his studies. Study, to know the truth, the supreme Truth; supreme Truth, in order to reach beatitude; and beatitude, for God’s glory. God’s glory, beyond which there is nothing higher, is the first source in this particular causal sequence.

Again, in efficient causality: The cart is drawn by a horse, the horse is supported by the earth, the earth by the sun, the sun by some other center. Can we go on thus forever? No. There must be a first source which needs no support, which is its own activity and hence its own unreceived existence. And without this first cause, there would be no second and subordinated causes, which move, draw, and support only by some higher causality. Looked at vertically, not horizontally, the lowest motion on earth is but the lowest rung on a living stairway, which ends in an eternal and unchangeable and coexistent source of all that is below itself.

But when God creates, is there not an infinite process down- wards? No. On the stairway of creation there is a lowest step. The supreme goodness is indeed infinitely self-diffusive. But that goodness is the source of divine liberty, which is ruled by divine wisdom.

B. Second conclusion. In a causal sequence where causes are related, not essentially, but accidentally, there can be a process ad infinitum,

An example, to illustrate. I wish to learn Latin, then Greek, then Hebrew, then Arabic. Then I abandon languages in favor of mathematics, or metaphysics, or law, or medicine. Then, like Faust, I abandon knowledge in favor of pleasure or riches. Lastly, I return to literature and science. In such a sequence, there is no essential dependence of one step on another, hence there can be a process without limit.

Another example, in efficient causality. Cause per se of the son is the father, whereas the grandfather is cause per accidens. St. Thomas *° explains: Man generates as man, not as son of another man. Adam, son of no man, generated children. And the grandfather may be dead when his son generates a grandson. All fathers stand on the same level, each being a particular agent in the long line of generations. Thus an infinite series, man generated from man, is not impossible. But it would be impossible if the generation of one man depended, not merely on his father, but also on the elements, and on the sun, and so ad infinitum.

Here we may add, following Aristotle and Aquinas, that the impossibility of an infinite and eternal series of transformations cannot be demonstrated. Sea water into clouds, clouds into rain, and then repeat and repeat again, without limit. For such a series we need only the existence of sun and water. If these two existed from eternity, evaporation could be without beginning, but not without origin, since each evaporation would depend on the eternal Prime Mover. Thus Aristotle was led from the existence of motion to the existence of God, while he simultaneously admitted that motion

had no beginning, and thus reveals the infinite power of the Prime Mover. Hence we must clearly distinguish vertical dependence, which is limited, from horizontal dependence, which is unlimited. Thus the soul, considered horizontally, will never have a last volition, but each volition depends, vertically considered, on the ultimate goal of each separate volition.

The initial difficulties should by now have disappeared. In the Saint’s answer to the second difficulty, we may note that infinity in numbers is an accident of number as such, and accident which may happen to any number if you add a unit to it. Any number, though necessarily unequal to all other numbers, is still equal to all others by being a number.

In the third reply we may note an example of accidental subordination. A scrupulous man, preparing a sermon, speaks thus: Since I may be laboring in pride, I ought to elicit an act of humility. But is not this humility itself an act of pride, since I wish to be more humble than others? I must pause to examine myself. But does not this examination itself proceed from pride? And thus ad infinitum.

ART. 5. CAN ONE MAN HAVE MANY ULTIMATE PURPOSES?

Unity, keystone unity, is here in question. We ask: first, can one man have many ultimate purposes (art. 5); second, is man’s every act directed to that last end (art. 6); third, do all men have one and the same goal (art. 7); fourth, do all creatures have the same ultimate goal (art. 8).

Can one man, either actually or virtually, aim simultaneously at many and diverse ultimates? That is the precise question in the present article. The question is posed from the subjective angle (purpose), but in relation to the objective angle (goal).

Initial Difficulties

1. St. Augustine refers to some writers who defend four ultimates: pleasure, tranquillity, natural goods, and virtue.

2. There are many ultimates which are not mutually exclusive.

3. Man can successively choose as his goal, first, pleasure, second, virtue. If man has free will, why can he not choose pleasure and virtue also simultaneously?

The Demonstration

A. By authorities. “No one can serve two masters.” 1! God and Mammon are mutually exclusive. They “whose belly is their God” cannot have virtue as their goal. “He who is not with Me is against Me.” This sentence excludes indifference and neutrality in relation to one last goal.

B. The argument. The argument is threefold. St. Thomas generally gives but one reason, the formal demonstrative medium. When he gives a number of reasons he orders them, not by mechanical juxtaposition, but by organic interconnection. The three operative terms in this article are, first, perfect good, second, the first natural good, third, the first differentiating good. “Perfect good,” the very definition of ultimate purpose, is the terminus ad quem. “The first natural good,” the very nature of the will, is the terminus a quo. “The first differentiating good,” i.e., the source which makes acts human, is the transition from the ad quem to the a quo. The first reason is the more fundamental and formal. The other two are confirmations.

These three reasons can be given simultaneously, as follows: No man can simultaneously desire (a) two goods, each of which is perfectly satiative, leaving nothing to be desired; (b) two first and perfect goods, each of which is naturally desirable; (c) two first and primary goods, each of which is the prime genus of human appetite. But the ultimate goal is a good that perfectly satiates all desires; the first good that is naturally desirable; the good that constitutes the prime genus of human appetites. Therefore it is impossible that one man’s will can simultaneously have two diverse ultimate goals.

Clarifications

The ultimate purpose, we say, is a good which perfectly satiates all desires, in the sense that it excludes, not all other goods, but all goods not subordinated to itself. Thus the carnal sinner, who finds in lust his ultimate purpose, may desire also food, drink, honors, and riches, but all these as subordinated to lust. But full subordination of all else to one vice is perhaps a rare occurrence, since the sinner’s ultimate purpose is not the object of each particular sin, but rather selfishness, that is, the love of self above all else, even above God.

Again: When we say that the ultimate goal is the first object naturally desired, and that it is the good which constitutes the prime genus of human appetites, we mean that every man’s first and natural desire is to be happy, and that therefore, even though unconsciously, he tends to love God more than himself, because natural inclination as such is always good and right.

A Confirmation

The ultimate goal is never subordinated to any other goal, but puts all else in subordination to itself. But in the hypothesis of two such ultimate goals, neither could be subordinated to the other. Hence the hypothesis of two (or more) ultimate goals is an absurd hypothesis.

Initial Difficulties Answered

1. Pleasure, tranquillity, and virtue can be considered as partial constituents of one whole.

2. Health, virtue, and God are not indeed mutually exclusive. But perfect good, the ultimate goal, does exclude all and everything unsubordinated to itself.

3. Man is free, yes, even after he has chosen an ultimate goal. But freedom cannot bring two contradictories into simultaneous existence. Now two ultimates, each perfectly satiating, are contradictories. Each would, and each would not, be perfectly satiative.

Three Further Difficulties

1. Cannot man, being free, desire a second ultimate, as something overabundant and superfluous? No. That which is overabundant and superfluous cannot be an ultimate goal, which must necessarily be the principal object of the will.

2. One and the same man, for instance, guilty of theft, homicide, and adultery, may have for each of these three sins a separate and disparate motive. If so, will he not have in view three ultimate goals?

The answer is again no. The positive root of all sin is selfishness, i.e., the love of self above all else, and this selfishness, this egoism, is the sinner’s ultimate goal, to which all his sins are subordinated. Egoism, scorning God, builds the City of Babylon, as love of God and scorn of self build the City of God. Love of God, the virtue of charity, binds all virtues into one. Egoism, selfishness, counterfeit love of self, is the source and goal of all sin.

3. But what of him who sins venially? He does not lose God as his ultimate goal, yet his sinful act, since it does not have God as goal, must be done for some created good, which is therefore a second ultimate goal.

Full answer to this difficulty will come in the next article. For the moment, let us note * that the goal of venial sin is not the love of a created good above all else, for that is the goal of mortal sin. Nor is God the goal, except negatively, in the sense that venial sin does not destroy man’s relation to God as goal. But the goal of venial sin is good in general, seen here and now as satisfying man’s desire.

The present article deals formally and primarily with man’s last end, i.e., with perfect good, whenever found. Only second-

12 With Cajetan, Contenson, Billuart, Sylvius, and others.

arily is it concerned with the object wherein perfect good is found.

ART. 6. DOES MAN WILL HIS EVERY ACT FOR A LAST END?

In every deliberate act, man acts for a purpose. The question now is: Does man will all his acts for one ultimate purpose? We expect an affirmative answer, but we must first note the initial difficulties, which were later developed by Scotus against St. Thomas.

Initial Difficulties

1. Man sometimes acts jocosely, and jocose acts are not done for an ultimate purpose. Scotus later says: Jocose acts are indifferent acts, not only specifically, but also as found in the individual who indulges in them.

2. Any speculative branch of knowledge (e.g., mathematics or metaphysics) is pursued for its own sake, but is not nevertheless an ultimate goal.

3. Man does not always think of an ultimate goal. How, then, can he always act for such a goal?

The Argument

St. Thomas begins by quoting St. Augustine, who says that the ultimate goal is that by reason of which all other things are loved.

The conclusion runs thus: Whatever man deliberately desires, he desires for an ultimate goal, at least virtually and implicitly (this last phrase is from the third solution).

We present first, the arguments of St. Thomas; secondly their interpretation, since on this last point his commentators do not entirely agree.

There are two proofs. The first runs thus: Anything a man desires he desires because it seems to be a good thing. But if what he desires is not that perfect good which is his ultimate purpose, then it must he something subordinated to that per- fect good and ultimate purpose. Hence whatever man deliberately desires, he desires by reason of his ultimate goal.

To explain. A beginning, in any line, is subordinated to consummation. Examples are, in nature, the germ of a plant, in art, the foundation of a building.

Primarily, as we said above, the conclusion holds good of the subjective ultimate purpose, and only secondarily of the object wherein blessedness is to be found, and this in diverse modes, since the man who desires may be either a viator or one of the blessed or one of the damned. Thus the blessed, who see God face to face, cannot sin, even venially, whereas a damned soul, loving itself selfishly above all else, cannot do any good deed. The viator wills everything for his own subjective beatitude, and can sin venially, though such acts neither turn him away from God nor yet lead him to God.

The second proof proceeds thus: The ultimate purpose is the prime mover in eliciting desire. Now secondary movers, second causes, move only as moved by the prime mover. Hence only as subordinated to the ultimate goal can secondary motives move man’s will.

Here, again, we are dealing primarily with the formal last end, and only secondarily with the object wherein that formal end is found. But note that the mother-idea is becoming ever more distinct.

Difficulties Analyzed

1. Jocose actions aim at the good of the man who does them, whether that good is genuine (e.g., to study better) or counterfeit (to enjoy more a life of luxury).

2. Knowledge for its own sake is in opposition to the utility aimed at by the mechanical arts. Speculative knowledge, then, while thus distinguished by its proximate purpose, aims ultimately at the good state of him who pursues it.

Here enters a scholion, on the purpose of meditation. Meditation may be an act of the virtue of prudence, entered into in order to do one’s duty better, But it may also be an act of the virtue of faith, entered into in order to love God better. But love of God is related to love of neighbor, not as a means to an end, but as pre-eminent cause to its effect.

3. Even when he is not actually thinking of his ultimate goal, man’s every deliberate act arises in him in virtue of that ultimate goal (virtualiter). The traveler's destination governs his every step, whatever he may be thinking of at every step.

Difficulties Raised by Scotus

Against St. Thomas, Scotus holds that man can act deliberately without aiming at beatitude and even against beatitude. He argues thus:

1. The will follows the intellect. But the intellect may not be thinking of beatitude.

We answer thus: The will follows the intellect, yes, but in two ways: either by actual intention (when the intellect is thinking of purpose), or by virtual intention (when the intellect is not thinking of purpose).

2. The will follows the intellect. But the intellect can think of something in itself good, without thinking of it as good toward a goal.

We answer: “Without thinking of an object wherein that good exists,” yes; but without thinking of that good as part of his own happiness, no. Beginning necessarily aims at consummation.

g. Even while he remains certain that beatitude is found only in God, a man can will, for instance, the sin of fornication. Now such a man wills something against beatitude.

We answer: “Against the object wherein beatitude is found,” yes; against his own desire for beatitude, no. Such a man, here and now, tries to find happiness in sin.

Further Difficulties

A good deed, done by a sinner, must be done, at least virtually, for God. But the sinner, who remains a sinner, has something created as his goal. Hence a man may have two ultimate goals,

Answer: The sinner’s good deed has God as ultimate goal, in a certain sense, yes (since the object of that deed meets with God’s approval); but, simply and absolutely, no (because, not even virtually, is the good deed done for God loved above all else). This man cannot serve two masters. All his deeds, good and bad, are done for one last goal, namely, himself, loved selfishly.

But, the arguer continues, since created good is not the object of the sinner’s good deed, created good is no longer his last goal.

Answer: His last goal is still his own love of self above all else; but, since he is not confirmed in evil, he can still act against his own evil goal, but not against his own desire for beatitude.

But, so the arguer again, man can simply not act for his own beatitude, because the will tends not to happiness in the abstract, but to the concrete object which gives happiness. To illustrate. A bath, to reach its purpose, must not remain in abstract thought, but must become a concrete reality.

Answer: If beatitude were aimed at without relation to me, the concrete agent, then it would remain in the abstract, yes; but otherwise, no. When I act, I want beatitude, not in the abstract for men in general, but for me, the concrete self.

It remains true, though, that this desire for happiness does not become fully and simply efficacious until I choose an object (God or myself) wherein I am to find this happiness.

But, the arguer insists, intermediate motives, like intermediate agents, must be concrete and existing realities.

Answer: “Like intermediate agents” is an ambiguous phrase. Physical agents, having physical causality, must be concrete and existing realities. But intermediate moral motives, exercising final causality, move simply by being known. Here lies condemnation of Quietism, which tells the holy soul to love God without any thought of its own beatitude.

The holy soul must love its own beatitude, but subordinates that beatitude to the glory of God, whom it loves more than it loves itself.

A fourth insistence: Do we not often choose some particular good without thinking at all of any ultimates?

Answer: Without thinking of ultimates expressly and explicitly, yes; without thinking of them implicitly and tacitly, no.

Fifth and last insistence: But if man is free, why can he not refuse to will his own happiness?

Answer: Man can refuse to exercise his freedom, yes (by going to sleep, or by getting drunk); but if he exercises his power of choice, he must choose something in some way subordinated to his own well-being.

Venial Sin

When the just man, who finds his happiness in God, still commits venial sin, is God in some way the object of that sin? Some Thomists say yes, and explain: God is the object, not positively but negatively, permissively, and habitually, since venial sin does not destroy the sinner’s habit of charity. We hold that these expressions, though not false, are still improper, because God cannot, in any proper sense, be the object of sin. These authors fail to distinguish clearly the state of man as wayfarer from his state of blessedness or of damnation.

A better solution is given by Cajetan, who is followed by Billuart, Sylvius, and Contenson: namely, that everything a man does, venial sin included, is done for man’s well-being, but not necessarily for that object wherein his well-being is found. The present article, says Cajetan, deals primarily with man’s desire for happiness, whereas the question of the object which will satisfy that desire is the precise question in the next article.

To illustrate. The Christian, in the state of mortal sin, can elicit an act of hope, the ultimate end of which is God, inefficaciously loved. But the sense of our thesis here is that the.

ultimate aim of every human act is the object which we efficaciously intend. No one can serve two masters.

St. Thomas on Venial Sin

The acts of a Christian are either good or bad. If good, they aim at God, either perfectly or imperfectly. If bad, they are either venially bad (and have no ultimate concrete aim), or then, mortally bad (and aim at some created good as ultimate). The ultimate in anyone’s venial sin is his own well-being, not found here and now simply in God (else it would not be sin at all), nor simply in created good loved supremely (else it would be grievous sin). But if venial sin has no ultimate concrete end, then venial sin is impossible. Impossible, the Saint replies, in the angels, yes; in men who are still wayfarers, no. Man, the wayfarer, does not, like the angel, have intuitive knowledge, which sees instantaneously all conclusions in their principles, all acts in their last concrete end. Hence, while angels, if they sin, must sin mortally, men, as long as they are wayfarers, can sin, not only grievously, but also venially.

In conclusion, we give three more statements from the Saint.

a) In venial sin man does not aim at created good as his last concrete end.

b) In venial sin man aims at created good, not as one enjoying (because he does not find in it his last goal), but as one using (since, while he retains his habitual relation to God, he actually does the deed for his own well-being).

c) Venial sin does not have created good as its ultimate goal.

APPENDIX

Virtual Intention

“Habitual intention” is a term used by many moderns to signify the intention, explicit or implicit, which St. Thomas calls “virtual intention.”

Virtual intention is explicit when a man acts by reason of a past actual intention not repudiated (a physician, gathering herbs, and at the moment unmindful of his medical purpose).

Virtual intention is implicit when a man does something naturally subordinated to his own well-being, whether or not he knows the purpose of his act. This is the precise intention dealt with in our present article, since beginning, says the Saint, is always subordinated to consummation. Nature, forming an embryo, aims at the fully developed man. The hodcarrier, though he may not know the architect’s intention, still aims implicitly at that intention. Interpretative intention is an intention which we judge would exist had the agent thought of its purpose. An example is a man giving alms to a stranger, not knowing that the recipient is a relative in disguise.

Intention is habitual, properly speaking, when the agent has a habit which, in no way, explicitly or implicitly, influences the deed he is here and now doing. An example is the saint who sins venially. The saint’s habitual love of God simply coexists with the sin, but is not in any way a cause of the sin. Habits, we note, are simply inclinations to act, but can result in act only when the will intends to use them,

These divisions run through all moral theology. Those theologians, therefore, are not.justified, who use the word “habitual intention” to signify what Thomists call “virtual implicit intention,” and then proceed to quote St. Thomas for their own view.

Duration of the Explicit Virtual Intention

Some authors assign a month, some a longer period. Then we must ask: Why may it not last until the first day of the next month? Or even until the first day of the second year? These unscientific solutions remind us of the sophist’s question: When does a stone heap begin? With the second stone, or with the third?

A better answer, based on principle, runs thus: Explicit virtual intention can be destroyed only by a contrary intention. The determination left by an actual explicit intention is something spiritual, hence, in itself, independent of time. This determination, should the man die, would remain forever.

Nevertheless, by accident or occasion, this determination can be destroyed. It is a habit, and habit, long unused, may yield to a contrary intention, which may arise without the agent’s explicit intention, and thus destroy his former determination.

Indirect voluntary acts (omission, say, and acts voluntary in cause) may put an end to the explicit virtual intention. An example is the physician who drinks heavily, foreseeing its evil effects on the self-control he needs for an impending operation,

How can we know, practically, that the virtual intention still endures? Ask the man why he acted as he did. If he replies, equivalently, by referring to his former intention, then it still endures,

Thus the thesis stands. Man acts always, at least virtually and implicitly, for an ultimate end, namely, his own wellbeing.

ART. 7. DO ALL MEN HAVE ONE AND THE SAME ULTIMATE GOAL?

Initial Difficulties

The unicity of the last end, as here treated, is concerned, not with one man, but with all men, all angels, all intellectual creatures,

1. The just man and the sinner cannot have the same last end.

2. Some just men lead the contemplative life, others lead the active life.

3. Actions, and hence the goals of actions, belong to individual men.

The Argument

A. St. Augustine: All men agree in aiming at one last end, their own well-being.** B. Two conclusions.

First. All men aim at one and the same formal end, because each desires his own happiness, his own well-being, his own perfect state.

Second. All men do not aim at the same material end, at one and the same object, wherein to find their own wellbeing: as beatifying object, some aim at riches, some at pleasure, some at knowledge. Few choose God, who alone, as we shall see, can give happiness, even in the order of nature.

A Corollary

As man is, so man chooses. To the babe, milk means sweetness. Later his intellect first knows milk as a reality, and his will first desires that reality as good. What holds good of the babe, holds good of all men: as they are, so they choose.

Initial Difficulties Analyzed

1. The sinner turns away from the truly beatifying object, but not from his desire of his own well-being, which he seeks in counterfeit beatifying objects.

2. The active life by its proximate purpose differs from the contemplative, but each has the same ultimate goal in God.

3. Each man’s acts belong to him individually, yes. But nature, the source of activity, is the same in all men, and tends to the same goal in all men. And intellect and will, the faculties by which nature acts, tend likewise to one goal, intellect to the true, will to the good.

ART. 8. DO ALL CREATURES HAVE THE SAME ULTIMATE GOAL?

The object which is the goal is one and the same for all creatures, namely, their Creator who made them in order to 14 De Trinitate, Bk, XIII, chap. 4.

manifest, each in its own way, their Creator’s goodness. “The creature, as creature, belongs to God, and as such is inclined to love its Creator more than it loves itself.1*

But in the mode of attaining this goal, creatures differ. God can be possessed, properly speaking, only by acts of intellect and will, and of these acts irrational creatures are incapable.

Recapitulation

1. Man, acting deliberately, always aims at his own wellbeing as ultimate purpose.

2. Voluntary acts are specifically differentiated by their objects.

3. Human life has one ultimate goal.

4. No man can aim simultaneously at two ultimate goals.

5. Man, acting deliberately, wills all his actions for one last end, his own well-being.

6. All men agree in desiring each his own well-being, but not in the object wherein to find their well-being.

7. All creatures have God as their ultimate goal, though not all can know God.

All these articles proceed from one fundamental idea, the mother-idea, evolving from that idea, as bodily organs evolve from the embryo.

Footnotes

1. Christ died for us (who are inferior to Him), but this purpose is subordinated to the glory of God. By hope we desire God for ourselves, who are inferior to God, but we do so because God so wills. Contemplation is devoted to apostolic action as inferior (finis cui), but to God as superior (finis cujus ↩

2. Ia-Ilae, q.94, a.2. ↩