2.3 Purpose And Ultimate End Of Human Life PDF

THE ULTIMATE END OF MAN The Fourth Basic Concept of Moral Theology  What is the purpose of life? What is our destiny and what is the way to attain it? REALITIES OF HUMAN LIFE 1. Moral experience reveals that life is under constant tension between What is...

THE ULTIMATE END OF MAN The Fourth Basic Concept of Moral Theology  What is the purpose of life? What is our destiny and what is the way to attain it? REALITIES OF HUMAN LIFE 1. Moral experience reveals that life is under constant tension between What is at present and what must be in the future. What he is now and somehow must ultimately be What his being ought to realize as its proper immanent end. 2. Man lives facing the future, a future filled with many different things. There are  things we want to experience  things we want to do  things we want to possess,  things we want to 3.Every human activity tend towards the direction of an end or goal. Various sources of goals: a)Chosen by us as individual - as we choose to pursue a career b) From our cultures – as we are led to seek success…..culture demand/value this goal c) From our religion – as Christian to achieve the Kingdom of God d) From our natures as human beings – as we seek the development of our human potentialities of body and mind. This goal is the good that perfects not only the faculties but also all the dimensions of MAN.  Therefore, any act, with knowledge of the mind and consent of the will, pursues an end which is good for the sensitive or for the rational appetite or for the whole human being. ULTIMATE END ULTIMATE END/GOAL is called because it contains fullness or completeness. Life moves forward toward such fullness. It “has it all”, all that we could possibly desire or all that life could possibly be. It is responsible for the overall meaning of human life. Life have a sense of meaning which colors everything that we do and experience. This meaning is derived from the final goal that we are moving toward. St. Thomas Aquinas “If there were no last end, nothing would be desired nor would any action have its term nor would the intention of the agent be at rest.” 4. There is an implicit or explicit desire in man Desires in all man’s action and affairs, in all his physical, cultural and religious activity. All these desires are directed toward the ultimate goal which is nothing else but… happiness. This goal (happiness) is the origin of all human movements and the first cause of all human actions. Without this ultimate (end) in mind there will be no action. Happiness is the reality under the name “good” or “end” contained in all human desires and behind all human experience. “All men have happiness as their object. There is no exemption. However different the means they employ, they all aim at the same end.”- Blaise Pascal. “happiness is the “ultimate achievement of an intellectual nature” (St. Thomas) St Thomas said Happiness is two-fold: 1. IMPERFECT and it is possible in this life; 2. PERFECT, consisting in the vision of God.  The Natural Purpose of Human Aristotle believe life that the natural purpose of man is to live in accordance to our human nature. The nature of man as rational and moral imposes upon him a final destination:  “Man is made for virtue, for perfection,” in accordance with the development of his intellect and rational will. It implies the acquisition of truth by the mind and moral virtue by human will.  It also implies the moderate possession of material goods such as health, riches, family and social life, etc.  The Supernatural Purpose of Human Life. Man’s destiny (From inpoint Christian thisof world view) is not only to achieve a cultural and moral perfection, but to attain eternal happiness of the soul after the death of the body. To know, to love and to serve God is our present duty. To see God Himself face to face, to be united to Him by an unbroken and everlasting operation of the mind, shall be our eternal destiny.  The natural desire for happiness in all men can only be fulfilled through the supernatural act of the intellect.  The Divine Nature of God cannot be grasp by human intellect unless aided by some higher power, by a “Light” given by God Himself. The Transcendental and Supernatural End of man, therefore, is nor Absolute last end – “the end for the sake of which all other things are desired, and which is not itself desired for the sake of anything else” (St. Thomas Aquinas)