Man's Search for his Ultimate Purpose and Happiness-THY1_2024-2025 (1).pdf

THE ULTIMATE Enrique M. Jamilla UST INSTITUTE OF RELIGION  THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE OF HUMAN LIFE ◼ PURPOSE – is that for which an action is done. ◼ All our actions, provided they are human acts, have a purpose or end or objective. ◼ There is no human act without a purpose....

THE ULTIMATE Enrique M. Jamilla UST INSTITUTE OF RELIGION  THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE OF HUMAN LIFE ◼ PURPOSE – is that for which an action is done. ◼ All our actions, provided they are human acts, have a purpose or end or objective. ◼ There is no human act without a purpose. ◼ Every human act has happiness for a purpose or objective. ◼ All men strive to be happy. ◼ Therefore, the over-all purpose of human life is happiness.  GOOD AND HAPPINESS Good is “that which all men desire.” - Aristotle The concepts of good and evil are most fundamental in Ethics for that is what Ethics is all about: to determine what is morally good or evil for man. The concept of good and evil, from the moral point of view, is determined from man’s relationship to his end or purpose, that is to say, we consider man as man. Any action that leads an individual to his end as man is morally good. Any action that separates or prevents an individual from his end as man is morally evil. Thus, it will be impossible to define the notion of what is morally good or evil without making reference to man’s end as MAN.  INTELLECT AND FREE WILL Man is created imperfect. He is endowed with power and potencies or faculties through the exercise of which he grows and develops until he reaches a progressive state of perfection he did not have when he was born. It is towards this perfection that man dedicates his life. The intellect and free will are two spiritual faculties of man. Through his intellect, man discovers the Truth. Through his will, man tends towards that which the intellect presents as Good.  The intellect of man seeks the truth and will not stop until it possesses truth without error. The will of man is always inclined towards the good. Anything that is good and known as such by man, will attract his desires. Things attract man differently because they are: ❖ useful - it renders service and facilitates work ❖ pleasant - it makes you feel good ❖ befitting his condition - it promotes healthy and vigorous life  What is now the ultimate purpose of end of man? Is it possible Could it be that that HAPPINESS is HAPPINESS the same as the is the ultimate GOOD that all purpose of man desires? man? According to Aristotle, it is “that for the sake of which everything else is desired and which is not desired for the sake of anything else.” Happiness to be considered the ultimate purpose or end of man must be self-sufficient to satisfy man’s aspiration. As Aristotle also says: “that which when isolated makes life desirable and lacking in nothing.” Happiness even isolated makes life desirable.  It will be easy to understand that whatever happiness consists in, it will have to be something that satisfies man’s total needs and aspirations, especially the needs of his superior qualities: the INTELLECT and the FREE WILL.  From what has been said it will follow that the Supreme Good being correlative of Perfect Happiness must meet several criteria among which are the most important: 1. Happiness being the last and Supreme Good must be desired for its own sake. 2. Happiness being proper to man, the Supreme good must be something that fits man as man. 3. The Supreme Good must be capable of permanent possessions.  Requirements of Lasting Happiness What can satisfy man’s craving for happiness must be total, permanent, lasting and eternal. True happiness must have no admixture of pain, misery or unhappiness. So man’s ultimate happiness does not consists in the possession of money, power, popularity or good looks. What can make man happy lies in the satisfaction of his capacities as man. What makes man distinctly man are his faculties of intellect and free will, and hence man’s satisfaction lies in knowing the ULTIMATE TRUTH and doing the SUPREME GOOD. In any theological ethics the ultimate criterion of morality is true happiness. An action is morally good because it leads to happiness for persons. The only authentic happiness is one which satisfies the whole person in his or her deepest and most ultimate needs. QUESTION Where can I find true happiness? 1. Worldviews/Trends in Achieving Happiness Hedonism To seek the pleasurable is the primary reason of human behavior. Happiness equates with pleasure. Pleasure ranges from the physical exhilaration to the material things which the world cunningly offers. The hedonist chases physical pleasures as gateway to what will satisfy inner longings. In the end, after the fleeting feeling has welled up, the emptiness remains and the same cycle of chasing after pleasure continues without providing the authentic remedy to their insatiable yearnings. Rutt Veenhoven. Happiness and Hedonism, Retrieved April 10, 2018, https://personal.eur.nl /veenhoven /Pub2000s/2003c-full.pdf. Materialism and Consumerism Material possession, success, and progress are the highest values in life. This doctrine highly values the material realm and is opposed to intellectual and spiritual values. An upshot of materialism is Consumerism, which believes that personal wellbeing and happiness depend, on a very large extent, on the level of consumption, particularly on the purchase of material goods. Like hedonism, buttressing one’s happiness on material things, in the end, only throws a person into a cycle of dissatisfaction and constant yearning for something that is temporal and fleeting. Consumerism, Retrieve April 9, 2018, https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/ContemporaryAmericanSociety/ Chapter %207%20--%20consumerism%20-- %20Norton%20August.pdf. c. Eudaimonism The highest form of happiness can be acquired through the practice of virtues. For Aristotle, these virtues are actions turned into good habits which lead a person to transcend his/her passions. 2. GOD AS THE ULTIMATE HAPPINESS OF THE HUMAN PERSON a. St. Thomas Aquinas on Happiness b. Happiness in God as the Ultimate Goal of Human Beings c. God’s Commandments: Criteria in Attaining Eternal Life d. Beatitudes: Call to Perfection a. St. Thomas Aquinas on Happiness Happiness as end. Human beings have the power of reason to determine what seems good for them and the power of free will to choose what goods they will seek and how they will go about obtaining them. Thus, according to Aquinas we are masters of our own actions.  Those goods that we seek are goals or ends, the things we hope to achieve by our actions. The angelic doctor adds, “although the end be last in the order of execution, yet it is the first order of the agent’s intention and it is in this way that it is a cause.” St. Thomas Aquinas on Happiness: What it is, What it consists, and How to obtain it (ST I-II, Q.2, Prologue). Kevin Vost, Psy.D., One Minute Aquinas: The Doctor’s Quick Answers to Fundametal Questions, (Manchester, New Hampshire, Sophia Institute Press, 2014). Pp 30- 31.  St. Thomas asserts that human beings are not so much pawns who are pushed by the random events of their past as masters of their fates who are pulled by future goals of their own making. Aquinas insists that an end acts as a final cause, a cause for the sake of which human beings undertake to do something. Aristotle and Aquinas agree that although each individual has his/her own personal likes and dislikes, he/she acts, most of the time, for the very same final, last end. So, what then is that final end? False happiness. According to St. Augustine, “all men agree in desiring the last end, which is happiness.” Why, then, do individual men and women act so very differently and achieve such differing degrees of happiness? St. Thomas notes that “to desire happiness is nothing else than to desire that one’s will be satisfied. And this is what everyone desires.” And yet, “all do not know Happiness; because they know not in what the general notion of happiness is found.”  In determining what will bring happiness, St. Thomas starts by enumerating some common false contenders, which are as popular and alluring today as they were in the thirteenth century, namely: wealth, power, honor, fame and glory. These are only means to the end of happiness itself and none of them ever completely brings satisfaction. Two Kinds of Happiness: An imperfect happiness while here on earth. (Felicitas) - enjoyment A perfect happiness consisting of the beatific vision of the Uncreated Good (i.e., God) in heaven. (Beatitudo) – lasting happiness Augustine expressed this so beautifully in his writing, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Augustine refers to God who is the ultimate source of every good thing and the end towards whom human beings ought to direct all their actions. b. Happiness in God as the Ultimate Goal of Human Beings Happiness is associated with the meaning of life. JPII “In the depths of his heart there always remains a yearning for absolute truth and a thirst to attain full knowledge of it. This is eloquently proven by man's tireless search for knowledge in all fields.” JPII St. Thomas Aquinas points out: “every agent acts for an end; otherwise, one thing would not follow more than another from the action of the agent.” St. Thomas Aquinas clarifies the how rational beings differ from irrational beings in their pursuit of an end: Irrational creatures seek their end by means of natural inclination. In rational creatures, this inclination is caused by the deliberation of the intellect, which knows the end as good, and the free decision of the will.” As the faculty that chooses, the will empowers the person to choose which path to take on the way to happiness: whether right or wrong. Relationship between the Human Person’s Rationality and the Totality of His Being: All human persons are oriented towards the good, in virtue of their rationality. This good is broken down and made up of the basic goods of the person, which are perfective of him, or her. The knowledge, right ordering, and harmonizing of the human goods by reason, and the moral effort to pursue them throughout a lifetime, are necessary for human happiness. If disorder enters in here it upsets the balance of a person’s life and affects their happiness. E.g., housing and nourishment and material well-being serve human life and not vice verse. Peter Bristow, Christian Ethics and the Human Person “Man seeks his last end in his actions by knowing that last end (God) and wanting it.” “How is it, then, that I seek you, Lord? Since in seeking you, my God, I seek a happy life, let me seek you so that my soul may live, for my body draws life from my soul and my soul draws life from you. God alone satisfies.” St. Augustine, Confessions Jesus brings the question about morally good action back to its religious foundations, to the acknowledgment of God, who alone is goodness, fullness of life, the final end of human activity, and perfect happiness. “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom 12:2). c. God’s Commandments: Criteria in Attaining Eternal Life JPII elucidates the connection between eternal life and obedience to the decalogue in his remark: “God's commandments show man the path of life and they lead to it.” the decalogue sheds light on the dignity of the human person, and consequently our obligation to respect it, to wit: The 10 Commandments are: Reflections about the good of the person at the level of the many different goods which characterize his identity as a spiritual and bodily being in relationship with God, with his neighbor and with the material world. Teach us man's true humanity. They shed light on the essential duties, and so indirectly on the fundamental rights, inherent in the nature of the human person. “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness” are negative precepts, which express with particular force the ever urgent need to protect human life, the communion of persons in marriage, private property, truthfulness and people’s good name. d. Beatitudes: Call to Perfection The Beatitudes respond to man’s natural desire for happiness. This desire is of divine origin. God has placed it in the human heart in order to draw man to the One who alone can fulfill it.” The Beatitudes are more about basic attitudes and dispositions than about particular rules of behavior. There is no separation between them and the commandments since both are oriented to eternal life. The Beatitudes: Suggest commitment to live out the different suggested attitudes to attain the graces promised by God. Give an idea that the true happiness that we should pursue cannot be totally attained in this world through temporal things but eternally reside in heaven. Articulate that the destiny of man can be achieved through service and the contemplation of heavenly things. The first three beatitudes are dedicated to removing the obstacles, which purely material goods can present to be genuine happiness. Blessed are the poor in spirit, refers to the need for detachment either from riches or honors, which results from humility. The next two beatitudes restrain and moderate the irascible and concupiscible appetites respectively. Blessed are the meek, protects man’s irascible nature from falling into excessive anger and keeps it within the bounds of reason. Blessed are those that mourn, moderates man’s desire for pleasure by keeping it in proportion, which is the effect on us when we suffer trials, tribulations and the death of loved ones. The second group explains our duty to serve our neighbor. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. The active life should be devoted principally to one’s duty and spontaneous inclination to serve one’s neighbor. Blessed are the merciful. But spontaneous inclination also leads us to go beyond what is strictly due to others and show them generosity, understanding and forgiveness, and indeed gratuitously without expecting anything in return. The third group brings forth the importance of living a contemplative life. Blessed are the pure of heart. We say of men who triumph over the passions, Blessed are the peacemakers. The virtues gifts, which perfect man in his relations with his neighbor, have peace as their effect, as we read in Isaiah: “The work of justice shall be peace” (32:17). The Beatitudes do not suggest certain actions but correct dispositions and attitudes that remain necessary in forming our will to choose the Good and turn to God. They are reminders that are given to us so that we can become “morally good persons and attain our integral human fulfillment (everlasting happiness) in Jesus Christ.” The Beatitudes indicate a way of life, a life that finds its full actualization in God, the one true source of happiness.  There is only one total and ultimate truth, and that is God or the Supreme Being. There is only one total and highest good, and that is God or the Supreme Being. It is only in God where we can find such perfection. He is the Perfect Truth and Supreme Goodness who alone can fully satisfy man’s aspirations for knowledge and goodness.  If we therefore search ourselves deeply for the satisfaction of our deepest human desires , we will find that only the Creator can satisfy His creatures. Hence, God or the Supreme Being is the ultimate purpose of human life He alone can make man completely happy. God or the Supreme Being is the beginning as well as the end of human existence, truly the Alpha and the Omega.  It is therefore imperative for us to seek and know the TRUTH, for it is only in knowing the truth where we can strive to do the GOOD which eventually will lead us to GOD our ultimate purpose and end, the source and summit of infinite HAPPINESS.  “And the truth shall set you free…” - John 8:32 Jesus said, “ I am the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE…” - John 14:6