Book Description
The Treatise on Happiness and the accompanying Treatise on Human Acts comprise the first twenty-one questions of I-II of the Summa Theologiae. From his careful consideration of what true happiness is, to his comprehensive discussion of how it can be attained, St. Thomas Aquinas offers a challenging and classic statement of the goals of human life, both ultimate and proximate.

This translation presents in accurage, consistent, contemporary English the great Christian thinker's enduring contributions on the subject of man's happiness. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

What is your personal agenda? (2)
With so much emphasis placed on "success" today, this treatise is a welcome response. Many people seem to conduct their lives with a personal agenda that is aimed only at success. Should they fail to succeed, they fear they will fail at life. This fear makes it nearly impossible for them to journey beyond mere needs to discover what they want. Aquinas' more ordered thought allows us to see that it is truly the pursuit of happiness that is the God-given right. By pursuing happiness as treated in this book, the truest success may be accomplished. The common sense of this book's approach to happiness can not be overestimated. Highly recommended.

Awesome!
Thomas' Summa theologiae is divided into three parts:

I God; creation

II Ia happiness (5 quaestiones) ; virtues and vices
IIaspecific virtues and vices; moral matters

III The Incarnate Word

The Treatise on Happiness consists in 5 quaestiones found in the prima secundae:

1)The Ultimate End of Man in General ( 8 articles)
There must be an end, because to go on forever is a logical impossibility. There can only be one ultimate end; other ends are complementary of that final end (Mt 6:24: "No one can serve two masters"). There is one end that is common to all men: happiness (p.13)
2)In What Does Happiness Consist?(8 articles)
Can it consist in: Wealth,Power,Honors,Health,Glory,Pleasure or Eudaimonia? NO, since these things bestow only imperfect happiness. (p.38)
"Man is not to be loved for his own sake, but whatever is in man is to be loved for the sake of God." (p.24)
3)What Is Happiness?(8 articles)
Happiness is an activity that resides in the agent. It consists in uniting the will of man to God in one continuous, everlasting activity; in knowing God, which is an act of the intellect (not of the will); in seeing God (p.39) (Wis 8:16)
4)What is Required for Happiness? (8 articles)
Vision, understanding, rectitude of the will: "Blessed are the pure of heart for they will see God" (Mt 5:8); "Strive for that holiness without which no one will see the Lord" (Heb 12:14)
There is no enjoyment in the possession of a good without someone to share it (Seneca, EP 6)
5)The Attainment of Happiness(8 articles)
There are different degrees of happiness in heaven (p.56)
We cannot be perfectly happy in this life, but imperfectly happy, by knowing and loving God (this is a participatory, not essential happiness)
We cannot attain happiness by our natural powers.

A Jewel of Philosophy
Aquinas' "Treatise on Happiness", comprising the first 21 questions of the "Summa Theologicae", is one of the greatest pieces of philosophy. The essence of the questions is the notion that happiness must be found in "a vision of the divine essence", namely, God. While I am an atheist, I do find Aquinas' arguments intriguing. The object of happiness, he argues, is to no longer have desires, i.e., one's intellectual and willful curiosity is fulfilled. Because of this, one is not satisfied in merely knowing something, he argues, but in also knowing the cause. Therefore, even if one does know God exists, he states, one cannot be happy without knowing the cause of God. This can only be achieved through unity with God, most likely after death. It's a somewhat grim realisation for those hoping to achieve inner peace within their lifetimes, but a very fascinating and transcendentally Christian one.

Aquinas, of course, is best known for his fusing of the philosophy of the Greek rationalists, namely Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, with that of the Christian spiritualists, including Augustine. The "Treatise" is worth reading simply for this fact- that the fundamental system of Western education is based upon the fusion of rationality and spirituality, as first pioneered by Aquinas. The object, to achieve "imperfect", or earthly, happiness, and then attempt "perfect" transcendent happiness, has such import in Western culture that understanding the history of Europe and the West is contingent on a comprehension of Aquinas' theories. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Pithy Wisdom
Professor of Philosophy Edward T. Oakes S.J. writes of this compendium of quotes of St. Thomas Aquinas:

[In response to someone telling him St. Thomas Aquinas was a great aphorist, a coiner of one line wise sayings] I rejoined that a medieval scribe who became the most famous practitioner of that notoriously hairsplitting method called Scholasticism--and who produced something like eight million words, in the pre-Gutenberg era to boot--could hardly be called an aphorist. But this faithful correspondent then pointed me to Josef Pieper's marvelous collection of Thomistic one-liners called The Human Wisdom of St. Thomas: A Breviary of Philosophy, which taught me otherwise. Until I had read this powerful (but also exhausting!) book, I had not realized how concise, pithy, indeed almost aphoristic, the medievals were forced to be.

Remarkably, Pieper resolutely refused to provide so much as a single line of commentary in his "breviary." All he furnished, arranged in vague topical categories, were the one-line conclusions to Thomas' positions, not the arguments for them. But even standing alone, they have a way of, well, standing on their own. I'll cite a few just to give you an idea:

* Everything eternal is necessary.
* Every creature participates in goodness in the same degree as it participates in being.
* In the universe, only the intellectual nature is sought on its own account, all others on account of it.
* Desire of the knowledge of truth is peculiar to human nature.
* Evil is not caused except by good.
* Everything evil is rooted in some good, and everything false in some truth.
* Evil produces no effect except in virtue of some good.
* However much evil is multiplied, it is never able completely to swallow good.
* Stronger than the evil in wickedness is the good in goodness.
* Good can be realized in purer form than evil. For there is some good in which no evil is mixed, but there is nothing so very evil that no good is mixed in it.

Pieper's collection deals only, as the title says, with Thomas' "human" wisdom, meaning his purely philosophical aphorisms, although it would be hard to think of such allegedly pure "philosophical" clarity coming to Thomas except in the light of his faith.
... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Review of Metaphysics, published by Philosophy Education Society, Inc. on March 1, 2004. The length of the article is 1312 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Aquinas, St. Thomas. On Evil.(Book Review)
Author: Robert Pasnau
Publication: The Review of Metaphysics (Refereed)
Date: March 1, 2004
Publisher: Philosophy Education Society, Inc.
Volume: 57Issue: 3Page: 599(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Book Description
The Summa Theologiae ranks among the greatest documents of the Christian Church, and is a landmark of medieval western thought. It provides the framework for Catholic studies in systematic theology and for a classical Christian philosophy, and is regularly consulted by scholars of all faiths and none, across a range of academic disciplines. This paperback reissue of the classic Latin/English edition first published by the English Dominicans in the 1960s and 1970s, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, has been undertaken in response to regular requests from readers and librarians around the world for the entire series of 61 volumes to be made available again. The original text is unchanged, except for the correction of a small number of typographical errors. ... Read more

Book Description

From the PROLOGUE:

Book Description
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was an influential English writer of the early 20th century. His prolific and diverse output included journalism, philosophy, poetry, biography, Christian apologetics, fantasy, and detective fiction. Chesterton has been called the "prince of paradox. " He wrote in an off-hand, whimsical prose studded with startling formulations. He is one of the few Christian thinkers who are equally admired and quoted by both liberal and conservative Christians, and indeed by many non-Christians. And in his own words he cast aspersions on the labels saying, "The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected. " Chesterton wrote many books among which are: All Things Considered (1908), Alarms and Discursions (1910), The Ballad of the White Horse (1911), The Appetite of Tyranny (1915), The Everlasting Man (1925), The Secret of Father Brown (1927) and The Scandal of Father Brown (1935). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A delightful book!
I first read this book 5 years ago when taking an undergraduate course in mediaeval philosophy. At that time I was only passingly familiar with Chesterton and, despite faithful attendence in class, only noddingly familiar with Aquinas. Since that time I have come to understand both men in more depth, and since that time this little book has grown and shimmered until, much to my surprise, it has became one of my favourite books of all.

All of the usual caveats about Chesterton's writing apply here: he cannot resist a digression, he cannot resist an alliterative allusion, he cannot resist a pun. He is so full of life that he is constantly threatening to spin out of control. He is not a scholar, he is not writing a sober appraisal, he is probably not sure of most of the biographical details of his subject (and he candidly admits to this dearth of dates and details).

In spite of these defects, the book is a triumph. Toast it with your best wine. Chesterton, for me, is the embodiment of "A Man in Full"; he is the polar opposite of C.S. Lewis' "Men without Chests". He is so full of good sense, penetrating insight, sound moral judgement, and the joy of life that it is all spilling out in every direction.This is criticism in an old key; it is appreciative criticism; it is an encounter with a writer by an entire man, and not just by a theory. It is wonderfully refreshing. I don't know of anyone writing today in a similar vein.

He brings all of his larger-than-life presence to bear on this account of the life (sort of) and thought of one of history's great minds. And on just what aspect of Thomas' thought does he focus? In one diabolically politically incorrect section near the end of the book he bellows out that "on a map like the mind of Aquinas the mind of Luther was barely a speck", and I'm sure that he would hasten to add that his little book suffers the same ignoble comparison. There is a great deal to Thomas that he, of necessity, leaves out. But what he does include is very astutely chosen, for he understands the basic structure of Thomas' thought and emphasizes the essentials. Thus there is a chapter on Thomas' argument with the Manicheans and his affirmation of the goodness of the world. He treats with great aplomb Thomas' notion of "being" and its relation to God. He does great honor to Thomas' mode of argumentation, to his sober balance and fair treatment of opponents. He is appreciative of the devotional side of Thomas, which does not come through explicitly in his philosophical writings but is important for an understanding of the man.

I suppose it must be granted that the book is as much about Chesterton as it is about Aquinas. Those wanting a more straight-forward treatment should seek out one of Josef Pieper's books on Aquinas. But if you have any adventurous spirit, by all means read this book. It is written by a man who loves and understands his subject in his very bones, and who brings his subject to life in a way that is most uncanny. Five stars.

Ancient and modern: Chesterton on Aquinas
One of Chesterton's highly acclaimed short biographies, writing just before WWII he called this 'a popular sketch of a great historical character who ought to be more popular'. St Thomas Aquinas (1226-1274) was born into an aristocratic Italian family and forsook his privileged position, took a vow of poverty, and became a Dominican monk. A brilliant thinker, and revolutionary in his day, he proceeded to become one of the most influential philosophers and theologians that has lived. It explains how Aquinas' influenced thinkers in his day and how that thought is an influential strand in our modern worldview.

Several experts on Aquinas have acclaimed this very enjoyable book as the finest introduction to the man and his works. It introduces the man himself and some of his philosophy, which is modern and scientific in tone. This is not to be surprised at when we consider that his university professor was Albertus Magnus, who paved the way for modern science by taking certain elements of Aristotle more seriously than anyone before. Aquinas' theology is not covered on grounds of space and complexity. Chesterton is writing at his best, and while he assumes a fair degree of knowledge on the part of the reader he covers a great deal of ground in a short space. His usual paradoxical sense of fun and wordplay is to the fore. Chapter seven, 'The Permanent Philosophy' is excellent, and at only twelve pages would serve as a good primer of philosophy, something to read before and alongside Bertrand Russell's 'The Problems of Philosophy' perhaps. ... Read more

Book Description
From Introduction:

"This book makes no pretence to be anything but a popular sketch of a great historical character who ought to be more popular. Its aim will be achieved, if it leads those who have hardly even heard of St. Thomas Aquinas to read about him in better books. But from this necessary limitation certain consequences follow, which should perhaps be allowed for from the start. First, it follows that the tale is told very largely to those who are not of the communion of St. Thomas; and who may be interested in him as I might be in Confucius or Mahomet. Yet, on the other hand, the very need of presenting a clean-cut outline involved its cutting into other outlines of thought, among those who may think differently. If I write a sketch of Nelson mainly for foreigners, I may have to explain elaborately many things that all Englishmen know, and possibly cut out, for brevity, many details that many Englishmen would like to know. But, on the other side, it would be difficult to write a very vivid and moving narrative of Nelson, while entirely concealing the fact that he fought with the French. It would he futile to make a sketch of St. Thomas and conceal the fact that he fought with heretics; and yet the fact itself may embarrass the very purpose for which it is employed. I can only express the hope, and indeed the confidence, that those who regard me as the heretic will hardly blame me for expressing my own convictions, and certainly not for expressing my hero's convictions. There is only one point upon which such a question concerns this very simple narrative. It is the conviction, which I have expressed once or twice in the course of it. that the sixteenth-century schism was really a belated revolt of the thirteenth-century pessimists. It was a back-wash of the old Augustinian Puritanism against the Aristotelian liberality. Without that, I could not place my historical figure in history. But the whole is meant only for a rough sketch of a figure in a landscape and not of a landscape with figures."