Author: GUI Lingchang, Assistant Professor, School of Philosophy, Huazhong University of Science and Technology.
Abstract:
According to Aquinas’s theory of happiness, the perfect beatitude of human beings is the vision of God (visio Dei), which is the comprehension and enjoyment of God’s essence. On this account, the appetitive act, insofar as it aims at the realization of one’s proper nature, seems nothing but a concupiscent love (amor concupiscientiae). Aquinas, however, refers to this very relationship as “friendship” (amor amicitiae). To resolve this tension, the author firstly argues, based on relavent texts of Aquinas, that the term “friendship” is, for Aquinas, a substantial appetition, in which the lover departs from her essence and wills the good for the sake of the loved. In the perfect apprehensive act, namely, the vision of God, we also ascertain the same character of ecstasy (extasis): the human apprehensive capacity transcends its secular nature and apprehends God’s essence directly and thereby obtains its new, perfect nature. Meanwhile, the friendship between human beings and God grounds the possibility of the perfect and permanent ecstasy of a person’s apprehensive capacity. Therefore, in the sense of departing from one’s essence and embracing God’s, the vision of God turns out to be a friendship between human beings and God. This essay thus shows the importance of the mystical term “extasis” in our understanding of Aquinas’s account of beatitude.
Keywords:
Aquinas, visio Dei, beatitude, friendship, ecstasy
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