Temporal Happiness

Returning to an old post, I ask once again: What is temporal happiness? Is it identical to what might be called imperfect participation in happiness by Aquinas? Or is it the imperfect happiness that we can attain by our natural powers alone?* I suppose "temporal happiness" could be used to refer to either, depending on the speaker.

However, some authors, such as Henri Grenier (see the comments to that post), use "temporal happiness" to name the end of civil society. Was the use of temporal happiness in this way begun by neo-Thomists? Or can it be found in earlier Thomistic commentators? I need a Dominican Thomist to be my personal reference librarian.

For the neo-Thomists, does one's temporal good consist of the necessities of life, as well as health/life? Or are these understood as instruments for the sake of activity? I would suspect the latter --these instruments would then be necessary conditions for virtuous activity, but not sufficient conditions, obviously. I think the listing of  habits  (e.g. knowledge) and quasi-habits (e.g. family) as a good constitutive of happiness is a recent "development" (perhaps most prominent among New Natural Law theorists?) and involves a certain confusion about the meanings of the word "good" and how the analogous use of good is related to desire and practical reason. Are the NNL theorists just following the example of Aquinas? If happiness is convertible with both ends and goods, and it is defined as an activity by those who follow Aristotle, then can a habit or quasi-habit said to be an end or good in the same way an activity can? Is what Aquinas writes about how the precepts of the Natural Law are derived incorrect or in need of clarification? More on that later.

If temporal happiness is identified in this way, it can then be distinguished from the supernatural end or good (spiritual good?) of man. I suppose calling the supernatural good a "spiritual" good is misleading, as virtue and the temporal good are primarily goods of the soul. A related question then: Why shouldn't the Church have care of the temporal good as well as the "supernatural good"?


*I cannot say that this imperfect happiness is identical to the natural end/good of the neo-thomists. I don't understand the controversy over nature/supernature, the natural desire of man to see God, etc. well enough to say anything at this point. I do plan on getting a copy of Feingold's The Natural Desire to see God According to St. Thomas and His Interpreters. (Sapientia Press has also published that collection of essays, Surnaturel: A Controversy at the Heart of the Twentieth-Century Thomistic Thought.)

I still have to finish reading Dennis Bradley's Aquinas on the Two-Fold Human Good (a review; Google Books).

Related:

Richard Kraut's article on Aristotle's Ethics

entelechy, energeia, eudaimonia

Begun on July 15, 2010 at 12:41 AM.