Now, man has an end to which his whole life and all his actions are ordered; for man is an intelligent agent, and it is clearly the part of an intelligent agent to act in view of an end.
--St. Thomas Aquinas.
Man has an end. But what is that end? As this brief study has shown, from happiness to sex and from money to power, men pursue a number of different ends.
St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that, “The end of human life is bliss or happiness.” But wait a second, didn’t Bentham say that happiness was the end of man? Didn’t we already debunk that theory?
Yes Bentham was wrong when he said that happiness was the end of man. Yet, St. Thomas is right and he asserts the same thing. How can one be right and another wrong when both assert the same thing? The answer, Bentham misunderstood happiness, while St. Thomas rightly conceived the meaning of man’s happiness.
Bentham viewed man’s end as pursuing happiness free from any moral constraint. Sex, greed, envy, betrayal—all was lawful so long as it made a man happy. This leaves man with only perishable pleasure. The thrills form sex, money, and power; always wear off and man is left empty and alone. Man is eternal, but these things are finite and perishable. None can satisfy the eternal longings of man’s soul.
Everlasting happiness is only found in unity with the eternal, the eternal being God. Therefore man’s end is happiness; man’s end is unity with God.
According to Jacques Maritain (a St. Thomas Aquinas scholar), man’s ultimate end (or telos), his eternal purpose is explained in Luke 23:43. There Christ declared to the thief on the cross next to him, “today thou shalt be with me in paradise.” This is our end, the place wherein our perfect happiness lays, to be with God.
The scriptures support this understanding. When we look at the period of creation, the time of the law, the church age, and the eternal age we are left with but one conclusion: man’s end (man’s telos, man’s purpose for being, the only place he attains perfect completion) is unity with God.
Before the fall of mankind God and man lived in perfect unity and harmony. This is the way God designed things and this design was good. God walked in the Garden daily with man (which at this point consisted of just Adam and Eve). They communicated with one another and lived in intimate relationship with one another. But man disobeyed God and destroyed that unity. His sin created a block between him and God.
Despite this disunity between God and man, man’s end remained unchanged. God’s purpose for man was still to live in communion with Him. In Leviticus 26:11-13 God states:
I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you. I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high.
In John 1:14 we are told how God Himself became man and chose to dwell physically amongst mankind in the person of Jesus Christ. When Christ ascended to Heaven the Spirit of God descended to earth so that God could dwell within us (Ephesians 3:17).
Finally, Revelation 21:3-4 gives us a picture of what life will be like when all is made right. God declares that “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." That is our eternal end, that is the purpose for which we were created, that is where perfect satisfaction and infinite happiness lie: in unity with our source, in unity with our God.
We have rejected our end and have suffered the consequences of disunity with God. Suffering, disease, poverty, crime, and death: these are the consequences of our sin.
Jesus Christ united God and man in one body. This body took on the curse and consequences of sin. We need not suffer for our sin anymore, all is atoned for. Our end is once again available to us; we may once again live in unity with God. Yes Heaven is a literal place where we will physically join God and live with Him for all time, but Heaven is far more than that. Heaven is a standing or connection before God.
Think of a world full of wealth and beauty, but without God. That place would be Hell. Men would despoil the beauty and use the wealth to dominate and harm one another (like they have done on this earth). You can have all, but if you lack God, you have nothing. On the contrary one may have noting but God, and in God, have everything.
Christ provided a way for us to Heaven, provided a way for us to be at unity with God. We need not wait for death for that unity to begin, it may begin now. In fact death does not bring about a change in location, rather only a change in degree. Those who live in unity with God on earth will live in even greater unity in Heaven. Those who choose not to accept the sacrifice of Christ and enter God’s unity will be completely without God at death (in Hell).
Our end is open to us, but it is our choice to live according to it or not. Accepting it leads to life and blessing, rejecting it leads to destruction and death. Everyone must choose.
What will you choose?
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