Aquinas Rhetorical Structure

Aquinas’ structure throughout question two simulates one grand unfolding argument, starting with the most basic and immediate questions and working towards the more abstract, transcendent concepts. In essence, Aquinas discusses whether the appetites of the tripartite soul, material goods, honor and glory, and spiritual goods bring man happiness. There are some deviations from this platonic analogy, but the general framework still holds. Aquinas deliberately structures his argument in this escalating manner to prepare the reader for the ultimate question: whether man’s happiness consists in any created good. Aquinas raises three major objections then his own argument and refutations to increase his rhetorical power. Aquinas argues that man’s

happiness does not consist in anything created because the object of man’s intellect and will is universal good and truth, which is God, who is uncreated. Thus, nothing created can fully satisfy man.
Aquinas begins his treatment of the article with a series of objections, the first of which suggests that man’s happiness consists in becoming like angel, since it seems that the highest orders of a lower nature touches the lowest orders of a higher nature.

Because angels are a higher order than man, his happiness therefore consists in becoming like an angel. However, he refutes argument and suggests man only approaches the angelic by a kind of likeness. Instead, man goes on to the universal truth and good, which is infinite. Branching of Aquinas’ ideas, one could also say that it is impossible for man to reach the likeness of angelic beings because it is contrary to human nature. Man would have to be stripped of his temporal body and become pure spirit, which is not the created order. Moreover, man is not necessarily a lower order to the angels in the Christian context, since we have been raised up through the dignity of the Son, the second person in the

Trinity.
The second objection asserts that because man is apart of the whole universe, and the ultimate end is reached in the whole, then the universe must be a part of man’s ultimate end. It seems that many pantheistic spiritualities emerge from this line of thinking since it suggest that man must ascend to the whole of nature rather than God. Aquinas counters by saying that the universe, which is the whole, is ultimately ordered to God. Thus the end of the parts would be ordered to the whole itself, but to its end, which is God.
The final objection before Aquinas’ primary argument suggests that man does not desire a good greater than he can attain, thus his happiness is in something created.

To which Aquinas responds that created goods are not intrinsically less than the good his is capable of. However, as an object, any created good is less than man’s capacity because man's capacity for good is infinite since the object of his will is the universal good. Each of these objections have their roots in the notion of man’s capacity, which is Aquinas’ primary response.
In accordance with thomistic structure, Aquinas presents a contrary statement which dovetails into his response. Aquinas begins by defining the ultimate end, which is something that fulfills all of human desire. The object of man’s intellect and will are the universal truth and the universal good. Therefore, only the universal good can satisfy man. All of creation only participates in good but is not the universal good itself. Naturally, it follows that no created good can satisfy man. Only God can satisfy him because He is the universal good and

truth.
In conclusion, Aquinas’ primary argument pivots on the appetites of intellect and will, which are destined for universal good and truth. Therefore, nothing can satisfy man but God. One counterargument against this idea would attack its logical foundation, suggesting that the human will and intellect do not end in the universal truth and good but something else, if they exist at all. Aquinas addresses these points in other portions of his work, since they are crucial to understand to fully appreciate his arguments in question two, regarding the consistency of man’s happiness. It is appropriate, therefore, to end by asking that very question: how does one know with certainty that man’s intellect and will aims at the universal good and truth? For, Aquinas’ argument and the meaning of man’s life depend on the answer.