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Chapter 5 - Graced Imperfect Happiness

from Part I - Aquinas on Individual Happiness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2025

Joseph Stenberg
Affiliation:
Colgate University, New York
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Summary

This chapter examines the sort of happiness Aquinas thinks we can have on earth with the help of God’s grace, namely, graced imperfect happiness. In keeping with the Enjoying Good Activities Reading, it argues that, according to Aquinas, happiness is constituted exclusively by engaging in and enjoying some suboptimal genuinely good activity, animated by God’s grace. After introducing Aquinas’s understanding of grace, the chapter works through Aquinas’s reflections on the Fruit of the Holy Spirit and the Beatitudes. From those reflections, it becomes clear both how Aquinas thinks about graced imperfect happiness generally and how he thinks about its basic varieties. The chapter closes by reflecting on graced imperfect happiness’s place between the perfect happiness of heaven and the natural imperfect happiness of those on earth living apart from God’s grace.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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  • Graced Imperfect Happiness
  • Joseph Stenberg, Colgate University, New York
  • Book: Aquinas and the Ethics of Happiness
  • Online publication: 07 August 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108777728.007
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  • Graced Imperfect Happiness
  • Joseph Stenberg, Colgate University, New York
  • Book: Aquinas and the Ethics of Happiness
  • Online publication: 07 August 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108777728.007
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Graced Imperfect Happiness
  • Joseph Stenberg, Colgate University, New York
  • Book: Aquinas and the Ethics of Happiness
  • Online publication: 07 August 2025
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108777728.007
Available formats
×