Is Happiness Found in Money?
and Thomas Aquinas' response
In this article, we will analyze whether happiness is found in wealth and what Thomas Aquinas has to say about it.
Thomas Aquinas: It is impossible for man’s happiness to consist in wealth. Wealth is twofold, as Aristotle says (Polit. i. 3), natural and artificial. Natural wealth is that which serves man as a remedy for his natural wants: such as food, drink, clothing, cars, dwellings, and so, while artificial wealth is that which is not a direct help to nature, but is invented by the art of man, such as money, for the convenience of exchange, and as a measure of things for sale.
Now it is evident that man’s happiness cannot consist in natural wealth. Natural wealth is sought for the sake of something else, as a support of human nature: consequently, it cannot be man’s ultimate goal, rather it is ordained to man as to its end (ie. we eat to survive, we don’t survive to eat). In the order of nature, all such things (food, drink, clothing, etc) are below man, and made for him, according to Ps. 8:8: Thou hast subjected all things under his feet.
And as to artificial wealth, it is not sought except for the sake of natural wealth; since man would not seek it except because, through a monetary exchange, he procures for himself the necessities of life. Consequently, much less can it be considered in the light of the ultimate goal. Therefore it is impossible for happiness, which is the ultimate goal of man, to consist in wealth.
Argument 1. It would seem that man’s happiness consists in wealth. For since happiness is man’s ultimate goal, it must consist in that which has the greatest hold on man’s affections. Now, this is wealth: for it is written (Eccles. 10:19): All things obey money. Therefore man’s happiness consists in wealth.
Response. All material things obey money, there are people who have a disordered desire for material goods, and they can be obtained for money. But we should take our estimation of human goods not from the foolish but from the wise: just as it is for a person, whose sense of taste is in good order, to judge whether a thing is palatable.
Argument 2. Further, according to Boethius (De Consol. iii.), happiness is a state of life made perfect by the aggregate of all good things. Now money seems to be the means of possessing all things: for, as Aristotle says (Ethic. v. 5), money was invented, that it might be a sort of guarantee for the acquisition of whatever man desires. Therefore happiness consists in wealth.
Response. All things commercial can be had for money: not so spiritual things, which cannot be sold. Hence it is written (Prov. 17:16): What doth it avail a fool to have riches, seeing he cannot buy wisdom?
Argument 3. Further, since the desire for the sovereign good never fails, it seems to be infinite. But this is the case with riches more than anything else; since a covetous man shall not be satisfied with riches (Eccles. 5:9). Therefore happiness consists in wealth.
Response. The desire for natural riches is not infinite: because they suffice in nature to a certain measure. But the desire for artificial wealth is infinite, for it is the servant of disordered desire, which is not curbed, as Aristotle makes clear (Polit. i. 3).
This desire for wealth is infinite but can be curbed by the desire for the Sovereign Good. For the more perfectly the Sovereign Good is possessed, the more it is loved, and other things despised: because the more we possess it, the more we know it. Hence it is written (Ecclus. 24:29): They that eat me shall yet hunger.
In the desire for wealth and for whatever temporal goods, the opposite is the case. When we already possess them, we despise them and seek others: which is the sense of Our Lord’s words (Jo. 4:13): Whosoever drinketh of this water, by which temporal goods are signified, shall thirst again.
The reason for this is that we realize their insufficiency when we possess them: and this very fact shows that they are imperfect and that the Sovereign Good does not exist in them.