The Aristotelian concept of happiness and the Christian tradition

The medieval discussion of happiness both before and after the reception of Aristotle is governed by two basic thoughts: there is no happiness in this world because ‘all men, so long as they are mortal, are also necessarily wretched’; true happiness is to be found only in the enjoyment of the contemplation of God (frui Deo) in the world to come. Thus the concept of happiness involves an element that transcends human capacities. But the Aristotelian and Christian conceptions also understand happiness as the perfection of human nature, the actualisation of the possibilities inherent in man. This rules out all definitions of happiness in terms of something like worldly wealth, which is external to human nature, or like the satisfaction of sensual desire, which is not specific to human nature. For Aristotle as for others the essence of happiness is to be found in perfection. It is in that spirit, for instance, that Anselm regards the contemplation of God as the perfection of human rationality, because without this form of happiness man would be rational to no purpose.

The difference between the Christian and the philosophical conception is particularly clear in the Dialogus inter philosophum, Iudaeum, et Christianum of Peter Abelard. While the philosophers speak only of ethics, aiming primarily for the way to the highest good, and accordingly deal mainly with the virtues, Christians take the goal itself as their starting point.