Why are you here? On this planet?
What makes you ask the big questions about life?
It is interesting to look at these questions on the 321 course from a Thomistic perspective, using the philosophical tools used by Thomas Aquinas. I found this exercise very helpful.
My own reading on Aquinas is limited, but enough to see his profound way of shaping understanding, bringing together Aristotle's philosophy and Christianity in a synthesis which I still think is relevant today.
Here are some good books which I read in the 1980s:
G.K. Chesterton, "St. Thomas Aquinas" is the best general book. Chesterton gives a vivid, witty portrait of Aquinas that makes complex ideas feel human and alive. It’s often called the best short book ever written on Aquinas because it focuses on the man, his character, and the drama of his thought rather than technical theology. I read it at University. His "Francis of Assisi" is also brilliant.
Frederick C. Copleston, "Aquinas: An Introduction to the Life and Work of the Great Medieval Thinker"A clear, thoughtful overview of Aquinas’s life, context, and major ideas. It’s praised for being readable while still philosophically serious.
Anthony Kenny’s "Aquinas" in the Past Masters series is a short, reliable, and very approachable introduction to Thomas Aquinas. I have a collection of the Past Masters series which are brilliant introductions, although probably more
Why are you here? On this planet?
To truly understand why you are here from a Thomistic perspective, we must look past simple biology and see you as a masterpiece of four intersecting "whys." Here is how Aquinas would explain your presence on this planet using his fourfold framework:
The Material Cause - what you are made of?
The material cause is simply the physical stuff that makes you a living, embodied person. For Aquinas, you exist here and now because you have a body made of flesh, blood, and bone. That body gives you the ability to take up space, move through time, see the sun, feel warmth, and interact with the world.
He doesn’t see matter as a prison for the soul. Instead, he sees you as a unity of matter and form—your body and your soul together make one complete human being. Your physical body isn’t an accident or an obstacle; it’s part of what makes your earthly life possible.
G.K. Chesterton, "St. Thomas Aquinas" is the best general book. Chesterton gives a vivid, witty portrait of Aquinas that makes complex ideas feel human and alive. It’s often called the best short book ever written on Aquinas because it focuses on the man, his character, and the drama of his thought rather than technical theology. I read it at University. His "Francis of Assisi" is also brilliant.
Frederick C. Copleston, "Aquinas: An Introduction to the Life and Work of the Great Medieval Thinker"A clear, thoughtful overview of Aquinas’s life, context, and major ideas. It’s praised for being readable while still philosophically serious.
Anthony Kenny’s "Aquinas" in the Past Masters series is a short, reliable, and very approachable introduction to Thomas Aquinas. I have a collection of the Past Masters series which are brilliant introductions, although probably more
Why are you here? On this planet?
To truly understand why you are here from a Thomistic perspective, we must look past simple biology and see you as a masterpiece of four intersecting "whys." Here is how Aquinas would explain your presence on this planet using his fourfold framework:
The Material Cause - what you are made of?
The material cause is simply the physical stuff that makes you a living, embodied person. For Aquinas, you exist here and now because you have a body made of flesh, blood, and bone. That body gives you the ability to take up space, move through time, see the sun, feel warmth, and interact with the world.
He doesn’t see matter as a prison for the soul. Instead, he sees you as a unity of matter and form—your body and your soul together make one complete human being. Your physical body isn’t an accident or an obstacle; it’s part of what makes your earthly life possible.
The Formal Cause - What gives you your shape or identity?
The formal cause is the inner pattern that makes you human rather than anything else. For Aquinas, this is your rational soul—the principle that shapes your body, gives it life, and makes you the kind of being who can think, choose, and reflect. Your soul is the “form of the body,” the thing that organizes your physical matter into a living, human person. It’s what makes you a rational animal, different from trees, stones, or any other creature.
The Efficient Cause - What brought you into being?
The efficient cause is whatever brings you into existence and keeps you going. On the everyday level, that’s your parents: they are the biological agents who caused your birth. But Aquinas goes further and says there must also be a Primary Efficient Cause. Since nothing can give itself existence, he argues that you exist right now because God is continually sustaining you. Your life isn’t just the result of something that happened years ago; it’s more like a song that exists only because the Singer keeps singing.
The Final Cause - What are you here for?
The final cause is your ultimate purpose: the end toward which your life is directed. For Aquinas, nothing in nature is aimless; everything moves toward some goal, the way an arrow flies toward a target because an archer aimed it. Your own goal is Beatitude, the deepest kind of happiness that comes from knowing and loving the source of all truth. Your life isn’t a random accident but a purposeful journey shaped by this pull toward meaning. This purpose acts like a magnet, drawing you toward growth, good choices, and the search for what truly fulfils you.
What makes you ask the big questions about life?
The drive to ask the “Big Questions” comes from the way the human spirit is built. Aquinas would say your curiosity isn’t just an evolutionary accident, it’s your mind naturally reaching beyond itself toward something unlimited. A finite mind stretching toward infinite truth is, for him, exactly what humans are made to do.
The Natural Desire for Truth
Your mind has a built‑in desire to understand reality. Aquinas, following Aristotle, says that just as your body naturally hungers for food, your mind naturally hungers for truth. Because you are a rational animal, you’re not satisfied with small, practical facts. Your intellect reaches for the universal, pushing you to ask questions like “Why does anything exist at all?” rather than just “Where can I find shelter?” This restlessness comes from the way your mind is shaped: it’s a limited, finite power that is always reaching toward something unlimited. It won’t fully settle until it reaches the first cause of everything.
The Spark of the "Agent Intellect"
Your ability to ask big, abstract questions comes from what Aquinas calls the Agent Intellect—an inner light in the soul that can pull meaning out of your physical experiences. An animal sees a sunset and simply reacts to the fading light. You see the same sunset and can lift from it the ideas of Beauty, Time, or change itself. This power lets you move from the material world to the world of concepts.
Because of this, Aquinas says you are a kind of border creature: rooted in the physical world through your body, yet able to reach into the immaterial through your intellect. This inner light keeps nudging you to look beyond the surface of things—to search for the deeper causes and purposes that give reality its shape.
The "Trace" of the Creator
Aquinas would also suggest that your questioning is a form of Remembrance or a "trace" (vestigium) of your origin. Since you were created by a Supreme Intelligence, your own intelligence naturally seeks to return to its source. Every "Why?" you utter is effectively a search for God, even if you don't use that language. He would argue that the "Big Questions" are the way your soul finds its way home. This inherent "teleology" or goal-directedness ensures that you cannot remain indifferent to your purpose. You ask why you are here because you are built to reach a goal (Telos) that is currently beyond your reach, and the question is the first step of the journey toward that final satisfaction.
The Awareness of Contingency
Your questioning, in Aquinas’s view, comes from a built‑in memory of where you come from. Because your mind was created by a Supreme Intelligence, it naturally leans back toward that source. Every time you ask “Why?”, you’re reaching toward that origin, even if you don’t name it as God. These big questions are your soul’s way of moving toward its true goal. You’re made for a purpose you haven’t fully reached yet, and the act of questioning is the first step on that path.
Aquinas would also suggest that your questioning is a form of Remembrance or a "trace" (vestigium) of your origin. Since you were created by a Supreme Intelligence, your own intelligence naturally seeks to return to its source. Every "Why?" you utter is effectively a search for God, even if you don't use that language. He would argue that the "Big Questions" are the way your soul finds its way home. This inherent "teleology" or goal-directedness ensures that you cannot remain indifferent to your purpose. You ask why you are here because you are built to reach a goal (Telos) that is currently beyond your reach, and the question is the first step of the journey toward that final satisfaction.
The Awareness of Contingency
Your questioning, in Aquinas’s view, comes from a built‑in memory of where you come from. Because your mind was created by a Supreme Intelligence, it naturally leans back toward that source. Every time you ask “Why?”, you’re reaching toward that origin, even if you don’t name it as God. These big questions are your soul’s way of moving toward its true goal. You’re made for a purpose you haven’t fully reached yet, and the act of questioning is the first step on that path.
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