Ethics, the Ultimate End, and Eternal Life

Natural law approaches to the moral question of what should be the ultimate end of our choices must deal with several tensions. There is obviously a tension between focus on this life and focus on eternal life. For Christians there is a tension between natural good or fulfillment and supernatural gifts. And there is a tension—related to these—between specific human goods and an overarching or unified ultimate end of human action. I will defend three points that I believe shed much light on those tensions: (1) fulfillment in eternal life includes both supernatural communion with God, and natural fulfillment; (2) natural fulfilment includes several specific goods, including bodily goods and skillful performance; and (3) the overarching end of life should be cooperating with God’s plan. I will show how in those tensions one pole of the apparent extreme is internally related to the other, and thus not in fundamental rivalry.