Sakarya Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi

Öz

Thomas Aquinas is one of the greatest thinkers of Christianity. His
ethical theory, togetherwith the theories of Augustine and Abelard,
constitutes one of the main ethical theories ofMedieval Christianity.
Aquinas develops his theory most extensively and systematically inthe
Second Part of the Summa Theologica. For Aquinas ethics has two
principal topics: first,what is the ultimate goal of human being, and
second, how that goal is to be achieved. Theaim of this study is to
present Aquinas' understanding of happiness in general. For thisreason
it will discuss the following questions: What is the ultimate goal of
human being?What constitutes man's happiness? What is happiness? What
are the things required forhappiness? Whether happiness can be attained?
The article concludes that Aquinas tries toharmonise Aristotelian
ethics with Christianity, and in doing so he adds new dimensions tothe
Aristotelian ethics.