A relentless, restless pursuit of God in the midst of the world, with Thomas Aquinas

What does it mean to be happy? Ecclesiastes talks about the “chasing after the wind”, a lack of satisfaction with the worldly pursuits of money, pleasure, success, and material goods. How can you be happy in a world that is designed to make you exist in a constant state of want? We yearn for something more. But what is that thing we seek in the night?

The fear of the Lord begins with knowledge.

How do you balance the matters of the world with the love for God? If the fallen world and God are in opposition, if angels and demons are real and there is a spiritual world that we cannot comprehend with our limited vision and wisdom, how can we succeed in a world that has become warped by lies and corruption? There is only one truth, and that is the truth of God.

I am the way and the truth and the life.

If we want to know the truth, we go to the Bible. The Bible contains Wisdom Literature — Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon — that helps elucidate what it means to be Christian and to live the life of a God-abiding person. The problems of the human experience are addressed in these books.

How do you go from subjective to objective? What if the difference between our perspective, what we believe to be the truth, and the objective truth is God? God directs us to the direction we should go in in order to arrive at the truth of our reality.

For Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican friar and one of the greatest theologians to have ever lived, truth is not something we invent, but something we receive. It is where the restless mind finds peace.

“Truth is the conformity of the intellect and the thing.”
— De Veritate

To seek truth is to seek God Himself. When we align our minds with what is real, we are drawn closer to the One who is Reality.

One of Aquinas’s most enduring teachings is that truth cannot contradict truth. Since God is the author of both revelation and reason, genuine scientific or philosophical discovery can never truly oppose the faith. As an avid pursuer of science and knowledge, this gives me great joy, to know that the study of science, of the creation of this world and the beings who exist in it, is made true by the Lord. The Lord with his grace perfected science and nature.

“Grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it.”
— Summa Theologiae, I, q.1, a.8

For Aquinas, human reason is a gift from God. Philosophy helps us understand the natural world, while theology elevates our understanding through divine revelation. When used properly, reason leads us closer—not farther—from God.

Aquinas famously argued that while some truths about God require revelation, others can be known through observing creation itself. His “Five Ways” are philosophical arguments that point to God’s existence by reflecting on motion, causality, contingency, gradation, and order.

“The existence of God can be proved in five ways.”
— Summa Theologiae, I, q.2, a.3

Rather than replacing faith, these arguments invite the intellect to recognize that belief in God is not irrational. Creation bears the fingerprints of its Creator. To see the beauty and the order of this world is to see the gifts that God have bestowed on this world, which he created, for Him, for us to celebrate in union with the natural world.

For Aquinas, truth is not subjective or relative—it is something real, something that can be known. At its core, truth is the alignment of the mind with reality. Truth is absolute and objective, the essence of things rather than the appearance of things.

“Truth is the conformity of the intellect and the thing.”
— De Veritate, q.1, a.1

To seek truth is to honor God, because God Himself is Truth.

Aquinas taught that the moral life is not merely about rule-following, but about becoming the kind of person who loves rightly. Virtue shapes the soul, ordering our desires toward their proper end—God.

“To love is to will the good of the other.”
— Summa Theologiae, I–II, q.26, a.4

Charity, for Aquinas, is the highest virtue. All human actions ultimately find their fulfillment in love—love of God and love of neighbor.

Every human being desires happiness, but Aquinas argues that no created thing—wealth, power, pleasure, or honor—can fully satisfy the human heart. True happiness lies in union with God.

“Man’s happiness cannot consist in wealth, nor in honor, nor in fame, nor in power.”
— Summa Theologiae, I–II, q.2

Our deepest longing is not accidental; it points beyond this world to our ultimate end: the beatific vision, seeing God face to face.

God is reason. Organized, enduring, tangible, kinematic, kinetic, palpable, and meaningful. Our very beings reflect the order of God’s truth for us, completing us to exist in perfect harmony with the universe and with Him. With love, we are able to coexist with God. And it is through God, that we can be made happy.

Our restless hearts find peace and comfort in the presence of the Lord. Our dissatisfaction with the world and with worldly things is not a flaw but a sign that we are meant for more, for God. We are meant to rest in God, where there is eternity of the human heart. Every good thing in this life is given by Him, to be received by us.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.