 This eudaimonistic framework—to use the Greek term for ethical theories aimed at happiness—shapes all of Aquinas’s ethical thinking. It is perhaps the most striking instance of his confidence in Aristotelianism as the proper philosophical foundation for a Christian worldview. Predictably, that confidence was met with various sorts of challenges. One concerns his insistence that our ultimate end is intellectual rather than volitional. For many subsequent theorists, Christian and secular, the ultimate end of human life should not be intellectual contemplation but instead should be love. Aquinas agrees—indeed, he stresses—that love is an essential complement to happiness, pulling us toward our end and rejoicing in its grasp. Still, the goal of life properly speaking is to understand God and God’s creation (ST 1a2ae 3.4). (For nuanced discussions see Stenberg 2016a and Stump 2022.)