The Historical Development of the Concept of Natural Beatitude in the Salamanca School of the Sixteenth Century (1500–1620)

My project examines the development of the view that human nature must reach its complete happiness or beatitude by purely natural means, without supernatural grace, among thinkers at the University of Salamanca in the sixteenth century. Contemporary scholars have argued that Suárez, Medina, and Báñez, three of the most eminent Salamanca School writers, posited that human nature reaches its complete end by natural agency as a response to Baius, whose understanding of beatitude seemed to undermine the gratuitous character of divine grace. However, as I show, this scholarly consensus has little textual support. My research aims to revise the consensus, investigating the true origins of the view of beatitude shared by Suárez, Medina, and Báñez. Specifically, in the course of my PDM, I will consider the extent to which their understanding of happiness was a response to developments in the Salamancan intellectual context in which they wrote.

Keywords:School of Salamanca, natural beatitude, Baianism

Disciplines:Virtue ethics