That is, man is endowed with a twofold nature, a perishable and an imperishable, a soul and a body. He therefore lives for two ends, happiness on earth and happiness to be attained in heaven. Earthly beatitude is reached by the right ordering of temporal affairs; heavenly beatitude is made possible by Papal guidance in matters of the spiritual realm.
Dante elaborates on this idea in his treatise, and towards the end repeats:
Ineffable Providence has thus designed two ends to be contemplated of man: first, the happiness of this life, which consists in the activity of his natural powers, and is prefigured by the terrestrial Paradise; and then the blessedness of life everlasting, which consists in the enjoyment of the countenance of God, to which man’s natural powers may not attain unless aided by divine light, and which may be symbolized by the celestial Paradise.
I don't think anyone could question Dante's credentials as a Christian back when Christian belief had a stronger hold on the human mind than it does now. So today's Christians and similar thinkers who consider the current happiness obsession a product of Epicureanism, desacralization, Darwinism, modern decadence or whatever - these happiness skeptics think earthly life should suck, in other words - might want to consider Dante's perspective. Perhaps they could reframe their critique by arguing that earthly happiness has value because god assigned it to us as our "end" during our biological lives, but we put too much emphasis on it because of the collapse in belief in "celestial" happiness.
BTW, how did Dante view "the activity of [man's] natural powers" as the source of earthly happiness? Did he mean productive work, exercise, learning, teaching, play, sexual relationships and so forth?
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