sides were firmly convinced of the importance of final causality and, therefore, of the link between a thing and its purpose. By contrast, modernity has ended up denying the very notion that the purpose of a thing is given with its nature. This rendered the loss of the notion of the beatific vision all but inevitable. Since all purposes or ends are now humanly “constructed” rather than inherent in nature itself, many consider it outlandish to look for such ends beyond the pleasures that the material,