Thomas Aquinas, Disputed Questions on Truth (De Veritate)

1. God knows evil things in His science of simple knowledge. But the ideas belong to His science of simple knowledge in some way if idea is taken in its broader meaning of a likeness or intelligible character. Therefore, there is an idea of evil in God.

2. There is no reason why evil cannot be in a good not opposed to it. Now, the likeness of evil is not opposed to the good, just as the likeness of black is not opposed to white, because the species of contraries in the soul are not contrary. Therefore, there is no reason why there cannot be an idea or likeness of evil in God, even though He is the highest good.

3. Wherever there is any community, there is likeness. Now, from the fact that a thing is a privation of being, being can be predicated of it; hence it is said in the Metaphysics that negations and privations are called beings. Therefore, from the fact that evil is the privation of good, some likeness of it exists in God, who is the highest good.

4. Whatever is known in itself has its idea in God. But the false, like the true, is known in itself; for, just as first principles are known in themselves in their truth, so also are the opposites of these principles known in themselves in their falsity. Hence, the false has its idea in God. Now, the false is a kind of evil, just as the true is the good of the intellect, as we read in the Ethics. Therefore, evil has an idea in God.

5. Whatever has a nature has an idea in God. Now, since vice is the contrary of virtue, it has a nature which belongs to the genus of quality. Therefore, it has an idea in God. But because it is vice, it is evil. Therefore, evil has an idea in God.

6. If evil has no idea, the only reason for this is that evil is non-being. But the forms by which one knows can have non-beings as their objects. There is nothing to prevent us, for example, from imagining golden mountains or chimeras. Therefore, there is no reason why evil cannot have an idea in God.

7. If a thing has no mark upon it and exists among other things that are marked, the very lack of a mark becomes its mark, as is clear in sheep which are marked. Now, an idea is, in a way, a sign of that of which it is an idea. Therefore, since all good things have an idea in God, and evil does not, evil itself should be said to be modeled upon or formed in the likeness of an idea.

8. Whatever comes from God has its idea in Him. But evil, that is, the evil of punishment, comes from God. Therefore, it has an idea in God.

To the Contrary:

1'. All effects of an idea have an act of existence determined by that idea. But evil does not have a determined act of existence, since it does not have any existence, and is, instead, a privation of being. Therefore, evil does not have an idea in God.

2'. According to Dionysius, the divine exemplar or idea is a predefinition of the divine will. But the divine will is related only to what is good. Therefore, evil has no exemplar in God.

3'. "Evil," according to Augustine, "is the privation of form, measure, and order." Now, Plato says that ideas themselves are beautiful. Consequently, evil can have no idea.

REPLY:

As pointed out previously, an idea, according to its proper nature, implies a form that is the principle of informing a thing. Consequently, since there is nothing in God that can be a principle of evil, evil cannot have an idea in God if idea is taken in its proper sense. This is likewise true if it is taken in its broad sense as meaning a likeness or intelligible character, because, as Augustine says, evil gets its name from the fact that it lacks form. Hence, since a likeness is considered as a form that is in some way shared by others, evil can have no likeness in God, because a thing is called evil for the very reason that it falls short of any participation in divinity.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. God's science of simple knowledge has as its object, not only evil, but also certain good things that do not exist, will not exist, and never did exist. It is with respect to these non-existing things that there is an idea in God's simple knowledge, but there is no idea in it of evil things.

2. We deny that evil has an exemplar in God, not just because of its opposition, but because evil has no nature through which it could in some way participate in something that is in God and which could, therefore, be called a likeness of it.

3. That community by which something is predicated both of being and of non-being is a community merely of reason, because negations and privations are merely beings of reason. Such a community is not enough for the likeness of which we are now speaking.

4. That this principle, "No whole is greater than its part," is false is a truth. Therefore, to know that it is false is to know something true. However, the falsity of this principle is known only by its privation of truth, just as blindness is known by its being a privation of sight.

5. Just as evil actions are good in so far as they have existence and come from God, so also in this sense are the habits good which are the principles or effects of these actions. Therefore, the fact that they are bad does not posit any nature but only a privation.

6. A thing is called a non-being for two reasons. First, because nonexistence is included in its definition; and this is why blindness is called a non-being. It is impossible to conceive, either in our imagination or in our intellect, any form for such non-beings; and evil is a non-being of this type. Second, because the non-being is not found in the realm of nature, even though the privation of existence is not included in its definition. Here, however, there is no reason why we cannot imagine such non-beings and conceive their forms.

7. Because evil has no idea in God, God knows it by means of the idea of the good opposed to it. In this way, evil is related to His knowledge as though it had an idea--not that the privation of an idea stands in the place of an idea, however, because there can be no privation in God.

8. The evil of punishment proceeds from God as part of His order of justice. Hence, it is good and has an idea in Him.