ARTICLE IV

In the Fourth Article We Ask: Is EVERYTHING GOOD BY THE FIRST GOODNESS?

Difficulties:

It seems that it is, for

1. According to Boethius, if by an impossible supposition we were to understand that God existed without His goodness, it would follow that all other things would be beings but not good; but if we understand goodness to be in God, then it follows that all things are good as well as beings. Everything, therefore, is called good by reason of the first goodness.

2. The answer was given that the reason why it happens that when we do not understand goodness in God there is no goodness in His creatures, is that the goodness of the creature is caused by the goodness of God, and not that the thing is formally denominated good by the goodness of God.--On the contrary, whenever anything is denominated in a given way merely from its relation to something else, it is not so denominated from something inhering in it formally but from something outside it to which it is referred. Thus urine is called healthy because it is a sign of the health of an animal. It is not so denominated from any health inherent in it but from the animal's health which it signifies. But a creature is called good in reference to the first goodness because everything is called good from the fact of its flowing from the first good, as Boethius says. Hence the creature is not denominated good from any formal goodness found in it but from the divine goodness.

3. Augustine says: "This is good and that is good. Remove this and that and, if possible, see the good itself. Thus you will see God, not as good by some other good, but as the good of every good." But by reason of that good which is the good of every good all things are called good. Therefore, by reason of the divine goodness of which Augustine speaks, everything is said to be good.

4. Since every creature is good, it is good either by some inherent goodness or only by the first goodness. If it is good by some goodness inherent to it, then, since that goodness is also a creature, it too will be good either by being goodness itself or by some other goodness. But if it is good by being goodness itself, then it will be the first goodness; for it is of the essence of the first good that it be good of itself, as appears from the passage of St. Augustine just cited. And thus the point is established--a creature is good by the first goodness. If, however, that goodness is good by some other goodness, the same problem remains in regard to the latter. We must, therefore, proceed to infinity--which is impossible--or arrive at some goodness giving its name to created goodness, which is good of itself; and this will be the first goodness. Hence, from every point of view creatures must be good by the first goodness.

5. Everything true is true by the first truth according to Anselm. But the first goodness stands to good things in the same way as the first truth to true things. Everything is therefore good by the first goodness.

6. What is incapable of the lesser is incapable of the greater. But to be is something less than to be good. A creature, however, has no power over the act of being, since all being is from God. Neither, then, has it power over being good. The goodness by which anything is called good is therefore not created goodness.

7. To be, according to Hilary, is "proper to God." But whatever is proper belongs to only one. There is therefore no other act of being besides God Himself. But all things are good in so far as they have the act of being. All things, therefore, are good by the very divine act of being which constitutes God's goodness.

8. The first goodness has nothing added to goodness; otherwise it would be composite. But it is true that everything is good by goodness. It is consequently also true that everything is good by the first goodness.

9. The answer was given that to goodness taken absolutely something may be added conceptually though not really.--On the contrary, a notion to which there corresponds nothing in reality is empty and useless. But the notion by which we understand the first goodness is not useless. If, therefore, anything is added in our notion, it will also be added in reality. But this is impossible. Neither, then, will anything be added conceptually. Everything, as a consequence, will be called good by the first goodness just as by goodness taken absolutely.

To the Contrary:

1'. Everything is good in so far as it is a being, because, according to Augustine, "inasmuch as we are, we are good." But not everything is called a being formally by reason of the first essence but by reason of a created essence. Consequently, neither is everything formally good by the first goodness but by a created goodness.

2'. The changeable is not informed by the unchangeable, since they are opposites. But every creature is changeable, whereas the first goodness is unchangeable. A creature is therefore not called good formally by the first goodness.

3'. Every form is proportioned to the thing which it perfects. But the first goodness, being infinite, is not proportioned to a creature, which is finite. A creature is therefore not said to be good formally by reason of the first goodness.

4'. All created things "are good by participation in the good," as Augustine says. But participation in the good is not the first goodness itself, for this is total and perfect goodness. Not everything, therefore, is good formally by the first goodness.

5'. A creature is said to have a vestige of the Trinity inasmuch as it is one, true, and good. Thus good belongs to the vestige. But the vestige and its parts are something created. Therefore a creature is good by a created goodness.

6'. The first goodness is perfectly simple. It is therefore neither composite in itself nor compoundable with anything else. Thus it cannot be the form of anything, since a form enters into composition with that which it informs. But the goodness by which certain things are said to be good is a form, since every act of being comes from a form. Creatures are therefore not good formally by the first goodness.

REPLY:

There have been various positions concerning this question. Some, induced by trivial reasons, were so foolish as to state that God is a substantial part of all things. Some of these, e.g., David of Dinant, taught that He is the same as prime matter. Some others said that He is the form of all things. Now the falsity of this erroneous opinion is immediately made apparent. For when they speak of God, all men understand that He is the effective principle of all things, since all being must flow from a single first being. The efficient cause, however, according to the teaching of the Philosopher, does not coincide with the material cause, since they have contrary characters. For a thing is an agent inasmuch as it is in act; but the characteristic of matter is to be in potency. The efficient cause and the form of the effect are the same in species inasmuch as every agent effects something similar to itself; but they are not numerically the same, because the maker and the thing made cannot be identical. It is apparent from this that the divine essence is neither the matter of any creature nor is it its form in such a way that by it the creature can be said to be good formally as by an intrinsic form. But every form is a certain likeness of God.

The Platonists therefore said that all things are formally good by the first goodness, not as by a conjoint form, but as by a separated form. For an understanding of this point it should be noted that Plato held that all things that can be separated in thought are separated in reality. Thus, just as man can be understood apart from Socrates and Plato, he taught that man exists apart from Socrates and Plato. This he called "man-in-himself" or "the idea of man," and said that by participation in this man Socrates and Plato are called men. Moreover, just as he found man common to Socrates and Plato and all others like them, in the same way he found good to be common to all good things and to be capable of being understood independently of any understanding of this or that good. Hence he asserted that good is separate from all particular goods, and he called it "good-in-itself" or "the idea of good." By participation in it, he said, all things are called good. This is set forth by the Philosopher.

There is this difference between the idea of good and that of man as Plato explained them: the idea of man does not extend to everything, whereas that of good does, even to the other ideas. For even the very idea of good is a particular good. And so it was necessary to say that the very good-in-itself is the universal principle of all things; and this principle is God. It therefore followed, according to this position, that all things are denominated good by the first goodness, which is God, just as, according to Plato, Socrates and Plato are called men by participation in separated man, not by any humanity inherent in them.

This Platonic position was in a sense followed by the Porretans. They said that we predicate good of a creature either simply, as when we say, "Man is good," or with some qualification, as when we say, "Socrates is a good man." A creature is called good simply, they said, not by any inherent goodness but by the first goodness--as if good taken absolutely and in general were the divine goodness; but when a creature is called a good something-or-other, it is so denominated from a created goodness, because particular created goodnesses are like particular ideas for Plato. But this opinion is refuted by the Philosopher in a number of ways. He argues that the quiddities and forms of things are in particular things themselves and not separated from them, and he shows this in various ways. He also argues more specifically that, granting that there are ideas, that position does not apply to good, since good is not predicated univocally of goods; and where the predication was not univocal, Plato did not assign a single idea. This is how the Philosopher proceeds against him in the Ethics.

In particular for the point at issue the falsity of the above-mentioned position appears from the fact that every agent is found to effect something like itself. If, therefore, the first goodness is the effective cause of all goods, it must imprint its likeness upon the things produced; and so each thing will be called good by reason of an inherent form because of the likeness of the highest good implanted in it, and also because of the first goodness taken as the exemplar and effective cause of all created goodness. In this respect the opinion of Plato can be held.

We say, therefore, following the common opinion, that all things are good by a created goodness formally as by an inherent form, but by the uncreated goodness as by an exemplary form.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. As has been touched upon above,* the reason why creatures would not be good unless goodness were understood in God is this: the goodness of the creature is modeled upon the divine goodness. Hence it does not follow that the creature is called good by the uncreated goodness except as by an exemplary form.

2. A thing is denominated with reference to something else in two ways. (1) This occurs when the very reference itself is the meaning of the denomination. Thus urine is called healthy with respect to the health of an animal. For the meaning of healthy as predicated of urine is "serving as a sign of the health of an animal." In such cases what is thus relatively denominated does not get its name from a form inherent in it but from something extrinsic to which it is referred. (2) A thing is denominated by reference to something else when the reference is not the meaning of the denomination but its cause. For instance, air is said to be bright from the sun, not because the very fact that the air is referred to the sun is the brightness of the air, but because the placing of the air directly before the sun is the cause of its being bright. It is in this way that the creature is called good with reference to God. Consequently the argument is not valid.

3. In many points Augustine follows the opinion of Plato, but just as far as the truth of the faith allows. His words are, consequently, to be interpreted in this way: the divine goodness is called the good of every good in the sense that it is the first efficient and exemplary cause of every good, without excluding a created goodness by which creatures are denominated good as from an inherent form.

4. The case of general forms is different from that of special forms. Where there is question of special forms, as is clear from Dionysius, the concrete cannot be predicated of the abstract so that we should say: whiteness is white, or heat is hot. But when there is question of general forms, such predication is permitted. We say that an essence is a being, goodness is good, oneness is one, and so forth.

The reason for this is that what is first apprehended by the intellect is being. Hence the intellect must attribute this (being) to whatever is apprehended by it. And so when it apprehends the essence of any being, it says that that essence is a being. The same is true of any general or special form; e.g., goodness is a being, whiteness is a being, and so on. And because certain things are inseparably connected with the notion of being, as the one, good, etc., these also must, for the same reason as being, be predicated of anything apprehended. Thus we say that an essence is one and good, and likewise that oneness is one and good; and the same is true of goodness and whiteness and any other general or special form.

The white, however, being special, does not inseparably accompany the notion of being. The form of whiteness can therefore be apprehended without having white attributed to it. Hence we are not forced to say that whiteness is white. White is predicated in a single sense; but being and the one and good and other such attributes which must necessarily be said of everything apprehended, are predicated in many senses. One thing is called a being because it subsists in itself; another, because it is a principle of subsisting, as a form; another, because it is a disposition of a subsisting being, as a quality; another, because it is the privation of a disposition of a subsisting being, as blindness. When, therefore, we say, "An essence is a being," if we go on thus: "Therefore it is a being by something, either by itself or by another," the inference is wrong, because being was not predicated in the sense in which something subsisting with its own existence is a being, but in the sense of that by which something is. Hence what we should ask is not how an essence is by something else, but how something else is by that essence.

In the same way, when goodness is said to be good, it is not called good in the sense that it is subsisting in goodness, but in the sense in which we call good that by which something is good. There is, accordingly, no point in inquiring whether goodness is good by its own goodness or by some other, but rather whether by that goodness anything is good which is distinct from that goodness (as occurs in creatures) or which is identical with that goodness (as is true of God).

5. A similar distinction must be made in regard to truth, namely, that all things are true by the first truth as their first exemplar, even though they are still true by a created truth as their inherent form. There is, nevertheless, a difference between truth and goodness. The essence of truth consists in a certain equation or commensuration. But a thing is designated as measured or commensurate from something extrinsic, as cloth from a forearm or cubit. This is what Anselm meant in saying that all things are true by the first truth; i.e., they are true inasmuch as each is made commensurate to the divine intellect by fulfilling the destiny set for it by divine providence or the foreknowledge had of it. The essence of goodness, however, does not consist in commensuration. Hence there is no parallel here.

6. A creature does not have power over the act of being in the sense that it has being of itself; and yet in some respects it does have power over it, since the creature may be a formal principle of existing. In this way any form has power over the act of being. It is in this way too that created goodness has power over the act of being good as its formal principle.

7. When to be is said to be proper to God, we are not to understand that there is no other act of being than the uncreated one, but only that that act of being is properly said to be inasmuch as, by reason of its immutability, it admits of no has been or will be. But the act of being of a creature is so called by a certain likeness to that first to be, although it has in it an admixture of will be or has been by reason of the mutability of the creature.

Or it can be said that to be is proper to God because only God is His act of being, although others have an act of being, which is, indeed, distinct from the divine act of being.

8. The first goodness does not add anything in reality to goodness taken absolutely, but it does add something conceptually.

9. Pure goodness in itself is made individual and set apart from all other things by the fact that it receives no addition, as the comment in The Causes explains. It does not, however, belong to the notion of goodness taken absolutely to receive an addition or not to receive it. For if it were in its notion to receive an addition, then every goodness would receive an addition, and there would be no pure goodness. Similarly, if it were in its notion not to receive an addition, then no goodness would receive it, and every goodness would be pure goodness. The case is parallel to that of animal, in whose notion is found neither rational nor irrational. The very fact of its being unable to receive an addition, therefore, restricts absolute goodness and distinguishes the first goodness, which is pure goodness, from other goodnesses. But the fact of not receiving an addition, being a negation, is a conceptual being, yet founded upon the simplicity of the first goodness. It does not follow, therefore, that this notion is empty and useless.