EIGHTH ARTICLE: WHETHER ANYTHING CAN WORK AGAIN ST THE ORDER OF THE DIVINE GOVERNANCE

Reply. Nothing can resist the order of the divine governance as it proceeds from God, the most universal cause of the good of the whole universe, but a being may well resist this order as it proceeds from a particular cause. Thus those who sin oppose some determined good according to the law of God and therefore they are justly punished by God. Cajetan points out in connection with the reply to the first objection that "those who sin mortally look at two things: first, what they intend to do, and this is good in a sense; and secondly, something beyond their intention, and this is the deformity of the act, consisting in the privation of the proper order. Here sinners depart from a certain order of good and act against this order." But even this deformity is permitted by God for the sake of a greater good, at least with regard to the end of the whole universe, and thus sinners do not oppose the divine governance in general but only in a particular instance.