THIRD ARTICLE: WHETHER EVIL IS IN THE GOOD AS IN A SUBJECT

State of the question. We see that evil is found in things, indeed in every part of the universe, from the mineral to the spiritual and moral order. We are asking now what is the immediate subject of evil. Is evil in the good as in a subject? It seems that it is not, as we see in the third and principal objection given in this article. One contrary thing is not the subject of the other contrary. The fourth difficulty is that it would follow that good would be evil, contrary to the warning of Isaias, "Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil."[1024] This is the language of the perverse man, who inverts the order of morality.

Reply. The reply is that good is the subject of evil.

Proof from authority. St. Augustine says, "Evil is nowhere except in the good."[1025]

Proof from reason. In the body of the article, St. Thomas begins with the minor. If we begin with the major, the argument is as follows:

The privation, just as the form of which it is the privation, is in some subject which is in some way being and good. But evil is the removal of good not only negatively but also privatively. Therefore evil is in the good as in a subject.

The major is clear. The subject of privation, like the form, is being in potency, either being in simple potency, as prime matter, or being in potency "secundum quid", as a diaphanous body, which is the subject of light and darkness. But being in potency is some kind of good, since it is ordered to the good or to a form, which is a kind of perfection.

The minor is the definition of evil, namely, the privation of an owing good; it is not evil if it is only the negation of good. Imperfection is not good, but it does not follow that it is evil except when there is an absence of an owing perfection. This was Leibnitz's error; because a creature did not have the perfections of other creatures, he called it a metaphysical evil. St. Thomas, on the contrary, notes that man is not evil because he does not possess the swiftness of a goat or the strength of a lion. Common sense should be used not only by the farmer and the merchant; it is useful also for the philosopher, because this common sense is nothing else than natural reason, which is in a way the mother of philosophical reasoning. William James said: "The reasoning of the schools is that sister of common sense which attended the university for some years." He might have said: "Philosophical reasoning is the daughter of natural reason, or common sense, and during the Middle Ages it not only attended the great universities but it established them." In these universities, such as those of Paris and Bologna, St. Thomas shows how the transition is made progressively from natural reason to philosophical reasoning, beginning with the nominal definition and arriving at the real definition and at the properties to be deduced from it. The present article is an example of this process; it demonstrates the complete conformity of philosophical reasoning with natural reason.

Corollary. Hence the good whose privation is evil is not the same as the good in which it is as in a subject; for example, blindness is the deprivation of sight and it is in an animal. This is the solution of the problem that one contrary cannot be the subject of the other contrary. This is, of course, true, but one good, for example, animal life, can exist together with the privation of another good, for example, sight. A dog can be blind.

The final difficulty is rather subtle. The subject of evil is said to be evil just as the subject of whiteness is said to be white, But according to the reply above, the subject of evil is good. Therefore, in opposition to Isaias, something is said to be good and evil at the same time.

Reply. I distinguish the major: the subject of evil is evil by reason of itself, I deny; by reason of the deprivation of some owing good, 1 concede. I contradistinguish the minor: the subject of evil is said to be good by reason of itself, I concede; by reason of the deprivation of some owing good, I deny.

From this it follows that even physical pain as it is something, namely, the passion of the soul, has a certain goodness, but it displays a connection with some evil, and often it is important to recognize the existence of such an evil, for instance, a cancer, so that a remedy may be used in time. So also a sin of commission, inasmuch as it is being and a physical act is something good physically, and thus can be produced by God who, however, prescinds from the malice or privation of the owing righteousness. Such malice does not come under the adequate object of the divine omnipotence, just as sound does not come under the subject of vision. Hence if by an impossible hypothesis God wished to be the cause of sin as such and not only of the physical entity of sin, He would not be able to cause a sin, because sin is outside the adequate object of His omnipotence. All this is quite clear, but the exact manner in which God moves in the act of sin remains a great mystery.

Evil, therefore, is in the good as in the subject. There is no perversion of the truth here; it would be wrong to say that the subject of evil was evil by reason of itself, or that the privation of moral rectitude, for example, in pride, cunning, presumption, or luxury, is good. It is also wrong to say that what is good "secundum quid", as something that is pleasing to the senses, for example, adultery, is a simple and unqualified good here and now. This is the monstrous perversion found in the practical judgment in which a criminal choice is made out of malice.

It is also wrong in the speculative order to say with Hegel that there is no good pure and simple and no evil pure and simple; that there is only qualified good, that is, something good according to the actual concepts of our time which tomorrow may be considered relatively evil. Thus patriotism is not a simple good, but only a good with reference to the ideals of our time; in time to come, perhaps, when some internationalism may prevail, patriotism would be regarded as obsolete. This is the language of absolute evolutionism condemned at the time of the Modernists. This proposition was condemned: "Truth is no more immutable than man himself; indeed truth is evolved with and through man."[1026] If this were true, there would be no absolute goodness, only a qualified goodness, or a relative goodness according to the changing ideas of a particular age. The first proposition condemned in Pius IX's Syllabus was: "God actually becomes in man and in the world,....and God and the world are one and the same thing, as are also spirit and matter, necessity and liberty, truth and falsehood, good and evil, the just and the unjust."[1027] It was against such pantheistic evolution that Isaias warned when he said, "Woe to you that call evil good and good evil."[1028]