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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]
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