CHAPTER XXVI: QUESTION 49 THE CAUSE OF EVIL


INTRODUCTION

Thus far we have determined the definition of evil, the privation of an owing good; the subject of evil; and the division of evil. We now turn to the cause or origin of evil.

In the second article of the preceding question we stated that God could impede evil, and that He nevertheless wills to allow it because of some greater good. We thus assigned the final cause of the divine permission of evil, but not the cause of evil itself. In treating of the cause of evil itself, St. Thomas asks three things: 1. whether good can be the cause of evil; 2. whether the highest good, which is God, is the cause of evil; 3. whether there is some supreme evil which is the cause of all evils. In this last article he refutes the Manichaeans.