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Objection 1: It seems that to be good does not belong to God. For
goodness consists in mode, species and order. But these do not seem
to belong to God; since God is immense and is not ordered to anything
else. Therefore to be good does not belong to God.
Objection 2: Further, the good is what all things desire. But all
things do not desire God, because all things do not know Him; and
nothing is desired unless it is known. Therefore to be good does not
belong to God.
On the contrary, It is written (Lam. 3:25): "The Lord is
good to them that hope in Him, to the soul that seeketh Him."
I answer that, To be good belongs pre-eminently to God. For a
thing is good according to its desirableness. Now everything seeks
after its own perfection; and the perfection and form of an effect
consist in a certain likeness to the agent, since every agent makes its
like; and hence the agent itself is desirable and has the nature of
good. For the very thing which is desirable in it is the participation
of its likeness. Therefore, since God is the first effective cause
of all things, it is manifest that the aspect of good and of
desirableness belong to Him; and hence Dionysius (Div. Nom. iv)
attributes good to God as to the first efficient cause, saying that,
God is called good "as by Whom all things subsist."
Reply to Objection 1: To have mode, species and order belongs to
the essence of caused good; but good is in God as in its cause, and
hence it belongs to Him to impose mode, species and order on others;
wherefore these three things are in God as in their cause.
Reply to Objection 2: All things, by desiring their own
perfection, desire God Himself, inasmuch as the perfections of all
things are so many similitudes of the divine being; as appears from
what is said above (Question 4, Article 3). And so of those
things which desire God, some know Him as He is Himself, and this
is proper to the rational creature; others know some participation of
His goodness, and this belongs also to sensible knowledge; others
have a natural desire without knowledge, as being directed to their
ends by a higher intelligence.
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