|
Objection 1: It would seem that corporeal creatures were not made on
account of God's goodness. For it is said (Wis. 1:14) that
God "created all things that they might be." Therefore all things
were created for their own being's sake, and not on account of God's
goodness.
Objection 2: Further, good has the nature of an end; therefore the
greater good in things is the end of the lesser good. But spiritual
creatures are related to corporeal creatures, as the greater good to
the lesser. Corporeal creatures, therefore, are created for the sake
of spiritual creatures, and not on account of God's goodness.
Objection 3: Further, justice does not give unequal things except
to the unequal. Now God is just: therefore inequality not created by
God must precede all inequality created by Him. But an inequality
not created by God can only arise from free-will, and consequently
all inequality results from the different movements of free-will.
Now, corporeal creatures are unequal to spiritual creatures.
Therefore the former were made on account of movements of free-will,
and not on account of God's goodness.
On the contrary, It is said (Prov. 16:4): "The Lord hath
made all things for Himself."
I answer that, Origen laid down [Peri Archon ii.] that corporeal
creatures were not made according to God's original purpose, but in
punishment of the sin of spiritual creatures. For he maintained that
God in the beginning made spiritual creatures only, and all of equal
nature; but that of these by the use of free-will some turned to
God, and, according to the measure of their conversion, were given
an higher or a lower rank, retaining their simplicity; while others
turned from God, and became bound to different kinds of bodies
according to the degree of their turning away. But this position is
erroneous. In the first place, because it is contrary to Scripture,
which, after narrating the production of each kind of corporeal
creatures, subjoins, "God saw that it was good" (Gn. 1), as
if to say that everything was brought into being for the reason that it
was good for it to be. But according to Origen's opinion, the
corporeal creature was made, not because it was good that it should
be, but that the evil in another might be punished. Secondly,
because it would follow that the arrangement, which now exists, of the
corporeal world would arise from mere chance. For it the sun's body
was made what it is, that it might serve for a punishment suitable to
some sin of a spiritual creature, it would follow, if other spiritual
creatures had sinned in the same way as the one to punish whom the sun
had been created, that many suns would exist in the world; and so of
other things. But such a consequence is altogether inadmissible.
Hence we must set aside this theory as false, and consider that the
entire universe is constituted by all creatures, as a whole consists of
its parts.
Now if we wish to assign an end to any whole, and to the parts of that
whole, we shall find, first, that each and every part exists for the
sake of its proper act, as the eye for the act of seeing; secondly,
that less honorable parts exist for the more honorable, as the senses
for the intellect, the lungs for the heart; and, thirdly, that all
parts are for the perfection of the whole, as the matter for the form,
since the parts are, as it were, the matter of the whole.
Furthermore, the whole man is on account of an extrinsic end, that
end being the fruition of God. So, therefore, in the parts of the
universe also every creature exists for its own proper act and
perfection, and the less noble for the nobler, as those creatures that
are less noble than man exist for the sake of man, whilst each and
every creature exists for the perfection of the entire universe.
Furthermore, the entire universe, with all its parts, is ordained
towards God as its end, inasmuch as it imitates, as it were, and
shows forth the Divine goodness, to the glory of God. Reasonable
creatures, however, have in some special and higher manner God as
their end, since they can attain to Him by their own operations, by
knowing and loving Him. Thus it is plain that the Divine goodness is
the end of all corporeal things.
Reply to Objection 1: In the very fact of any creature possessing
being, it represents the Divine being and Its goodness. And,
therefore, that God created all things, that they might have being,
does not exclude that He created them for His own goodness.
Reply to Objection 2: The proximate end does not exclude the
ultimate end. Therefore that corporeal creatures were, in a manner,
made for the sake of the spiritual, does not prevent their being made
on account of God's goodness.
Reply to Objection 3: Equality of justice has its place in
retribution, since equal rewards or punishments are due to equal merit
or demerit. But this does not apply to things as at first instituted.
For just as an architect, without injustice, places stones of the
same kind in different parts of a building, not on account of any
antecedent difference in the stones, but with a view to securing that
perfection of the entire building, which could not be obtained except
by the different positions of the stones; even so, God from the
beginning, to secure perfection in the universe, has set therein
creatures of various and unequal natures, according to His wisdom,
and without injustice, since no diversity of merit is presupposed.
|
|