Sunday, June 11, 2006

Q21 A4: Whether in every work of God there are mercy and justice?

Yes. God out of abundance of His goodness bestow upon creatures what is due to them more bountifully than is proportionate to their deserts because less would suffice for preserving the order of justice than what the divine goodness confers but the influence of the first cause is more intense than that of second causes since between creatures and God's goodness there can be no proportion.

Although creation presupposes nothing in the universe yet it does presuppose something in the knowledge of God.

In this way too the idea of justice is preserved in creation by the production of beings in a manner that accords with the divine wisdom and goodness.

And the idea of mercy, also, is preserved in the change of creatures from non-existence to existence.