Friday, October 13, 2006

Q49 A2: Whether the supreme good, God, is the cause of evil?

No. God is the author of the evil which is penalty, but not of the evil which is fault because the evil which consists in the defect of action is always caused by the defect of the agent, but in God there is no defect, rather the highest perfection.

The form which God chiefly intends in things created is the good of the order of the universe.

Now, the order of the universe requires, as was said above (Q22, A2, ad 2; Q48, A2), that there should be some things that can, and do sometimes, fail.

And thus God, by causing in things the good of the order of the universe, consequently and as it were incidentally, causes the corruptions of things, according to 1 Kgs. 2:6: "The Lord killeth and maketh alive." But when we read that "God hath not made death" (Wisdom 1:13), the sense is that God does not will death for its own sake.

Nevertheless the order of justice belongs to the order of the universe; and this requires that penalty should be dealt out to sinners.