Monday, October 16, 2006

Q49 A3: Whether there be one supreme evil which is the cause of every evil?

No. There cannot be opposed to the supreme good any principle as the cause of evils because the supreme good is the cause of every being.

No being is called evil by participation, but by privation of participation. Hence it is not necessary to reduce it to any essential evil.

Evil can only have an accidental cause. Hence reduction to any per se cause of evil is impossible.

In the causes of evil we do not proceed to infinity, but reduce all evils to some good cause, whence evil follows incidentally.