Aquinas Theodicy: Vindication of God in Light of Evil
Introduction
Theodicy is an important topic in which Christians must be prepared to defend and explain. Many arguments have been given throughout history regarding the existence of evil with a God that is omnipresent, good, and omnipotent. The challenge of Christianity is to explain how a good and fully powerful God exists even with evil being present in the world. Theodicy comes from a compound word of Greek theos (God) and dike (justice). This literally means that theodicy is the “justification of God.”[1] Proponents of Christianity often argue that if God was all good and powerful, he would have to prevent evil from occurring. Since evil exists, it is often argued that God cannot be all good and all powerful. This is one popular argument that exists in today’s culture. This argument comes from several misunderstandings of God. This argument does not account for God not being a moral agent as well as the fact that God does not consent to any one standard. The problem of evil is a problem that many Christians throughout history have tried to explain.
Thomas Aquinas is important in the conversation and explanation of theodicy as Aquinas has much to teach the modern mind. In order to understand the theodicy of Aquinas, we must look carefully as he thought differently than society today. It is argued that Aquinas does not fit into any single modern explanation of the problem of evil. Thomas Aquinas is thought to have a different perspective than what is offered as he does not fit into “optimistic theodicy” or “free will defiance.”[2] In order to understand the complexities of Thomas’s Theodicy, we will look at Thomas’s beliefs regarding divine goodness and omnipotence even in a world full of imperfection as evil. Evil is the deprivation of the goodness God has given as he is not a moral agent but is the standard as revealed in Scripture
Divine Goodness in Theodicy
To discuss theodicy, one must look to divine goodness. How is it that God is good even though evil exists, and he has the power to stop it? To properly sort through theodicy, we first turn to goodness and what divine goodness even means. The goodness of God is often associated with perfection. To Understand perfection and goodness from Thomas Aquinas’s perspective, one must turn to Summa Theologica to see his rebuttals against other arguments.
What is Perfection?
In Summa Theologica, Aquinas receives the objection that the beginning of this is imperfect with the example being that animals and vegetable life is not perfect at its beginning. Since related things are not perfect at their beginnings, God cannot be perfect. Aquinas responds by saying that the material found is imperfect, but that imperfection cannot be “absolutely primal; but must be preceded by something perfect.”[3] Aquinas answers this objection regarding perfection using a seed and animal. The seed or animal is a potential that can occur. A seed is a potential plant or tree. Previous to a potential is something that is already actual. Therefore, in the case of the seed, the seed comes from something that is perfect, which is the tree. The perfect that Aquinas is arguing here is that perfection is something that is completely made.[4] In Aquinas theology, one can replace the word complete with perfection and incomplete can be replaced with imperfection.
With the tree in mind, Aquinas argues that “existence is the most perfect of all things, for it is compared to all things as that by which they are made actual.”[5] Aquinas argues that actual existence is greater than potential of existence as he goes on to explain that when he speaks about man or animals, he is arguing that their existence is received from something greater. For Aquinas, that something greater is God. When tying this to his second article in Question four, one sees that Aquinas believes that God is the cause of all things. Because God is the cause of all things, perfection of all created things pre-exists in God “in a more eminent way.”[6] This means that he believes that any perfection one sees in things created actually exists beforehand in the creator himself.
God’s Infinite Goodness
Aquinas claims that “God is infinitely good: for which reason he admits his creatures to a participation of good things.”[7] Aquinas continues on to say that God is rich and happy in himself, and man is enjoying God. In God is all goodness and perfection. Creatures and created things, as discussed prior, find their perfection and goodness in God. What does it mean to be good? Aquinas seems to answer this question by associating ‘being’ with goodness. Aquinas says that “goodness signifies perfection which is desirable, consequently of ultimate perfection. Hence that which has ultimate perfection is said to be simply good.”[8] To Aquinas, God is the ultimate being who has complete existence and lacks nothing. He is in his perfect state and to be in ones complete or full state is to be good.[9] Yet, God is not good in the same sense as other created things. Aquinas believes that created things desire perfection flows from God as the first cause.[10] He continues on to say God is good essentially. Created things are good in the sense that they have being, but they are not good in their essence as creators derive their being, goodness, from God who is good essentially.[11] Not only is God good, but he is infinite goodness.[12] There is not goodness that exists without flowing from the essence of God in which he has given to the created order.
God is Not a Moral Agent
One common objection to the goodness of God is the argument that God is a moral agent and that he makes judgments regarding right and wrong. Glenn Siniscalchi reverses common modern day arguments regarding evil “proving” that an all-powerful and all-good God cannot exist. He argues that the starting point of these conversation are not the starting point of Aquinas. Modern day arguments tend to start with God on trial for evil and the Christian has to defend and explain how God exists with this evil present. Siniscalchi argues that evil is no reason to reject or defend the existence of God. He concludes that God is not “a moral agent to be excoriated by atheists or exonerated by theists.”[13] Being a moral agent means that one has the ability to choose between good and evil.[14] Given Aquinas belief that God is in his essence is good, and it is infinitely good, would mean that God could not be a moral agent has he does not choose to be good or evil but rather acts in a way that his true to his essence and nature. Goodness is in God and not some external standard that God has to consent to.[15] Instead, goodness is a part of God so that he is the standard. With God being the standard of all goodness, the question becomes, what is evil?
Existence of Evil in Theodicy
To properly understand evil, one must think back to goodness and perfection as explained by Aquinas. In the natural sense of evil, one must link it to the total perfection of the universe. According to Aquinas, God seeks perfection for his creation as he does what is best for the whole world and not just its individual parts. One has to keep in mind that God does what is best for the entire creation and not just the individual. Comparing this with other writings of Thomas Aquinas, it appears as if evil is permitted “in an antecedent and general way for the perfection of the universe as a whole, i.e., for the perfection of the universe.”[16] To understand Thomas Aquinas’s view of evil, one must first understand Aquinas’s view of perfection and goodness because the concept of evil is tied to both.
For Thomas Aquinas, evil is something to take seriously as it is real. He argues that evil is not an actual substance, but evil is actually the privation of something. This places Thomas Aquinas as unique in his view of evil because he does not believe evil is an illusion, which is what it would be if evil was nothing, but it is also not a self-subsistence entity.[17] Creation is intended to be good which its goodness comes from a perfect God that created it good. Creation, especially man, is able to choose contrary to the plans that God has designed. Mankind is often referred to as a moral exemplarity as they make moral choices and actions every day.[18]
Original Sin from Thomas Aquinas helps one to further understand Aquinas’s view of evil. Aquinas seems to define original sin as “the will being turned away from God.”[19] Not only does Thomas believe it is being turned away from God, but reason has turned away from God to indulge inferior powers, the body now indulges passions, and a sin nature was passed from Adam to the rest of mankind.[20] This all shows that the existence of evil is not some small force but rather has permeated the natural order and the good creation that God had made. This original sin turned man away from proper subservience to God to then be corrupted to the point where the will, mind, and soul are not perfectly good like God made them.
When taking evil and sin together, Aquinas believes that original sin has corrupted the very good that man was designed for. Evil is not the absence of good but rather the privation of the good God has given. This makes sin more than an illusion but also does not make it something that exists separate from God. Evil is a biproduct of creating creation good with free will in which they can choose contrary to the good God originally designed.
Divine Omnipotence in Theodicy
For Aquinas, he makes a distinction between something being perfect and imperfect based on its completeness. To give an example of this, imagine a blind person for a moment because of their eye being damaged. An eye that sees properly is perfect but a person who is blind, has an imperfect eye. Aquinas believes that there are no bare being but that any common or created being is determinate in some way. This determinate being is what Aquinas calls forms. This means that any form is some kind of determinate act. For Thomas, acts are done with the goal of “potency because potency is always potency for some definite act.”[21] Determinate being is what Aquinas calls forms. Power is that which is directed towards acts or forms. Perfection is the form in which things are directed. Since God is the source of being, this makes all things under his control and power. This is what Aquinas means with omnipotence.[22]
Aquinas also has certain stipulations to omnipotence. Firstly, God’s power is according to the “measure in which He is actual.”[23] Aquinas has already argued that God is actually infinite. Therefore, his power is not limited by anything because of the infinity of the divine essence. Aquinas uses this to show that the there is an infinity in the divine essence and therefore God is infinitely powerful because he himself is infinite.[24] Secondly, Aquinas makes a distinction regarding things God cannot do, in a manner of speaking. For example, “[God] cannot fail: in saying something cannot fail, we do not mean to say that something lacks an ability, but rather, on the contrary, that it has a fullness of ability in some respect.”[25] Thirdly, Aquinas believes that God is unable to do evil. God is unable to do evil because he is omnipotent. Aquinas does not use the perfection of God, especially morality, as limits to God’s power. Rather, evil being the defect, impairment, or privation, which is actually the absence of being. This means that evil is not a display of power but actually a lack of power.[26] This means that some people call things power but in reality, they are not powers but the defects in power or the absence of power. This means that God cannot do evil actions.
Permitting Evil
In order to properly understand the permitting of evil, one must refer back to Aquinas discussion on perfection and goodness. Given that all goodness in creation existed in the creator, how does evil occur when God is all powerful? From the above discussion we know that Aquinas believes God cannot actually perform evil as that is taking one out of the perfect state. This would mean that in Aquinas’s view, God merely allows evil to exist and is not the creator of evil. There are two different kinds of evil that Aquinas addresses, one is natural evil and the second is moral evil. First, we will look at natural evil.
According to Aquinas, evil is parasitical on what is good. Natural evil is typically a defect or absence of the designed structure or process of a thing. An example of natural evils could include anything such as premature death, hunger, disease, and suffering that is a result of struggling to survive. Often times, what is good for one thing is not good for another. An example is cancer in a human’s body. The cancer grows and survives in a person’s body, but that person struggles with this evil that is eating away at his body. While the cancer is thriving, the human body is struggling. What is often good for “higher” forms of life are often detrimental and evil for lower forms.[27] According to Aquinas, there are many good things that we would miss if God did not permit evil to exist in some form. For example, fire would not burn unless the oxygen in the air were consumed. Many animals, such as lions, would not survive or thrive without eating other animals.[28] This is when Aquinas argues that God only wills the good as evil is sometimes the accident of God willing good. What Aquinas means by this is that God only causes what is good and evil sometimes occurs per accidents. In our lion example, Aquinas argues that sometimes God wills one good over another good, the lion’s good is placed over the animal in which the lion eats.[29] Notice that God has willed the good, but not the evil. By willing the good, the privation of another good has occurred. In Aquinas view, there are first causes and second causes. Sometimes God causes something good to happen and per accident a secondary cause happens, deprivation of the intended order. In Aquinas view, the primary cause is always greater than the secondary cause. This is important as it keeps God as more powerful than the forces of evil.[30] God does not will this privation, but it happens as a result of willing the good. Some have argued that God is then responsible for the evil that is occurring but that is confusing Aquinas’s argument. Aquinas’s view is that evil is never willed by God but instead occurs accidentally. Is the person who figured out how to create explosives responsible for others making and using explosives? Aquinas has a different view when it comes to moral evils.
Moral evils are the voluntary actions done by rational creatures that are not ordered towards their natural end. The natural end is considered good according to Aquinas. Therefore, it is evil to directly oppose the good, especially the infinite good. Moral evils are committed by moral agents who have free will. It is important to note that for Aquinas, the “choosing [of] evil is not inherent to free will as such, but it is inherent to a finite free will.”[31] This is important to note because God has free will, the freedom to choose. In the freedom to choose, mankind tends to choose evil and as a result have a loss of the perfection with God originally intended. God permits evil by respecting the natural abilities of what he has created as he allows free will for his creation. In conclusion, moral evils for Aquinas are when a moral agent chooses to oppose the natural order in which God created for them.[32]
Conclusion
The focus of this post stayed on Aquinas theodicy without addressing many of his flaws for a few reasons. The first major reason is that Aquinas operates through a natural theology. If one does not accept the groundings of natural theology, they can accept aspects of Aquinas’s argument, but they probably should not focus solely on Aquinas’s arguments. The most difficult contribution to theodicy that Aquinas has is his presupposition that the natural state of things is good and anything against that is evil. Starting a fire should not be considered evil towards oxygen as it is being used to fuel a fire. A fire is something that seems amoral and not evil towards the air. This conclusion is one that Aquinas comes to because of his natural theology.
One of Aquinas’s greatest contributions to theodicy is his work explaining what evil is. To believe evil is merely the absence of good is a mistake as that makes evil purely an illusion. To make evil a substance is difficult also because that means that something exists outside of God which has some difficulties theologically. By making evil both the absence of good and the corruption of good helps add validity to the Christian argument regarding what evil is. Figuring out the existence of evil is important as many have fallen into misunderstandings regarding evil.
It would be wise for Christians to study Aquinas’s theodicy argument as it has many reliable and informative arguments. God being omnipotent and all good is important to explain how evil operates as God only wills good. Sometimes, when good is willed by God, evil occurs as an accident as God only wills good but sometimes it is the good of one thing over the other, especially regarding natural evil and good. In Aquinas’s view, God in his infinite goodness does not will evil but allows it because certain evils are natural to the created order as well as uses it to sustain and guide humans to know and love him. Even in a world filled with imperfection, we can rest in the knowledge that we serve a good God who is omnipotent as he designed us to be good.
Sources
[1] Augustin Echavarria, “Thomas Aquinas and the Modern and Contemporary Debate on Evil.” (New Blackfriars 94, no. 1054. 2013) 737
[2] Ibid, 733-34
[3] St. Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica. (Edited by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Vol. 1. 5 vols. Notre Dame: Christian Classics, 1948) 21 In order to help with finding Aquinas arguments in Summa Theologica, after the page number I will provide the part, question, and article in the following format: Pt. I, Q4, Art. 1.
[4] Ibid
[5] Aquinas, The Summa Theologica, Vol 1, 21, Pt. I, Q4, Art. 1.
[6] Ibid, 22 Pt. 1, Q4, Art. 2
[7] Aquinas, The Summa Theologica, Vol 4, 2141 Pt. III, Q23, Art. 1.
[8] Aquinas, The Summa Theologica, Vol 1, 23-24 Pt. I, Q5, Art 1
[9] Roger W. Nutt, “Divine Goodness, Predestination, and the Hypostatic Union: St. Thomas on the Temporal Realization of the Father’s Eternal Plan in the Incarnate Son.” (New Blackfriars 99, no. 1079. 2018) 84-89
[10] Aquinas, The Summa Theologica, Vol 1. 29, Pt. I, Q6, Art. 2
[11] Aquinas, The Summa Theologica, Vol 1. 29-30 Pt. I, Q6, Art 3
[12] Kyle B. Keltz, “A Thomistic Answer to the Evil-God Challenge.” (Heythrop Journal: A Bimonthly Review of Philosophy and Theology 60, no. 5. 2019) 691
[13] Glenn B. Siniscalchi, “Thomas Aquinas, Natural Evil, and ‘Outside the Church, No Salvation.’.” (Heythrop Journal: A Bimonthly Review of Philosophy and Theology 56, no. 1. 2015) 79
[14] Schumacher, Lydia. “Divine Command Theory in Early Franciscan Thought: A Response to the Autonomy Objection.” (Studies in Christian Ethics 29, no. 4. 2016) 461–76.
[15] Siniscalchi, Thomas Aquinas, Natural, 82
[16] Echavarria, Modern and Contemporary Debate, 739-740
[17] Siniscalchi, Thomas Aquinas, Natural, 77
[18] John M. Meinert, “Divine Exemplarity, Virtue, and Theodicy in Aquinas.” (Thomist: A Speculative Quarterly Review 82, no. 2 2018) 248
[19] Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Vol II, 958, Pt II, Q82, Art. 3
[20] Angus Brook, “Thomas Aquinas on the Effects of Original Sin: A Philosophical Analysis.” (Heythrop Journal: A Bimonthly Review of Philosophy and Theology 59, no. 4. 2018) 725
[21] Errin D. Clark, “Thomas Aquinas on Logic, Being, and Power, and Contemporary Problems for Divine Omnipotence.” (Sophia 56, no. 2. 2017) 255
[22] Ibid, 284
[23]Aquinas, The Summa Theologica, Vol 1, 136, Pt. 1 Q25. Art 2.
[24] Ibid
[25] Clark, Aquinas on Logic, Being, and Power, 258
[26] Ibid, 259
[27] Brain Davies, Thomas Aquinas on God and Evil. (Oxford: Oxford University, 2011) 68 – 70
[28] Aquinas, The Summa Theologica, Vol 1. Pt. I Q25. Art. 6.
[29] Aquinas, The Summa Theologica, Vol 1. 111, Pt. I. Q19. Art. 9.
[30] Antoine Cote, “Siger of Brabant and Thomas Aquinas on Divine Power and the Separability of Accidents.” (British Journal for the History of Philosophy 16, no. 4. 2008): 694
[31] Echavarria, Modern and Contemporary Debate, 747
[32] Echavarria, Modern and Contemporary Debate, 753-754