Scholastica commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologicae

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE.

FIRST conclusion: Good and being are the same in reality, but they differ only in account. The reason of the first part of the conclusion is thus gathered by Cajetan: because good has the account of the desirable, therefore of the perfect, therefore of being in act, therefore of being: therefore good and being are the same. The second part is proved, because good expresses the account of the desirable, which being does not expressly express; therefore.

Second conclusion, in the solution to the first: Each thing is said to be being without qualification through its substantial to-be: but through superadded acts something is said to be in a qualified sense.

Third conclusion, in the same place: Good stands in the opposite way; for good is said in a qualified sense according to the to-be which is substantial; but according to the final act it is said to be good without qualification.

COMMENTARY.

FOR the understanding of this doctrine, note from St. Thomas, De Veritate, q. 1, art. 1, that nothing can be added to being which is, as it were, an extraneous nature, as a difference is added to a genus and an accident to a subject. The reason for this is that what the intellect first conceives, as most known, is being, as Avicenna says, book 2 of his Metaphysics; but every nature is essentially being; for from this Aristotle proves, 3 Meta., text 10, that being cannot be a genus: namely because it is essentially intrinsic to every difference; therefore no nature, and no difference, can be added to being as something extraneous.

Note, second, that nevertheless certain things are said to add upon being insofar as they express its intrinsic mode, which is not expressed by the name of being; and this happens in two ways. In one way, so that the mode expressed be a special mode of being not common to every being: and thus the ten genera of things are taken, as for example substance expresses a special mode of being, namely being through itself, that is, not in a subject. In the other way, so that the mode expressed be generally consequent upon every being; and thus the six transcendentals are distinguished, namely: being, which is taken from the act of being; thing, which expresses the quiddity or essence of being; one, which expresses the negation of division in itself; something, which expresses division from another; good, which expresses the suitability of being to appetite; true, which expresses the suitability of being to the intellect.

Note, third, that of distinction of reason, one is a distinction of reasoning reason, or, as others say, of signifying or conceiving reason; the other is of reasoned reason, or of signified and conceived reason. The former distinction is between extremes which are not, setting aside the operation of the intellect: as is the distinction of reason between genus and species, if they be taken formally as importing second intentions. The latter distinction is between those which are the same on the side of the thing, and are in things, setting aside the operation of the intellect: by this distinction the six transcendentals aforesaid are distinguished. For they are not beings of reason, but real properties of being, although they are not distinguished really, but in order to our reason. Other doctors are accustomed to explain these distinctions of reasoning and reasoned reason otherwise; so, clearly, that the distinction of reasoning reason belongs even to real extremes, but not having in themselves any composition. And thus they say that the divine attributes are distinguished by reasoning reason alone; because on the side of the thing no foundation of distinction is found, since God is a single most simple perfection. But the distinction of reasoned reason they say is between those which have some composition, at least metaphysical, as man and animal are distinguished by reasoned reason; because the account of animal is taken from one source, and the account of the difference, which is rational, from another. For the difference does not essentially include the genus, otherwise it would not contract it to a species. These doctors therefore say that good in creatures is distinguished by reasoned reason from being; but in divine things it is distinguished in the first way, namely by reasoning reason. To us, however, that former explanation is more pleasing: for I think that the divine attributes are distinguished by reasoned reason: for it suffices for this distinction that there be a foundation in the thing, which on account of its infinite perfection can truly and really ground distinct concepts in our intellect.

IT IS DOUBTED now whether good is distinguished from being by this, that it formally expresses the relation of the desirable to the appetite.

It is argued, first, for the affirmative side, from what St. Thomas says in the article, that the account of good consists in this, that something be desirable: but the desirable formally expresses a relation to the appetite; therefore good formally expresses a relation to the appetite.

Second. Evil formally imports an unsuitability, or privation of suitability, to the appetite; therefore good formally expresses suitability to the appetite, and consequently a relation. The consequence is proved, because good and evil are opposites; therefore if one is formally relative, or expresses the privation of a relation, it is necessary that the other be relative.

It is argued, third. The same thing is called good and evil with respect to different things; therefore good and evil are said relatively. The antecedent is plain in the motion of the heating of water: for heat is evil with respect to the form of water, and good with respect to the form to be generated. The consequence is proved, because it is proper to relatively opposed things that they can be verified of the same thing with respect to different things.

On this difficulty see Durandus, in 2, dist. 34, q. 1, where he holds a special opinion against the Thomists. For he says that goodness is formally the very suitability to the appetite, so that goodness contracts entity to the subjective part, which is a relation, nay to such a relation, which is suitability. Hence he infers, first, that not every entity is goodness, although every goodness is a certain entity, which is respective. Second he infers that good in the concrete is convertible with being not essentially, but denominatively, because every being is the subject or foundation of such a relation. But the opposite opinion is the common and true one, which consists in two conclusions.

First conclusion: Good does not formally signify a relation to the appetite. It is proved, first. Good formally imports perfection, but a relation, as a relation, is not a perfection; therefore. Second it is proved. God is supremely good; but He is not good formally through a relation; therefore. The minor is proved, because He is not good through a real relation, nor through a relation of reason; therefore through none. The antecedent is proved, because in God no real relation is posited except one that is constitutive or that distinguishes the persons; but the goodness of God is not of this sort; therefore there is no real relation of goodness in God. But that it is not a relation of reason is plain: because otherwise the goodness of God would not be real; whereas it is God Himself. Third it is proved. Because every motion and propensity of all things is through itself toward the good; but toward a relation there is no motion through itself; therefore good is not formally a relation. Fourth it is proved. Good transcendentally is common to all the categories; but a relation formally is not common to all the categories; therefore good does not formally express a relation. Finally it is proved: every relation of an object to a power, whose act is measured by the object, is a relation of reason; therefore if good formally expresses a relation to the appetite, it follows that the account of good is a relation of reason, speaking universally. The antecedent is proved inductively in all the objects of the senses, and the account is the same as of knowledge and the knowable: for because the knowable is the measure of knowledge, it is not referred by a real relation to it; but on the contrary knowledge is really referred to the knowable; therefore if good, which is the object of the appetite, is its measure, it does not express a real relation to the appetite.

Second conclusion: Good formally imports absolute perfection, to which nevertheless the account of the desirable and the order to the appetite follow, just as the risible follows from the rational. The first part is proved from the preceding conclusion: for if good does not formally import a relation, therefore something absolute. The second part is proved from the manner of speaking of the wise: because something is said to be desirable for the reason that it is good, and not therefore good because it is desirable. Second it is proved: good is the formal object of the appetite through itself, moving and terminating it; but the desirable imports an extrinsic denomination which follows from the order of the appetite to the good itself; therefore the account of good is absolute and prior to the account of the desirable. It is confirmed, because the colored and the visible stand in relation to sight just as good and the desirable stand in relation to the appetite: but the colored is the object through itself and absolute with respect to sight, while the visible is an extrinsic denomination of the colored, which follows from the order of sight to the colored; therefore the desirable is proportionally related to good as the visible to the colored. Third it is proved: all objects of the powers are prior to the powers; therefore the denomination of the objects, which is taken from the powers, is posterior to the account of the objects. The antecedent is plain inductively in the objects of the senses: likewise because the objects are the measure of the powers and the end, but the measure is prior to the measured, and the end is prior to that which is for the end; therefore.

TO the arguments on the opposite side it is answered. To the first we say, with Cajetan, that the desirable can be taken in two ways: in one way as it formally expresses the account of the desirable; in the other way as it fundamentally and radically imports it, as the proximate foundation of desirability; (I said proximate, since being also imports the foundation and root of desirability, but as it were remotely and not expressly; good, however, proximately and expressly imports such a foundation of desirability). In this second way, then, it is verified that the account of good is the intrinsic account of the desirable. For since the differences of things lie hidden from us, we often use the names of their proper properties to signify the differences as the foundations of such properties: as we say, a horse is an animal able to neigh.

To the second it is answered that evil in common imports the privation of the foundation of desirability and does not formally express a relation, nor the privation of a relation.

To the third it is answered: I grant the antecedent, and I deny the consequence. To the proof: I deny that it is proper to relatively opposed things that they alone be said of the same thing with respect to different things; but it also belongs to contraries in their own way, for example some body is hot with respect to one thing, and cold with respect to another. Likewise something is large with respect to one thing, and small with respect to another. It is true, nevertheless, that whenever properties of this kind are found in opposites, either they are relative opposites, or certainly some relation is joined to them, at least that respect to different things. Concerning the second and third conclusions, in the solution to the first, it is greatly to be observed of how great a difference the mere distinction of reason between certain extremes is the cause, when there intervenes some composition of the other extreme joined with those which differ only in reason: for example, in divine things, the Father and the Essence differ only in reason; and yet of the Father it is verified that He generates, but to assert this of the Essence is heretical. Nay, it even happens that things which differ only in reason are not predicated of each other: for example, in the example given, "the Essence generates" is false; and yet the predicate and the subject differ only in reason. Likewise this is false, "generation is spiration" or "to generate is to breathe"; and yet the extremes differ only in reason: and yet this is true, "the Generator is the Spirator". The reason for this is not the mere distinction of reason between the extremes (which never alone suffices to falsify an affirmative proposition, otherwise that one would be false, "the Generator is the Spirator", and this one, "man is a rational animal"); but because it happens that the composition is such that a new signification of the whole enunciation arises on account of some logical, or even grammatical, property, which makes a varied sense in the composition of certain terms: as for example that one is false, "generation is spiration", because a formal sense is effected on account of the mode of signifying of the extremes; for they signify action in the abstract, and there results a sense equivalent to this, that generation is terminated at the same term at which spiration is; and consequently, the generated would be the spirated, which is heretical. Likewise also, because the Essence does not signify a supposit, this is false, "the Essence generates", in that the adjective applies the formal signification to the formal and immediate significate of the substantive, which renders a supposit to the Verb, and there results the sense that the Essence generates something distinct from itself in nature: but of this we shall speak more fully in the matter of the Trinity. Meanwhile, however, in the proposed and present matter note that, although good and being differ only in reason: yet when there is added this sort of thing, namely "in a qualified sense" or "without qualification", good and being do not stand in the same way, on account of the reason of St. Thomas in the solution to the first. Finally, for the understanding of the doctrine of St. Thomas, in the solution to the first, where he says that being expresses something properly to be in act, note that being is taken in two ways. In one way, as it is the participle of the verb "I am, you are, I was", and then it has as much force as "existing". In another way it is taken nominally, as it signifies the essences of things with an intrinsic order to to-be itself, whether they be in act or in potency; and in this way being is divided into the ten predicaments, and is the most essential transcendental predicate, belonging intimately to each thing. Nevertheless, because being taken particularly imports the act of being: therefore St. Thomas, from the signification of being taken particularly, explains how being, taken nominally, is called simply being, namely that which has an immediate order to to-be, through which a thing is led out from potency into the first act, which is called substantial to-be, because it is received in a substance which is not in a subject, but subsists through itself.