Scotus Academicus, Tomus primus: De Deo in se subsistente

Note 1. Three kinds of goodness are customarily distinguished, namely natural, moral, and beneficence, which is also called kindness. The first is the perfection of a thing in its being, so that natural good is said of that which is perfect in itself in its kind, or to which nothing is lacking of those things that pertain to its perfection and integrity. Thus water is said to be absolutely good, because it has all its accidents and all the qualities due to it, namely color, taste, coldness, etc. But in order that something be judged good in this way, it must have three things, namely existence, the perfections due to it, and its ultimate end. The second is the conformity of human acts with the dictate of right reason: so that an act is judged morally good which is conformed to right reason and adorned with all the circumstances due to it. The third, finally, is the will's inclination to relieve the miseries of others and to bestow kindnesses. Only the former goodness will be discussed here; the others we will weigh in the following Treatise, where we will explain the characteristics and virtues of the divine will. For that will of God is good, well-pleasing, and perfect; and so it claims these three goodnesses for itself to the highest degree.

Note 2. From the Doctor, 18. q. Quodlibetica n. 3., a twofold natural goodness can still be distinguished: one indeed absolute, which he calls primary; the other respective, which he calls secondary. The first is the perfection of being, so that that is called absolutely good which is in every way perfect; and that indeed is called perfect which has everything to be desired for its completion. The second, however, is the suitability of being and its relation to that for which it is suitable. Each of these two goodnesses can again be distinguished as twofold. For the absolute is either quidditative, which is the gradual perfection of each nature, according to which one is more perfect than another, because it obtains more grades of entitative perfection: or it is purely entitative, which is the integrity and possession of all those things which naturally belong to being. Likewise the respective is again twofold: for any good thing either has a relation to that for which it is suitable, or to that which is suitable to itself. In the former way bread is said to be good for man, because it serves his nourishment: in the latter, it is said to be good for itself, because it has a taste suitable to itself.

Note 3. For the notion of natural good, it is required not only that it be perfect in itself, but also that it be diffusive of itself and perfective of others, and communicate itself to others. But something can be perfective of another in three ways, namely either after the manner of an efficient cause, by communicating to another a participation in its perfection and goodness: or after the manner of an exemplary cause, by forming something to its own image and conformity: or finally after the manner of a final cause, by drawing its appetite to the attainment of itself, and perfectly satiating and quieting it. These things being premised, three things are to be resolved in the present Question: first, whether the supreme entitative absolute goodness belongs to God: second, whether respective goodness, both quidditative and entitative, is suited to Him: third, what the difference is between the goodness of God and that of creatures: each of which is to be resolved in the three following Conclusions.

First conclusion. — That God is good with absolute entitative goodness is fully evident to all who have some notion of the Divinity.

This not only the holy Fathers, but also the pagan philosophers acknowledge, as Synesius elegantly indicates in the Oration de regno: all peoples everywhere on earth, both the wise and the unlearned, proclaim that God is good; and all profess this with mutual consent and with one voice: although in what pertains to other matters they differ in their various opinions about God, and divide His incorrupt and individual nature by the diversity of their opinions. Hence St. Dionysius, 4. cap. lib. De Divinis Nominibus, says: the appellation of good is wont to be attributed by the theologians, in a certain excellent manner, to the divine goodness hidden from all; so much so that the very existence of the divine principate is called goodness, as if to say that the names of God and of good are as it were synonyms, and that each properly expresses the Divinity. Christ the Lord Himself confirmed this very thing; for when He had been addressed by someone with these words, Good Master, Lucae 18., He answered thus: Why callest thou me good? None is good but God alone, as if to say, says August. in Psalmum 117.: If you wish to call me good, understand God also. Hence St. Leo rightly says: God, whose nature is goodness, and whose work is mercy. Tertullian likewise elegantly expresses this, lib. 1. contra Marcionem, saying, God is to be judged by goodness alone, as if to say that the divine goodness is the census and treasure of the whole Divinity, according to that saying of the Apostle: God, who is rich in mercy.

That this absolute divine goodness belongs to God is proved by reason. That absolute goodness consists in the integrity and perfection of a thing: but God is infinitely and on every side perfect: therefore He is also absolutely good. The major is evident from the second Note. St. Dionysius proves the minor, c. 13. De Divinis Nominibus, where he chiefly brings forward three reasons why God is called perfect: First, because He is αὐτοτελής, that is, perfect of Himself, and is not from any efficient or formal cause, but from His own most simple essence: whence His perfection does not arise from the accumulation of many things, as the perfection of creatures does, but from one most simple thing, which He Himself is. Second, because He is ὑπερτελής, that is, superperfect, superexcellent, and far exceeding every conceivable perfection: for nothing so great, so excellent, and so distinguished can be thought by a created mind, but that God is infinitely more excellent and superior, because His divine goodness and perfection can neither be increased nor diminished: whence St. Fulgentius, in the book De Fide ad Petrum c. 3.: God is not only supremely good, but is also the supreme and unchangeable good, because He is an eternal good, having no defect, because He was not made out of nothing: having no increase, because He has no beginning. Third, because He is superfull of all goods, so that, like an inexhaustible fountain, He may abound and overflow with a perpetual and unceasing outpouring of gifts upon all creatures, as St. Dionysius says, Overflowing with one unceasing and the same and superfull and undiminished outpouring, by which He perfectly perfects all things and fills each one full with a perfection suitable to it, according to that saying of Psalmi 103.: When thou openest thy hand, all things shall be filled with goodness; but when thou turnest away thy face, they shall be troubled.

From all of which it is abundantly evident that God is good with absolute goodness, since He is in Himself most perfect, and contains absolutely all conceivable perfections, either formally or eminently.

Second conclusion. — God is also good with respective goodness, or that of suitability: not indeed quidditative, but entitative.

The first part is evident; for God does not have various grades of perfection, according to which He could properly be said to be more perfect than other things that agree with Him in the same kind of perfection, and so He does not have quidditative and gradual perfection and goodness; unless perhaps you wish Him to be called quidditatively perfect, inasmuch as His divine quiddity and essence infinitely exceeds in perfection whatever grades of excellence and perfection are to be found in creatures. For in this way God could truly be called quidditatively perfect. But in this difficulty the whole dispute turns on the name, and therefore you may embrace whichever side you wish.

The second part is proved. For God not only has a perfection most suitable to Himself and necessarily lovable by Himself, but He is also good in general to all creatures, as their cause and end: and further, He is specially good and suitable to the just as a friend, to the blessed as the supreme good and eternal happiness, to the virtuous as the exemplar of all justice and holiness, to the penitent as the author of remission and of grace, according to that saying of Threnorum 3.: The Lord is good to them that hope in him, to the soul that seeketh him. And Psalmo 72.: How good is God to Israel, to them that are of a right heart!

Third conclusion. — God is supremely good with the goodness of an efficient cause.

Not only because all the things that He made are good, according to that saying of Genesis cap. 1.¹: God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good: but also because His divine goodness is the regulator and principle of all things whatsoever, as Plato elegantly explains in the Timaeus: let us seek, then, he says, the cause which impelled him who fashioned these things to seek the origin of things and a new undertaking: he excelled, namely, in goodness. With him Hierocles agrees in the aurea carmina of Pythagoras, saying: no other cause of the undertaking of all things, agreeable to reason, lies beneath it except the goodness of the substance; for whatever other causes besides goodness are brought forward for the fashioning of this universe suit human affections rather than God. St. Dionysius commends this same thing with a celebrated similitude, lib. De Divinis Nominibus, cap. 1.: just as, he says, the sun, led by no knowledge or choice, but by the sole fact that it is, illumines all things which can, according to their own notion, participate in light: so the good itself, which is above the sun, holds the excellent notion of the archetype, as it were a shadowed image only, and by its very existence sends forth to all things that exist, in a certain proportion, the rays of the whole of goodness. With him August. agrees, lib. 11. De Civit. c. 21.: If we ask, he says, who made the light: it is God. If by what He made it: He said, let it be made, and it was made. If why He made it: because it is good. Nor is there an author more excellent than God, nor an art more efficacious than the Word of God, nor a cause better than that good should be created by a good God. Plato also calls this the most just cause of founding the world, that good works should be made by a good God. Finally, Tertullian elegantly commends this very reason, lib. 2. adversus Marcionem cap. 63., where, inquiring into the reason for the establishment of the world, The first, he says, is the goodness of the Creator, by which God did not will to lie hidden forever; that is, He willed that there be something by which He might be known; he adds: and He committed the same to His supreme goodness as the negotiatrix of the good that was to appear: not certainly a sudden goodness, nor an adventitious one, nor one provoked by animation, as if it were to be esteemed from the time when it began to work.

Moreover, the divine goodness was not only the regulator of the creation of the world, but it is also its conservator and propagator. For out of goodness it preserves not only the creatures that serve it, but even the demons who rebel against it, as St. Augustine clearly shows in the Enchiridio cap. 27.: Certainly, he says, we see that the goodness of the Creator does not cease to supply to the evil Angels even life and living power, which supply, if it were taken away, they would perish: and to form the seeds of men, although born of a vitiated and condemned progeny, and to animate them, and to order their members through the ages of time, to quicken their senses through the spaces of places, to grant nourishment. Christ the Lord certainly commended this openly, Matth. 5., where, showing that God most abundantly bestows His goods not only on the good, but also on the impious and the wicked, He says: He maketh his sun to rise upon the good and the bad: and raineth upon the just and the unjust.

Nor does it commend this divine goodness little, that God bestows His benefits of His own accord, with no praise and glory even expected, as St. John Chrysostom elegantly indicates, Hom. 3. in Epist. ad Philemonem: God, he says, having need of nothing that is in our power, created us. But that He had need of nothing, He showed in that which He did afterwards. For if He had had need, He would have created us long ago. But if He was without us, and we were made in later times, He certainly did not make us out of need of us. To which St. Hilary most elegantly agrees, in Psalmum 2.:

God requires of us, he says, no service but that of innocence, Religion, and Faith. He demands that we love Him: not that He Himself receives any fruit of our love for Him for His own sake, but rather that by that very love we, who will love Him, may profit for the future. For He seeks to be loved by us and to be served by us for this reason, that it may be well with us: that we may be judged worthy of the gift of His beatitude and of His goodness through the merit of our love and service. But the use of goodness, like the splendor of the Sun, like the light of fire, and the odor of juice, profits not the one who provides it, but the one who uses it.

Finally, it is no small commendation of the supreme goodness of God that, as Guillelmus Parisiensis says in the Rhetorica divina cap. 31., his illustrious goodness bestows all things, not only liberally, but also willingly... for nothing more pleasing can be offered to him by us than prayer perfect in all its modes. The cause of this, moreover, is his most abundant goodness itself, by which he seeks in us occasions of always having mercy on us and of doing good to us: for it pleases him to give for this very reason, that he created all things for this. For he willed to have both that which he would give and those to whom he would give it. But he specially created the Angels and men in the end, that he might give himself to them: for which reason he also created them such that they would be capable of him. He adds, moreover, that for this reason humility also is most pleasing in the sight of the Creator, because it always furnishes him occasions of giving and of having mercy at the same time. Finally, in the last place, How great and what kind of good God is, says St. Prosper, is evidently shown even from this, that it is not well with anyone who departs from Him. Or as August. says, lib. 12. De Civit. c. 1.:

Because the cause of blessedness is to adhere to God, while the cause of misery, on the contrary, is to be understood to be not adhering to God: wherefore, if when it is asked why those are blessed, it is rightly answered, because they adhere to God: and also, when it is asked why these are miserable, it is rightly answered, because they do not cohere to God: there is no good of a rational or intellectual creature by which it may be blessed, except God.

etc., as the Royal Psalmist says: For me, to adhere to God is good.