Title: 5th October, 2006
Author: Two

5^th October, 2006
St. Thomas Aquinas
“Providence: How Evil is Caused”

Reading for This Week:
•	 “Providence:  How Evil is Caused” Aquinas, in CP p43-48
•	“Witches of Stedlingerlaud” Gregory IX, in CP p41

Reading for Nest Class:
•	Tuesday: 
•	“Impotence and Witchcraft” Aquinas in CP, p49-54

Nature of Evil:  Augustine
•	Evil, technically, is not created…it occurs.
•	Evil cannot create, but it can occur in and affect created things.
•	Things, and people, can go bad.

Will:  Augustine
•	By nature the will seeks what is best, it’s through acquired defect that we choose the wrong ends.
•	A will becomes evil willingly by failing to seek the Supreme Being and instead seeking that which has less.
•	For this the person is punished.  God does not cause our actions, but does judge them.

Preconditions for Witchcraft:
•	The Devil
•	A Witch
•	Permission of God

Implications for Witchcraft:
•	Humans have a fallen nature.
–	Knowledge of Good and Evil, we can choose.
–	Result of the moral deficiency of our ancestors.
–	Also result of mutability of our material nature
•	Women are more closely associated with the material than are men, see Genesis, Plato.
•	Evil corrupts the good, and evil like a sickness, can be cured.

Later Implications for Witchcraft:
•	Either a corruption is cured (penance) or the body that bears the corruption is destroyed.
•	If it was decided that a person was beyond the aid of redemption, that person was destroyed before the corruption could affect others.
•	Witches were burned at the stake, for everyone’s good, including their own.

On to Aquinas
First Passage: How Evil is Caused
–	Thomas’s account is broadly Augustinian.
–	Moral vice is ascribed to actions which follow from a defect in the will of the agent.
–	The defect pre-exists the act, but is not part of the nature of the will.
–	Why?

First Passage: How Evil is Caused
–	Because the nature of the will seeks what is best (God).
–	Evil is caused by good things gone bad, not as a part of their nature, but from an acquired defect.  A will can become distracted.
–	Only GOOD can cause EVIL.

Second Passage, 32, is our focus: 
•	“Does God Cause Evil?”
•	Part of a public debate on the question of what causes sins.
•	The first point of disputation is whether or not God causes sins.

The Structure of the Reading:
•	Arguments in Favour
•	“But against that…”  (On the Contrary)
•	“In Reply”  (I respond that…THIS is his thesis)
•	“Hence”  (Replies to Arguments in Favour)

It seems that, Yes, God Causes Sin
•	Arguments in Favour, Please focus on:
•	3 – Guilty Acts
•	4 – Cause of Causes
•	5 – Tendency of Powers
•	7 – Causes lie in God
•	8 – Quantity of Grace
•	9 – Deprivation of Grace

…On the Contrary:
•	Focal Question:  Does God Cause Sin?
•	It seems so...for the reasons cited.
•	But on the contrary (p291R, CP.46): authorities.
–	[Augustine] God is not responsible for men getting worse.
–	 [Fulgentius] God is not responsible for what he avenges.
–	[Wisdom] God only causes what he loves, but hates sin.

Thomas’s Reply:  No, God Doesn’t Cause Sin
•	This is his thesis:
•	People cause sin in two ways:
–	They sin themselves
–	They cause others to sin*
•	Neither is attributable to God.
–	God is not an agent of sin, but a judge.

Sin – Broad and Narrow Definitions:
•	“Sin is broadly used to mean any failure of activity, natural or designed, to reach its goal.  Such failure results from a defect in a thing’s ability to act…”(p291R, CP.46)
•	“But the meaning of sin proper to morals is of culpable failure of will to reach a due goal because it is drawn towards an unsuitable one.”(ibid.)

A Note about the ‘Due Goal’
•	Goal   (Gr: telos)
•	Greek philosophical concept denoting:
–	Purpose
–	End
–	Goal
–	Destination

Nature Versus Act - Deficiency 
•	There are natural evils (of a sort) and evil acts (of many sorts)
•	Evil acts stem from a deficiency in the will of the agent in seeking to emulate God – a matter of making the wrong choice.
•	What about a natural deficiency?

The Case of Monsters:  Ill Formed Humans
•	Monsters are ill-formed humans.
•	A monster comes to be through deficiency in its generation.
•	That deficiency can come from two sources:
–	The Matter (see p.286L, CP.44)
–	The Spirit (see p.291R, CP.46)

The Matter (see p.286L, CP.44)
“For if the matter is not disposed to receive the agent’s imprint a defect will follow in the effect, as when monsters are born because of unprepared matter:  the fact that it doesn’t transform and actualize the indisposed matter can’t be laid at the door of the agent, for agents have powers proportioned to their natures…”

The Spirit (see p.291R, CP.46)
“Sin is broadly used to mean any failure of activity, natural or designed, to reach its goal.  Such failure results from a defect in a thing’s ability to act:  in the grammatical skill of someone who makes a mistake in writing (given that he intended to write correctly), in the semen’s ability to transmit the genes when malformation of offspring occurs in nature.”

The Analogous Narrow Case - Sin
•	The defect is in a created will turning away from its proper goal.
•	Why?

The Analogous Narrow Case - Sin
•	The defect is in a created will turning away from its ultimate goal.
•	Why?
•	God does not make a will turn away from its goal because He is that goal.

Non-Augustinian View of Sin:
•	A will of a certain disposition attracts others to that disposition, and to pursue its own goals 
•	See p.292L, CP.47, ex: as when a man commands others to pursue the goal he has in mind.
•	People sin themselves, or cause others to sin by being poor examples.

END.