The notion of Aquinas on the nature of evil.

I. INTRODUCTION

Do evil really exist? Where does evil came from? Do God created evil in some ways?

And if God is all-powerful and good, why does suffering occur? Since evil is present in the

world, it is assumed that evil too came from God. But are we certain enough that evil really

exists or God created it also? No…

God is not the source of evil because evil is not a thing. It is an inappropriate or incorrect

use of our freewill. Freedom entered into picture since it was bestowed on us by God. And in

terms of freedom, this is a gift from God whom He cannot touch and He respects it. Evil only

exist if and only if we do things which are morally wrong and contradicts to what is good.

“Good can exist without evil, whereas evil cannot exist without good”, said Thomas

Aquinas. We can see in the book of Genesis 1:26 which states that, “and God said, Let us make

man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and

over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping

thing that creepeth upon the earth.” We are created in the image and likeness of God full of love

and goodness.

I will discuss here the very nature of evil itself. Our ordinary understanding of evil is not

that enough to supply what really evil is. Evil as we understood as the fallen spirits whom we

feared of because of their abilities and capabilities that may hurt or even put as to death but the

understanding of evil is not merely the spirits but the deeds as well. The things which we’ve

done that results to the agony of the other but the happiness of ours. The source of our

contentment but the sufferings of the others.

II. BODY

a. Is evil an entity?

What is evil? The concept of evil as what people would understood were those spirits

whom we saw like ghosts, vampires, witches, werewolves and other spirits who possessed power

and abilities which resists scientific explanation and human understanding as well. The presence

of evil in the world as what we have understood was brought by the wrong doings which we had

done in our daily lives or caused by the misuse of the freedom which was bestowed on us. But

the question is, how we could determine the real evil if there is, from our mere or simple

understanding of what evil really is. On the other hand, if there is no God and everything is

permitted, what distinguishes the truly evil from the purely good? Why is there evil? Does the

existence of God require there to be evil or vice versa? Evil seems to go beyond ordinary

badness. (Kalw, 2004)

The understanding of Taylor (2013) in defining evil is that, ‘Evil’ are those who are

unable to empathize with other people. As a result, their own needs and desires are of paramount

importance. They are selfish, self-absorbed and narcissistic. In fact, other people only have value

for them to the extent that they can help them satisfy their own desires, or to which they can

exploit them.” “Evil” has become the word we apply to perpetrators who we’re both unable and

unwilling to do anything to repair, and for whom all of our mechanisms of justice seem unequal:

it describes the limits of what malevolence we’re able to bear. In the end, it’s a word that says

more about the helplessness of the accuser than it does the transgressor (Romig, 2012). The two

authors would simply tell us that evil is not just merely spirits whom we are afraid of but even

people who are malicious and corrupt from doing things which affects the life or being a human
of the other. Meaning, the actions that we do which are not good can be the source of evil in the

world.

Davies (2003) said that, “if goodness were not an entity, nothing would be good.

Therefore, likewise, if malice is not an entity, nothing is evil. But there are evidently many evils.

Therefore malice is an entity.” But he also added that, “we can similarly understand evil in one

way as the subject that is evil, and this subject is an entity. In the second way, we can understand

evil itself, and evil so understood is the very privation of a particular good, not an entity.” Davies Commented [U1]: DAVIES!?

here presents a contradictory claims wherein we could identify if evil is really an entity. Davies

made an argument which concluded to evil as an entity however, on the other section of his book

he contradict it that evil is just a privation of a particular good that is not an entity.

St. Thomas Aquinas said that’ “to live well is to work well, to show a good activity.”

Moreover, a good cause could bring a good effect as well as an evil cause brings an evil effect

because good in itself is good indeed and evil cannot bear goodness since the main reason is evil.

When we talk about God causing evil in the world we’re not in lined to the concept of good and

evil. We cannot deny the fact that God Himself is full of goodness, therefore evil cannot be

formed by God since He doesn’t possess evil in the first place. “Directly to will evil as an end in

itself is indicative of badness, for he often said that what is good produces only what is good.

And, when it comes to creation and God’s causing of evil or badness, the approach he adopted is

simply to deny that God causes evil directly and as an end in itself” (Davies and Leftow, 2006).

When we say that evil is in consonance with the good in some sense, we are wrong. Good

and evil can be put in the context of black and white concept where black is contrary to white.

The concept of contradiction between good and evil can be proved by one of the claims of

Davies and Regan in their translated book On evil, “We say that evil is contrary to good as
regards moral matters but not as regards things of nature, since moral matters depend on the will,

and the object of the will is good or evil. And we name and specify every act by its object.

Therefore, acts of the will, when borne to evil, take on the nature and name of evil, and such evil

is in the proper sense contrary to good. And this contrariety passes from acts to habits, since acts

and habits are similar” (Davies and Regan, 2003).

Evil is not an entity. We can say that evil is conceptual being and not a real being since

evil is something in the mind and not an entity. Because when we call conceptual beings as

defined by the Merriam Webster’s Dictionary is “consisting of concepts” and so, “the very

beings that the intellect understands are good, since it is good to understand things” (Davies,

2003).

b. Is there evil in good?

Some authors would argue that good in itself develops evil. But how could an evil be

from the good? Because good in itself is good indeed and if we say goodness, we cannot see the

real presence of evil since evil is contrary to good. Aquinas states in his Summa Theologica that,

“good can exist without evil, whereas evil cannot exist without good.” Aquinas, also states that,

“evil is nothing intrinsically existing, so evil is nothing positively existing in a subject, not that

there is nothing evil in existing things as privations in subjects.”

Besides, “when people say that there is evil in an existing thing insofar as the thing is

deficient, we can understand their statement in two ways. We can understand it in one way so

that the words insofar as signify a concomitance, and then the statement is true, just as we could

say that there is white in a material substance insofar as the material substance is white. We can

understand the statement in a second way so that the words insofar as signify a consideration that
pre-exists in a subject, and the argument of the objection adopts this sense.” (Davies and Regan, Commented [U2]: So where is this quote coming from?
Who is the source of this? Remember that it is a direct
quote and yet no source is cited!
2003)

“Evil is not contrary to the good in which it is, since it is in a good that has potentiality.

And evil is a privation, and potentiality is contrary neither to privation nor to perfection but

rather underlies both,” Davies on the other hand, discussed that evil is contrary to good since

good has potentiality and potentiality causes perfection and privation, and evil per se is a

privation. Davies made a conclusion that evil is here is in consonance with the good. On the

other hand, in the same book of Davies, he answered it in connection with the actuality.

Actuality per se was installed to good and actuality here is contrary to privation which is evil.

Thus, actuality is good because of the very fact that actuality does not follow what potentiality is,

that is evil. Although actuality as such is good, it does not follow that potentiality as such is evil;

rather, the privation contrary to actuality is. And potentiality, by the very fact that it has an

ordination to actuality, has the nature of good. A subject does not cause evil, since evil is not in a

subject as a natural accident, just as potentiality does not cause privation. And again, evil has an

external cause by accident, not intrinsically. Evil is in the good that it lessens or corrupts, as in a

subject, insofar as we call potential beings good. A subject preserves accidents that by nature

inhere in it, and so evil is not in good as if by nature inhering in it. And yet there could not be

evil if good were to be completely lacking (Davies, 2003).

Davies and Regan (2003) in their translated book On evil offers us two defects in the

argument of the objection and used as an example to confirm if there is evil in good itself. First,

assuming that an end as such is good, not only is the end good, but the means ordained for the

end, by reason of that very ordination, have the nature of good. Second, assuming that some ends
are the same as forms, still it does not follow that every end is a form, since the very activity or

use of a thing is also in some cases an end.

St. Thomas taught us that evil has no autonomous reality, thus opposing the error of the

Manicheans. A natural evil in itself does not exist and cannot exist in God’s creation. Evil is

indeed non-being, but it is not negation; it is rather a lack of the good (Meyer, n.d.). Evil is the

absence of good. Meaning if there is no good evil is not present as well.

As Davies (2003) would say in the book On Evil, “evil is in good as a privation, not as if

in an entity in the positive sense. Both perfect things and those with potentiality for perfection

have the nature of good. And there is evil in the latter kind of good. The subject of privation,

although undesirable by reason of being subject to privation, is still desirable by reason of having

potentiality for perfection. And the subject is good in this respect.” This simply tell us that there Commented [U3]: If Davies, What year?

is evil in good if it is in privation but not in the entity even put in the positive perspective.

Perfection really leads to goodness and potentiality for perfection has the nature of good. The

subject of privation which is good is indeed desirable by reason of having potentiality for

perfection.

As a result, we cannot find the existence of evil in good, so evil is not in good. Evil is

only present if and only if good is absent. Although evil harms the good which has potentiality

but not to the extent that the good is taken away from that of perfection but a removal of the

privation to its contrary, the perfection.

c. Is Good the Cause of Evil?

A mango tree cannot bear a fruit of guava because they are different trees. We cannot put

two contradictory things into one because of the differences each thing possess. These things will
continue to have conflicts since these things are not in consonance with each other. In the gospel

of Mt. 7:18 says: "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit." Therefore, good cannot cause evil.

According to Davies and Regan (2003), “effects are like their cause, since every efficient

cause produces something like itself. But no likeness of evil pre-exists in good. Therefore, good

does not cause evil.” Here, Davies explain to us that in every cause the effect would be the same

or associated to the other. If the cause is good, then, the effect is also good, on the other hand, if

the cause is evil, then, the effect is evil as well. We cannot separate each things to the other since

they are interconnected.

In the book of Amos 3:6 says, "There is no evil in the city that God does not make."

Therefore, good insofar as it is deficient does not cause evil. We understand that God is full of

goodness and He cannot create an evil since He is full of good.

“People have said that good as such can cause evil but only accidentally. But the activity

of an efficient cause accidentally attains an effect; for example, the activity of a gravedigger

leads to the discovery of treasure. Therefore, if good accidentally causes evil, it follows that the

activity of the good extends to evil itself.” (Davies and Regan, 2003). The example given by

Davies conveys us that good can cause evil but accidentally. Simply, if the intention is good but

the approach to achieve this desire is evil as well as the effect was accidentally results to the

other, then, it is correspondingly equal to evil for every wrong doings done unto others leads to

evil.

What happens by accident, happens in very few cases. But as what as we observed in our

society, evil happens in most cases. As we can read in the book of Eccl. 1:15 says, "The number

of fools is infinite." Therefore, evil has an intrinsic cause and not an accidental cause (Davies

and Regan, 2003). An evil action has its respective fundamental reason why this action takes
place. It an action don’t have a core reason why this action has done, then, it could be

accidentally.

Good includes both actuality and potentiality but not causes evil, since actuality is taken

away by evil, and the good that is potentiality is related to good and evil. Therefore, nothing

good causes evil. Potentiality is either good or evil but when we talk about potentiality related to

actuality, it is good but if it is linked to privation, then it is evil.

Davies (2003) states that “the cause of evil is good in the way in which evil can have a

cause. For we should note that evil cannot have an intrinsic cause.” Some good causes evil

insofar as such good is lacking, but this is not the only way that good causes evil. Good also

causes evil in another way incidentally, not insofar as good is deficient.

In the book On Evil ( it says that “a deficient effect can proceed only from a

deficient cause. But evil is a deficient effect. Therefore its cause, if it has one, is deficient. But

everything deficient is an evil. Therefore the cause of evil can only be evil.” We cannot say that

good is the source of evil because of the claim of Augustine that, "there is no possible source

of evil except good." And in contrary to what has Aquinas has objected to Augustine’s claim,

Augustine replied that “evil has a deficient cause in voluntary things otherwise than

in natural things. For the natural agent produces the same kind of effect as it is itself, unless it is

impeded by some exterior thing; and this amounts to some defect belonging to it. Hence evil

never follows in the effect, unless some other evil pre-exists in the agent or in the matter, as was

said above. But in voluntary things the defect of the action comes from the will actually

deficient, inasmuch as it does not actually subject itself to its proper rule. This defect, however,

is not a fault, but fault follows upon it from the fact that the will acts with this defect.” (Davies

and Regan, 2003)

 But in intentional things, the cause of the evil that is sin is an evil will, and that

deficiency, as considered to sin, does not have the aspect either of moral wrong. Nor do we need

to look for another cause of this deficiency, and so we do not need to make an infinite regression.

Good in itself cannot cause evil. The deficiency of good cannot make a move that evil

can rule one’s heart but an evil will could lead us unto evil works because of the inclination to

sin which is evil. Yet, we have this action which is accidentally done by a person and results to

something bad, hence, evil develops.

d. Kinds of Evil
In this section, I will discuss the two kinds of evil and the difference between them. The

problem of natural evil is a specific form of the problem of evil, the problem of reconciling the

existence of evil with the existence of God (Holt, 2008). There are two kinds of evil in the world

and these are the moral evil and the natural evil.

d.1 Natural Evil

The natural evil in the world causes us more problems, however. This is evil in the world

that arises from what we call "natural" events, things that are the result of the way the world

operates. This would include earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, disease, birth defects, and other

aspects of our world that cause suffering and death. These create a problem for us in how we

think about God (Bratcher, 2013). The problem of natural evil is thus the problem of explaining

why God allows this latter kind of evil to occur (Holt, 2008). “As with regard to natural disasters

much of the death occurs because of what we have done and do. We built cities and rebuild them

on known fault zones” (Goyet, 2006). Natural evil occurs basically independently of human

thoughts and actions. These kind of evil is not a man-made consequences or phenomena but a
natural way of damaging people. Meaning, this kind of evil refers to the natural disasters we

experienced. Natural evil can be understand in different angle through explaining the other type

or the offshoot of the natural evil which is the physical evil.

These things happen, not because some moral agent intends harm to another person but

because they are simply “out there” in the world. They affect not just humans but other animals

as well, and, in fact, even the inanimate and inorganic features of the world. Natural evil, in the

last analysis, infects all of nature (Murphy, 2016).

d.1.a Physical Evil

This means bodily pain or mental anguish such as fear, illness, grief, and war. According

to the Catholic Dictionary Physical Evil is “privation of a natural good desired by a human

being. Absence of some satisfaction desired by a human appetite, whether spiritual or bodily. In

general, may be equated with pain. It is the loss or deprivation of what a person wants.”

Physical evil includes all that causes harm to man, whether by bodily injury, by thwarting his

natural desires, or by preventing the full development of his powers, either in the order of nature

directly, or through the various social conditions under which mankind naturally exists. Physical

evils directly due to nature are sickness, accident, death, etc. Poverty, oppression, and some

forms of disease are instances of evil arising from imperfect social organization. Mental

suffering, such as anxiety, disappointment, and remorse, and the limitation of intelligence which

prevents human beings from attaining to the full comprehension of their environment, are

congenital forms of evil; each vary in character and degree according to natural disposition and

social circumstances (Knight, 2017). Physical evil again and again is all about the actions of

human beings which in fact, other people are damaged and been affected by this kind of evil.
 d.2 Moral Evil

The moral evil usually poses no problem for us, at least on a logical level. We understand

that many bad things happen in the world because people choose to sin and that brings

consequences into our world. Those consequences of sin work out in ways that engulf innocent

people (Bratcher, 2013). The New World Encyclopedia explain moral evil as the volitionally

committed by human being, as they are understood to have free will. Moral evils are those evils

that are freely inflicted upon humankind by humankind: deceit, murder, theft, etc.; they result

from the choices of free agents (Holt, 2008). These kind of evil is simply the wrong doings of

humans against their neighbors and God. It is the willful acts of human beings. Knight (2017)

also states that, moral evil are understood the deviation of human volition from the prescriptions

of the moral order and the action which results from that deviation. Such action, when it

proceeds solely from ignorance, is not to be classed as moral evil, which is properly restricted to

the motions of will towards ends of which the conscience disapproves. The extent of moral evil

is not limited to the circumstances of life in the natural order, but includes also the sphere of

religion, by which man's welfare is affected in the supernatural order, and the precepts of which,

as depending ultimately upon the will of God, are of the strictest possible obligation.

The obligation to moral action in the natural order is, moreover, generally believed to depend on

the motives supplied by religion; and it is at least doubtful whether it is possible for

moral obligation to exist at all apart from a supernatural sanction. It is deviating from God

because of deeds which are against to the will of God. Moral evil can be understand further

through defining the type of Moral evil that is the Metaphysical evil.
 These things do not “just happen,” but they take place because people want them to

happen, allow them to happen by culpable negligence, or bring them about as collateral damage

in the process of getting what they want (Murphy, 2016).

d.2.a Metaphysical Evil

The Catholic Dictionary define metaphysical evil as anything finite just because it is

finite. It therefore lacks the complete goodness possessed by God alone. The term was used by

some philosophers to describe any limitation even though perfectly natural, as in all creatures.

But the expression is not acceptable in scholastic philosophy as a correct description of evil

because it implies there is something wrong in not being perfect.

Knight (2017) describes metaphysical evil as the limitation by one another of various

component parts of the natural world. Through this mutual limitation natural objects are for the

most part prevented from attaining to their full or ideal perfection, whether by the constant

pressure of physical condition, or by sudden catastrophes. This refers to such things as

imperfection and chance such as criminals going unpunished, deformities, and etc. (Pecorino,

n.d.)
 III. CONCLUSION

The nature of evil according to Aquinas is “nothing”. I said it nothing since evil for

Aquinas is not an entity, nor a being therefore, evil does not exist. We cannot just simply say that

evil came from good since evil is contradictory to good, just like an analogy of colors white and

black. A color white cannot produce a black color since white don’t have the component of black

as well as the black since black don’t have an element that composes the white.

When we talk about evil, it is not about spirits whom we afraid of that might hurt us but it

is a term used by most people who studied about the theodicy of evil pertaining to the

wrongdoings done by us humans. Through the abuse and misuse of freewill, we commit sins

whom we called evil in a sense.

Evil is instead often understood to be a very special moral category: it involves not just

wrongdoing, but a special kind of intentional wrongdoing in which at least the following four

features need to be present. Firstly, in order to be evil the wrongdoing must flow from a

particular kind of character. Secondly, the wrongdoing must be motivated in a particular way: it

must be a wrongdoing which is done because it is wrong. Thirdly, the agent will take pleasure in

the wrongness of the action. Finally, the agent will fail to exhibit the morally appropriate reactive

attitudes to her wrongdoing (Perrett, n.d.).

The description of evil as essentially imperfection or limitation of finite being, the

reduction of the antithesis good-evil to infinite-finite, replacing as it does a moral by a

metaphysical distinction, virtually dismisses all the moral or value-aspects of the problem

(Tsanoff, 1931).