Article 1 — Whether goodness adds something onto being

The question is on goodness. First, it is asked whether goodness adds something to being. (Parallel texts: Above: q. 1, a. 1; ST I.5.1; In I Sent., d.8, q.1, a. 3; d. 19, q. 5, a 1, ad 3; In I Sent., d. 19, q. 5, a. 1, ad 3; d. 8, q. 1, a. 3; above,* q. 1, a. 1; On the Power of God, q. 9, a. 7, ad 6; ST I.5.1.)*

Obj. 1: It seems that it does. For anything is a being according to its essence, but a creature is not good by essence but by participation. Therefore, goodness really adds something onto being.

Obj. 2: Furthermore, since goodness includes being in its definition, and yet goodness is distinguished in its definition from being, the notion of goodness must add something onto the notion of being. But we cannot say that it adds a negation onto being, as does oneness, which adds onto being the notion of undividedness, for the whole idea of goodness consists in something positive. Therefore, goodness adds something positively onto being; and thus it seems that it really adds something.

Obj. 3: However, one might say that it adds a relation to an end.

On the contrary, in this view goodness would be nothing else than relative being. But relative being pertains to one particular genus of being, which is to be toward another. Therefore, goodness is in one determinate category, which is contrary to the Philosopher in the Nicomachean Ethics, (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.6, 1096a19.) where he puts goodness in every genus.

Obj. 4: Furthermore, as can be gathered from the sayings of Dionysius in On the Divine Names, (Pseudo-Dionysius, On the Divine Names, ch. 4, para. 4 (PG 3:700A).) goodness is diffusive of itself and of being. Thus, something is good inasmuch as it is diffusive. But, to diffuse implies an activity. However, an activity proceeds from an essence by means of a power. Therefore, something is said to be good by reason of a power super-added to essence. And thus goodness really adds something to being.

Obj. 5: Furthermore, to the extent that one moves away from what is one, first, and simple, so much does one find a greater difference among things. But being and goodness are one thing in God and are distinguished according to reason. Therefore, these are more distinct among creatures than simply according to reason, and so these are really distinct, for there is only real distinction beyond the distinction of reason.

Obj. 6: Furthermore, accidental things really add something to the essence of a thing. But goodness is accidental for a creature, otherwise the creature could not lose goodness. Therefore, goodness really adds something onto being.

Obj. 7: Furthermore, anything predicated of another as informing it really adds something onto it, inasmuch as nothing is informed by itself. But goodness is predicated inasmuch as it informs, as is said in On Causes. (On Causes, comm. 18 [17].) Therefore, goodness adds something onto being.

Obj. 8: Furthermore, nothing is determined by itself. But goodness determines being. Thus, goodness adds something onto being.

Obj. 9: However, one could say that goodness determines being with regard to some notion.

On the contrary, either something corresponds to that notion within the thing, or not. If not, then it would follow that the notion is empty and futile. But if there is something in the thing which does correspond, then the conclusion follows, that goodness really adds something onto being.

Obj. 10: Furthermore, a relation is specified with regard to that toward which it is predicated. But goodness denotes a relation toward a fixed boundary, namely toward an end. Thus, goodness denotes a specific relation. But every specific being really adds something onto common being. Thus, goodness really adds something onto being.

Obj. 11: Furthermore, just as goodness and being are interchangeable, so also is man and risible. But, even though risible is interchangeable with man, it really adds something onto man, that is the property itself of manhood, which is in the genus of accidents. Therefore, goodness really adds something onto being.

On the contrary (1) is what Augustine says, that we exist because God is good, but we are good inasmuch as we exist. (Augustine, City of God, bk. 1, ch. 32 (PL 34:32).) Thus, it seems that goodness does not add something onto being.

Furthermore (2), whenever things are such that one adds onto another in reality or in reason, one of them can be understood without the other. But being cannot be understood without goodness. Therefore, goodness does not add something onto being, neither in reality nor in reason.

Proof of the minor: God can do more than man can understand. But God cannot make any being which is not good, for anything is good insofar as it is from the Good, as is clear from Boethius in the Hebdomads. (Boethius, Hebdomads, solution (PL 64:1312–13).) Therefore, the intellect cannot understand this.

I answer that it must be said that something can be added onto a being in three ways. The first way is inasmuch as it adds something which is outside the essence of the thing to which it is added, just as white adds something onto body, for the essence of whiteness is outside the essence of a body. In another, way something is said to add onto another as contracting and determining it, just as man adds something onto animal, but not such that there is something in man completely outside the essence of animal, otherwise one would have to say that not the whole of man is an animal, and instead that animal was a part of man. However, animal is contracted by man, for what the notion of man contains determinately and in act is contained in the notion of animal implicitly and, as it were, in potency. For while it is in the definition of man that he have a rational soul, it is in the definition of animal that it have a soul which is not determined to either rational or non-rational. Nevertheless, this determination by which man is said to be added onto animal is grounded in some reality. In a third way, something is said to add onto another according to reason alone, when something is in the definition of one thing which is not in the definition of another, which indeed is nothing in reality but is in reason alone, whether that to which it is said to be added is contracted or not. For blind adds something onto man, namely blindness, which is not some being in reality but only a being of reason, including privations; and man is contracted by this, for not every man is blind. But when we say "a blind mole," there is no contraction because of this addition.

However, it is not possible that something should add onto universal being in the first way, even though there can be an addition in that way to some particular being. For there is no real being existing outside the essence of universal being, even though there might be such a thing outside the essence of this being.

But, there are some things which add onto being in the second way, for being is contracted by the ten categories, each of which add something onto being, not indeed some accident or difference which is outside the essence of the being, but a determinate mode of existence, grounded in the very existence of the thing. However, goodness does not add something onto being in this way, since goodness, like being, is equally divided into the ten categories as is clear in the Ethics. (Aristotle, Ethics 1.6, 1096a19.)

Therefore, it must be that it adds nothing onto being, or that it adds something, which is in reason alone. For if it were to add something real, being would have to be contracted by the notion of goodness to some particular genus. But, since being is what first falls into the mind's concept, as Avicenna says, (Avicenna, Metaphysics, bk. 1, ch. 6.) every other name must either be a synonym for being, which cannot be said of goodness since being is not uselessly called good, or else it adds something at least with respect to reason. And so goodness, inasmuch as it does not contract being, must add something onto being which belongs to reason alone.

However, that which pertains to reason alone can be only one of two possibilities, either a negation or some relation. For every unrestricted proposition signifies something existing in reality. Therefore, oneness adds onto being, which is the first concept of the mind, that which pertains to reason alone, namely a negation. For oneness is said to be, as it were, an undivided being.

But truth and goodness are predicated positively, hence, they can only add a relation which pertains to reason alone. However, according to the Philosopher (Aristotle, Metaphysics 5.15, 1020b26; 1021a29.), a relation by which one thing is referred to another, which it does not depend upon, but this other depends upon it, is a relation of reason alone, since this relation is a certain dependence, as is clear in knowledge and the knowable or else sense and the sensible. For knowledge depends upon the knowable, but not conversely. Hence, the relation by which the knowable is referred to knowledge is of reason alone, for according to the Philosopher, knowledge is said to be related not because it itself is referred, but because another is referred to it. And this is likewise the case in all other things which relate as the measure and what is measured or as what perfects and the perfectible. Therefore, truth and goodness must add onto the idea of being the notion of that which perfects.

However, we must consider two things in any being, namely, the notion of form and the very act of existence by which it subsists in that form; and in this sense any being can be perfective in two ways: in one way with respect to the notion of the form alone. In this way the intellect that perceives the notion of being is perfected by it, but this being is not in the intellect by natural existence. Hence, this mode of perfecting adds truth onto being, for truth is in the mind, as the Philosopher says in Metaphysics (Aristotle, Metaphysics 6.4, 1027b25.) and any being is said to be true inasmuch as it is either conformed or conformable to the intellect. And thus, anyone who correctly defines truth puts the intellect in its definition. In another way, being is perfective of another not only with respect to the notion of form, but also with respect to the act of existence that it has in reality.

Goodness is perfective in this way, for it is within things, as the Philosopher says in Metaphysics. (Aristotle, Metaphysics 6.4, 1027b25.) But inasmuch as one being perfects and completes another with respect to its own act of existence, it has the notion of an end in relation to what is perfected by it; and it is for this reason that anyone who correctly defines goodness puts in its definition something that entails a relation to an end. Thus, the Philosopher says in the Ethics, (Aristotle, Ethics 1.1, 1094a3.) that they defined goodness very well, saying that goodness is what all desire.

Therefore, the being which is perfective of another as an end is called good first and principally; but something is called good secondarily which either leads to the end, inasmuch as the useful is said to be good, or else it is such as to achieve the end, as when health is said not only of the one who has health but of what makes, preserves, and signifies it.

Reply Obj. 1: To the first it must be said that since being is said unrestrictedly, but goodness adds onto this a reference to a final cause, the thing's very essence, considered without qualification, is sufficient for it to be called a being, but not sufficient for it to be called good. For just as in some kinds of cause the condition of the secondary cause depends upon that of the first, but that of the first does not depend on another, so also among final causes the secondary ends participate in the condition of the final cause from their order to that final end, but the final end has this condition in virtue of itself. It is for this reason that God's essence, which is the final end of things, suffices for God to be called good, whereas the essence of a creature is only called a good thing in relation to God from whom it has the notion of a final cause. And for this reason a creature is said to be good not by essence but by participation. For in one way the essence itself can be considered with regard to a notion of understanding as being something other than a relation to God, from whom it has the notion of final cause and to whom it is ordered as an end. But in another way the creature can be called good by essence inasmuch as the essence of the creature is never found without a relationship to the goodness of God, and this is what Boethius means in the Hebdomads. (Boethius, Hebdomads, solution (PL 64:1312–13).)

Reply Obj. 2: To the second it must be said that negation not only denotes that which belongs to reason alone, but also some relations, as has been said.

Reply Obj. 3: To the third it must be said that every real relation is in a determinate genus, but unreal relations can encompass any being.

Reply Obj. 4: To the fourth it must be said that although to diffuse seems to imply the action of an efficient cause with respect to what is proper to the word, yet if taken broadly, it can imply the condition of any cause, such as to flow into, to make, and the like. But, since goodness is said to be diffusive by definition, this diffusion should not be understood inasmuch as it implies the action of an efficient cause, but rather the condition of a final cause; and such a diffusion does not happen by means of any super-added power. However, goodness denotes the diffusion of a final cause and not that of an agent cause, both because an efficient cause, precisely as such, is not the measure and perfection of a thing, but is more its beginning, and also because an effect participates in its efficient cause with regard to the assimilation of its form alone, whereas a thing attains to the end with respect to its entire being, and in this consists the notion of goodness.

Reply Obj. 5: To the fifth it must be said that things can be really one in God in two ways. In one way they can be one only on the part of that in which they are, and not from their proper notions, like knowledge and power. For knowledge, inasmuch as it is knowledge, is not the same as power in reality, but rather from the fact that it is divine. And so, what is one thing in God is found in creatures to be different in reality.

In another way they can be one from their very definitions which are said to be really one thing in God. And in this way, since it pertains to the notion of goodness that it not differ in reality from being, goodness and being are really one thing in God; and therefore, wherever goodness and being are found, they are the same in reality.

Reply Obj. 6: To the sixth it must be said that just as being is both something essential and accidental, so also goodness is both something essential and accidental; and it loses goodness in the same way, just like substantial or accidental existence.

Reply Obj. 7–8: To the seventh it must be said that, from the previously mentioned condition, it happens that goodness is said to inform or determine being according to reason. Hence, the response to the eighth objection is clear.

Reply Obj. 9: To the ninth it must be said that something corresponds to this notion within the thing, namely a real dependence of what is for the sake of the end upon the end itself, as is also the case in other relations of reason.

Reply Obj. 10: To the tenth it must be said that even though goodness denotes some special condition, that is of an end, this condition belongs to any being whatsoever, yet without positing anything real in the being. Thus, the argument does not follow.

Reply Obj. 11: To the eleventh it must be said that even though risible is interchangeable with man, nevertheless, it adds onto man an extraneous nature that is outside the essence of man. But nothing can be added onto being in this way, as has been said.

Reply Sed Contra 1: We grant the first argument advanced in the contrary sense; that goodness really does not add something onto being.

Reply Sed Contra 2: The second argument, however, proves that neither is something added according to reason; thus, it must be said to the second that something can be understood without another in two ways: in one way according to declaration, when one thing is understood to be without another; and in this way God can make whatever the intellect is able to understand without another.

But, in such a way, being cannot be understood without goodness, such that that the intellect would understand something to be a being and not to be good. In another way, something can be understood without another according to definition, so that one thing is understood, but without another being understood with it, as animal is understood without man and all other forms: and so being can be understood without goodness.

Yet it does not follow that God can make a being without goodness, since making itself is to produce something in being.