Dist. 46, Art. 1, Q. 5
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/1/d/46/q/bon-sent-I-d46-a1-q5
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### Question V. *Whether evil is orderable by the will of God.*

Fifthly it is asked whether evil is orderable by the will of God. And that it is, appears thus:

1. Because on that [verse] of the Psalm: *Lord my God, in thee have I hoped*, the Gloss [says]: « He who sees the merits of souls so ordered by God, that the beauty of the universe is in no part violated, praises God in all things » — distinguishing that God made one thing and ordered [it], namely the universe-good, and another he did not make but ordered, namely evil.

2. Likewise, Augustine in the *Enchiridion*: « Evil, well ordered and placed in its own location, more eminently commends the good ».

3. Likewise, by *reason* it appears [so], because every merit is ordered to a reward or recompense; but evil deserves punishment, just as good [deserves] glory: therefore, since the good of grace is orderable, by parallel reasoning [so is] the evil of fault.

4. Likewise, sinners are ordered in [their] punishments; but « on account of which each thing [is such], that [is so] more so »; but the evil are not ordered to punishments except on account of evils: therefore evil all the more is orderable.

5. Likewise, everything which augments the beauty in an ordered thing is itself ordered; but evil augments the beauty in the universe, which is ordered: therefore etc. Proof of the minor: Augustine in the eleventh [book] *On the City of God*: « Just as a picture is more beautiful with a black color placed in its own location, so the universe of things is beautiful [together] with sinners ».

**On the contrary:**

1. Augustine: « Evil is the privation of mode, species, and order »; but no privation participates [in] that of which it is the privation: therefore if evil, by the very fact that it is evil, deprives [of] order, evil cannot happen to be ordered.

2. Likewise, what is not, is not orderable, for order presupposes being; but « evil, by the fact that it is evil, is nothing »: therefore [it] is not orderable.

3. Likewise, everything orderable is possible to the one ordering; but evil is not possible to God, since God cannot do evil: therefore [it] is not orderable by God.

4. Likewise, if evil is orderable, [it is so] either by an order of parts toward a whole, or *toward an end*. Not in the first way,

since evil is the part of nothing; if in the second way: then since the good is something from an order *toward an end*, then evil would become good.

### Conclusion.

> **Conclusion.** Evil is orderable by God according to the order of justice, not as something receptive of order in itself, but as dispositive and ostensive of this order.

**I respond:** For the understanding of the foregoing it must be noted that just as something is said to be *healthy* in three ways: either subjectively, as an animal is called healthy; or dispositively, as a draught is called healthy; or ostensively, as urine [is called] healthy — so something [is called] *ordered* in three ways: either as receptive of order, or as dispositive [of order], or as ostensive [of order].

As *receptive*, nothing is orderable except what is a being and some [kind of] nature; and so evil is not orderable except per accidens, namely through the underlying good.

As *dispositive*, evil is orderable, but not as a disposition *positing* [something], but [as one] *privating*. For order is twofold, namely of *nature* and of *justice*. The order of nature is instituted, the order of justice is acquired. But evil deprives [of] the order of a particular nature, and by depriving [of] it falls into the order of justice, because it offends; whence the ground of ordering as a disposition in the order of justice is merit or demerit.

As *ostensive*, evil is orderable and ordered, because it manifests the order of goods through [its] opposite; « for opposites placed next to each other shine forth the more ».

The reasonings, therefore, which prove that evil is ordered proceed according to the order of *justice* and according to *disposition* and *ostension*.

*Ad 1.* To that, however, which is objected — that evil is the privation of order: it must be said that [this] is true of *particular nature*, but is not true insofar as order names the disposition of *universal providence*, of which Boethius says: « Order encompasses all things, by which it comes about that if anyone departs from the ordering-ground assigned to him, it is necessary that he fall back into another difference ». An example is given in [the case of] a circumference encompassing a center.

*Ad 2.* To that which is objected — being ordered presupposes being: it must be said that [this] is true of that which is ordered *per se* and *in se*; but evil is not ordered per se nor in itself, and therefore it is not necessary that it itself be, but it suffices that another be, in which evil is substantified: and this is the good, as Dionysius says.

*Ad 3.* To that which is objected — that the orderable is possible to the one ordering: it must be said that to be possible or to lie under the divine power is twofold: either [under] the power *producing*, or [the power] *providing*; and although evil does not lie under the divine *production*, yet it does lie under [divine] *provision*.

*Ad 4.* To that which is objected, by what kind of ordering [evil] is orderable: it must be said, by an ordering toward an end; but this only after the fact. And therefore it does not follow that evil is good, but that good follows from it. — Yet it can also be said that, although evil is not a part, nevertheless that in which it [exists] is a part and holds the place and order of a part.