Dist. 3, Part 2, Art. 1, Q. 1
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/2/d/3/q/bon-sent-II-d3-p2-a1-q1
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### Article I. *On the quality which the angel had in its creation.*

### Question I. *Whether God made the angel evil.*

That God made it evil, seems [so]:

1. By the *authorities* which the Master adduces in the text. It seems also by *reasons*, because the opposition of evil to good adorns the universe, and contributes to the salvation and glory of the Blessed. Since therefore God could [contribute] to every adornment and to everything which is useful to the salvation of the elect, and again to make it [evil] is fitting; it seems that God made not only good angels, but also evil [ones] and the head of the evil, namely Lucifer himself. And this is what seems to be said in Ecclesiasticus the thirty-third: « Against evil [is] good, and against death life, and against the just man the sinner: and so look upon all the works of the Most High ».

2. Likewise, this seems [so] from order. Between the nature which is apt and born to have justice and has [it], and  between the nature which is not apt and born to have [it] nor has [it], there falls that middle nature which is apt and born to have and does not have justice; but God can make the extremes and it befits Him to make [them]: therefore by parity of reason He can and it befits Him to make the middle [one]: therefore it befits God to make the nature which is apt and born to have justice, and not having [it]. But such is the evil nature, namely the evil rational creature: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, this same [thing] seems [so] *from a likeness.* Just as the rational nature is evil which does not have the justice for which it is born, so [is] the irrational creature — whence a dog, since it is born for barking, if it does not have barking, is bad — therefore since God can make creatures deficient in the operations for which they are born, as for instance a non-barking dog and a blind eye, by parity of reason He can make a will lacking justice. *If you say* that it is not alike, because the rational creature is immediately ordered to God, not so the irrational; *it is objected* then further, that our intellect is immediately ordered to God. But God can make an intellect lacking the knowledge which it [is born for] or ought to have, namely an ignorant [one]; as Augustine says in the third book *On Free Choice*, that if God had made such a man before sin as he now is, no one could from this accuse [Him].

4. Likewise, this same [thing] seems [so] *from the lesser.* Matter depends more on the perfective form and is more imperfect in the genus of creatures or beings, than the rational nature [would be made imperfect] by [the lack of] justice — but this is manifest, because matter without form is a being altogether *incomplete* — but the rational creature without justice has in a certain way a *complete being.* Since therefore God made unformed matter, at least without the distinction of forms, as many Saints say: therefore by parity of reason He could make an angel without the justice which it ought to have. But Anselm says, « that evil is nothing other than the privation of a good, where it ought to be »: therefore it seems etc.

**On the contrary:** 1. Genesis the first: *God saw all the [things] which He had made, and they were very good*: therefore, since [things] very good presuppose good, all the [things] which God made were good: therefore nothing [was] evil.

2. Likewise, Dionysius: « It belongs to the best to bring forth the best [things] »: therefore if God is the best, He cannot then produce evil, so that He make malice in it. And in the same book *On the Divine Names* he says, « that just as from the hot nothing goes forth but the hot, so neither from the highest good [anything] but good ».

3. Likewise, everything which God implanted in each thing from its making is natural to it: therefore if God had made the angel evil, malice would be natural to it. But for natural [things] no one is to be blamed, no one to be punished: therefore neither would the devil be [one] to be blamed nor punished.

4. Likewise, if some committed fault makes someone deserving of punishment, it makes the agent deserving more than another: if therefore the devil on account of its malice is deserving of punishment, [then] if God had made it evil, God would be more deserving of punishment than the devil; but this is most absurd: therefore etc.

### Conclusion

> It is false and impossible that God made the angel originally evil.

**I respond:** To posit that the devil had from God originally an innate malice of will is not only false, but rather heretical; and it is false [in such a way] that it has in itself the evidence of its falsity, if anyone attend.

For the work of God, by the very fact that it is the work of God, must necessarily itself be *laudable, orderable, acceptable, perfect* or perfectible.

For God makes nothing which does not befit His majesty. If therefore [He is] *a great Lord and exceedingly laudable*, and so laudable that not only *in Himself*, but also in *no work* can He justly be blamed, but rather worthily praised in all: it is impossible that He make a blameworthy work, so far as is from the author Himself. But evil, by the very fact that it is evil of fault, is worthy of blame: therefore it is impossible that any creature have this condition from Him. And *again*, not only is evil worthy of blame, but rather it is in a certain way unto the blame of God. If therefore God made an evil creature, He would make for Himself blame and contumely.

It must necessarily also be *orderable*, because He makes nothing except what befits His *wisdom*; but nothing which God makes is orderable in *punishment*, because then God would destroy His own works, and thus would constitute Himself a transgressor. « For God is the avenger of that thing of which He is not the author ». Therefore if God makes an evil creature by evil of *fault*, it will then be orderable; and not in *punishment*: therefore the evil of *fault* would remain unavenged or unpunished, the order of the universe being preserved. But this is impossible in itself, because then evil would be good in itself, if it were ordered otherwise: therefore if God made an evil creature, the creature would not be evil.

It must necessarily also be *acceptable.* For God makes nothing except what He *wills*; but everything which God wills, He wills with a just and good will: therefore since everything which a just and equitable will approves is acceptable to all, [then] if God made evil, evil would be acceptable to all: therefore *to accept evil* would be good, and by parity of reason also *to make* [it]: therefore evil would be good.

It must necessarily also be that everything which God makes is *perfect* or perfectible, since *the works of God are perfect*. Therefore everything which is in the work of God from God either is of perfection, or inclines to perfection. If therefore malice is from God in the rational creature, then either it is of the angel's perfection, or it disposes to perfection; but nothing such disorders: therefore the evil would not disorder, and if it did not disorder, it would not harm: therefore the evil would be something and would not harm.

Since therefore here there are four manifest incompossibles, it is manifest that it is false and impossible that God made the angel originally evil. And this impossibility comes from the highest perfection and nobility of the agent and the vileness of the evil of fault: for it deprives [it of] those four noble conditions which must necessarily be in every divine work, not because God is bound to give them to His work, but because it does not *befit* His will to operate or make otherwise.

1. To that therefore which is objected, that it contributes to adornment; I say that there is a *production* of the evil, and an *ordering* of the produced. The production of evil befouls and disfigures, so far as is of itself, but the *ordering* adorns. And since God cannot befoul, but [can] adorn; therefore He could not *produce*, but [could] *order* according to antithesis. And according to this Ecclesiasticus understands: *Against good [is] evil*, not because God *made* [it], but because what He found made in His works He *ordered.*

2. To that which is objected concerning the nature which is born to have justice etc.; it must be said that when I say *a nature deprived of justice*, I say two [things], namely that it *is a nature*, and that it is *deprived.* Insofar as [it is] *a nature*, it holds the middle and the argument follows; but insofar as [it is] *deprived*, it does not hold the middle, but rather the lowest place, but rather the privation itself [holds] no [place], so far as is of itself, because it is nothing. And therefore it does not hold that He made it deprived. *And if you object* that a greater privation is to have neither *act* nor *aptitude*, than to have *aptitude* and not *act*; it must be said that the privation is greater, if privation be taken broadly; but yet that [one] is deformed, this [one] is not. Whence when I say: wood does not see, I state a negation, but not a deformity; when I say: a man does not see, I state both. And so that is plain.

3. 4. To that which is objected *from a likeness* in other natures, and *from the lesser* in matter itself; I say that there is no place there *from a likeness* nor *from the lesser*, if it be well considered. For the evil of fault implies disorder or privation of order otherwise than the evil of nature or of punishment, because, as was said in the forty-seventh distinction of the first book, the evil of *fault* states a disorder or privation of the *principal* order, which namely is [the order] of the image to God immediately; but the evil of *nature* or of *punishment* [states] a disorder of an order not principal, but particular. And hence it is that God, the becomingness of His goodness and wisdom being preserved, can make a thing evil with the evil of *punishment*, or by a defect of nature, [a thing] not so deprived of the order of justice on that side by which it proceeds from the very disposition of the divine wisdom. Whence it does not follow: God can make a man blind: therefore He can make [him] iniquitous.