Dist. 34, Art. 1, Q. 3
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/34/q/bon-sent-II-d34-a1-q3
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### QUESTION III.
### *Whether evil is from the good according to intention, or beside intention.*

Thirdly it is asked, whether evil is from the good according to intention, or beside it. And that it is beside intention, it seems:

1. First, through Dionysius in the fourth [chapter] *On the Divine Names*: « Evil is beside intention, nature, and cause »; if [it is] *beside intention*, I have my proposition.

2. Likewise, Dionysius: « No one works while looking toward evil »; but he who works something through intention looks toward that which he intends — for intention is a certain gaze of the mind — if therefore no one working toward evil looks [at it], it seems that no one intends evil.

3. Likewise, *evil* states a disordering with respect to the end; but *intention* states the will directed toward the end: therefore evil does not fall under intention: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, every evil which is in nature is beside the intention of nature: therefore by parity of reasoning every evil which is in morals is beside the intention of the rational will.

5. Likewise, « the good and the end are the same »; but intention is with respect to the end: therefore with respect to the good: therefore it does not seem [to be] with respect to evil: therefore in no way is evil intended by the one operating through the will; therefore the same returns as before.

**On the contrary:**

1. The rational will is an agent through intention and deliberation: therefore if every evil of actual guilt is voluntary, every [such evil] is done through intention.

2. Likewise, no one sins unless having the use of reason; and everyone of this sort is one operating through intention: therefore sin, as it is sin, has being through intention.

3. Likewise, that which is done by a voluntary agent beside intention is done by chance and fortune; but the evil of guilt is not from chance and fortune: therefore it is not from the agent beside intention.

4. Likewise, no one is judged evil from the deed, but from the intention — for this is what « imposes the name on the work » — but a thing properly and principally proceeds from that from which it receives its completion and denomination: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, he who sins from malice sins from certain knowledge, and no one doing something from certain knowledge and

malice does it beside intention: therefore if it happens that evil is so done, as when one sins by the sin against the Holy Spirit; it seems etc.

### Conclusion.

> Evil, taken for that which is evil, can be intended absolutely; but evil under the character of evil cannot be intended, unless one intend it at least as at the same time a good for oneself.

**I respond:** It must be said that there are two ways of speaking of evil: either of that which is evil, or of evil under the character of evil. — When therefore it is asked whether it comes about through intention, or beside it: it must be said that if intention is compared to that which is evil, then it can well happen that evil is intended, both as an *end* and as *that which is toward the end*: as an *end*, as someone intends finally to be lustful, or vainly to glory; as *that which is toward the end*, as he intends to commit theft, so that thereby he may live voluptuously, and he intends to lie, so that he may be falsely praised.

But if intention is compared to evil under the character of evil, it can be in two ways: either so that he intend to do this as evil absolutely and evil for himself; and in this manner no one intends [it], because nothing is desired by the will except under the character of good absolutely or good for oneself. Or so that he intend this as evil absolutely, yet as a good for himself; and thus evil can be done through intention, and is done sometimes, though not by all, but by the malicious, to whom, on account of the corruption of the interior palate, evils taste like goods. — Since therefore that which is evil falls under intention, and there are some [evils] which have malice joined inseparably [to them]; and he who intends something is consequently judged to intend that which is united inseparably to it: hence it is that evil is judged and punished as something done through intention.

From these things the response to the question is plain, to which one must respond not absolutely, but by *distinguishing*. The response to the reasons adduced on both sides is also plain. — For the first reasons proceed of evil under the *character of evil*. For intention, whatever it principally considers, clothes it with the character of good and of the appetible. — Yet that reason about the likeness in nature does not hold, because nature is a determinate agent, whence it « always *intends* what is better », but it *operates* according to the laws implanted in it by God. Whence if any evil comes about there, this is beside intention; but it is not so with the deliberative will; for it does not always desire what is better.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. To the reasons to the opposite the response is plain. For they speak of evil according to *that which it is*; and thus it is well intended by the agent through the will, yet either insofar as it is considered as having the intention of good *absolutely*, or of good *as of now* or of good for the one doing it, as is the case in those who *rejoice when they have done evil*. And thus all those reasons proceed.

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