Dist. 34, Art. 2, Q. 2
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-a2-q2
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### QUESTION II.
### *Whether evil is in the good opposed to it.*

Secondly it is asked, whether evil or malice is in the good opposed to it. And that it is, it seems.

*Fundamenta.*

1. Augustine in the *Enchiridion*: « Since no one doubts that evils and goods are contraries, not only can they exist together, but evils altogether cannot exist apart from goods, nor except in goods ». Here it is expressly held that evils are in the goods opposed to them.

2. Likewise, Augustine: « In these contraries, which are called goods and evils, the rule of the dialecticians fails, by which they say that contraries cannot be present at once in any thing »; but it is established that it would not fail unless evils were in the goods opposed to them: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, that is called evil which corrupts; but it does not corrupt except that in which it is, and it is opposed to the good which it corrupts: therefore it seems that evil is in the good opposed to it.

4. Likewise, servitude is opposed to liberty; but sin, which makes a human a slave, is properly present in a human according to the will and the liberty of free choice: therefore it seems that evil has to be substantified in the good opposed to it.

**On the contrary:** *(To the opposite.)*

1. Dionysius in the book *On the Divine Names*: « Evil is not an existent thing nor among existing things »; but every good is of the genus of existing things: therefore evil is not in the good: therefore neither in the good opposed to it.

2. Likewise, virtue and vice are opposed, and « only one is opposed to one »: if therefore vice is not in virtue, then neither is it in the good opposed to it, nor even with it.

3. Likewise, the rule of the dialecticians is true and necessary, therefore it does not fail in any matter; for if it failed in even one matter, it would have to be rejected as false. If therefore the art says that « one opposite is not in the other nor with the other concerning the same thing », and good is opposed to evil; therefore evil is not in the good opposed to it.

4. Likewise, if evil can be in the good opposed to it, then it is not expelled from it; and if it is not expelled by its opposite, it seems that it is not expelled by anything; and if it is expelled by nothing, it always remains: therefore if anyone is once evil, he is always evil. But if this is false, what remains is also the first [proposition].

### CONCLUSION.

> Evil is substantified in good, and not only in good, but even in a good in some manner opposed to it, yet not in that which is directly and formally opposed to it.

**I respond:** For the understanding of what has been said, it must be noted that good in a creature is so called by ordination to the highest. Whence that is called good which is ordained to an end. But ordination regards three things: either the orderable [thing] itself, or that according to which it is orderable, or that by which it is ordained. *(A distinction.)* And according to this a threefold good is found in us, namely the good which is orderable, and this is the natural; and the good by which it is ordained, and this is virtue or grace; and the good according to which the nature is orderable by grace, and this is the intermediate aptitude.

It must be understood, therefore, that the evil of guilt is not opposed to that good which is the nature or substance itself, because it does not corrupt the substance itself, as Dionysius says: « Nothing of existing things is corrupted in that which is its essence or nature ». *(Evil related to its opposite in three ways.)* But to that good which is virtue and grace, it is opposed simply and directly. Whence they mutually expel one another and cannot exist together. But to that good which is the intermediate aptitude, it is in some manner opposed and in some manner not. For that intermediate aptitude has to be compared to the nature, of which it is, and to the grace, to which it is. According as it is compared to the nature, of which it is, thus it has no opposition to evil, since that aptitude, as it was of such a nature, was indifferent to good and to evil; and thus it is the subject of evil. But as it is compared to grace or virtue, or even to the end, to which it is, thus it has opposition to evil. For evil takes away from it the right ordination to that to which it is, and renders it less and less apt.

Since therefore the evil of guilt consists first and principally about the *aptitude*, and the *aptitude* of the power is opposed to evil itself, since evil renders the power itself unapt; *(The saying of Augustine explained.)* hence it is that Augustine says that evil has being in the good opposed to it; and that in oppositions of this kind the rule of the dialecticians fails — this is to say that it does not extend to such opposites. Whence from this it does not follow that the rule of the dialecticians is falsified. But since it is the custom of the Philosopher, when considerations have been set down, to subjoin instances, not such as falsify them, but such as rectify and make manifest the understanding of the considerations; *(To be noted.)* thus the blessed Augustine, as a man prudent in genius, in this instance makes manifest that that maxim of the dialecticians holds in those opposites which are opposed by formal opposition, as virtue and vice are opposed, [or] grace and guilt. But in other opposites, which are not opposed by reason of that which they *are*, but by reason of that *to which they are*, that rule is not to be understood; for those can stand together, as grace stands together with concupiscence; and again, one can be in the other, as guilt in the aptitude.

From the things which have been said, the response to the question proposed is manifest. *(Conclusion.)* For I say that evil is substantified in good, and not only in good, but even in a good in some manner opposed to it, as the reasons show which are adduced for the first part. But in the good which is *directly* and *formally* opposed to it, it has not to be substantified, as the two last reasons show which are adduced for the second part.

*(Solution of the opposing [arguments].)*

1. To that which is objected concerning the word of Dionysius, that evil is not among existing things etc.; it must be said that he speaks per se, namely that it is not among existing things, according as they are existing, but rather according as they are deficient, since it is a privation and a defect, as will now appear more clearly.

2. 3. 4. To that which is objected, that only one is opposed to one; it must be said that this is to be understood of one genus of opposition, and understanding it according to the same [respect], and speaking per se. But the aptitude of the power is not opposed to it except by reason of virtue; for virtue is directly opposed to vice; and because the natural aptitude in some manner inclines to virtue; hence it is that it is opposed to vice in some manner, although not altogether as virtue [is]; and thus the whole is clear.

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