Dist. 41, 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/41/q/bon-sent-II-d41-a1-q1
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### Article I. *On the division of deliberative action into good, evil, and indifferent.*

### Question I. *Whether deliberative action is divided by opposite differences.*

Concerning the first point one proceeds thus and asks, since deliberative action is divided into good and evil, whether it is divided by opposite differences. And that it is so, it seems.

1. The first contrariety in morals is between good and evil — whence the Philosopher says that « good and evil are not in a genus, but are genera of other things » — but the first contraries are opposites in the highest degree: therefore good and evil with respect to a direct action have opposition and incompatibility.

2. *Likewise*, evil states the privation of good; but privation and possession are directly opposed: therefore etc.

3. *Likewise*, those things which have opposite effects are directly opposed; but a good action and an evil one have opposite effects in the soul, because a good action adorns and an evil one deforms, a good one orders and an evil one disorders: therefore etc.

4. *Likewise*, those things which have opposite retributions are directly opposed; but a good action and an evil one have opposite retributions, because to the one is rendered eternal joy, and to the other eternal punishment: therefore etc.

5. *Likewise*, every correct division is by opposites: if therefore moral action is correctly divided into good and evil, then the members of this division are by opposites.

**On the contrary:** 1. « Opposites are of a nature to come to be about the same thing »; but it is impossible that goodness and malice, or conversely, should succeed one another about the same action: therefore good and evil with respect to action do not have opposition.

2. *Likewise*, everything that God makes is very good, likewise everything that is done against God's prohibition is evil; but the same action is done by God and against God's prohibition: therefore the same action is good and evil. But opposites about the same thing are incompatible: therefore good and evil with respect to action are not opposites.

3. *Likewise*, when a master commands a servant to give alms, and the master commands out of charity, and the servant does it with murmuring; the same action is meritorious for the master, and demeritorious for the servant. But everything meritorious is good, and everything demeritorious is evil; therefore the same action is good and evil: therefore good and evil with respect to action are not opposites.

4. *Likewise*, someone begins some action out of charity and ends it out of vanity, according to what Gregory says: « Often what charity begins, fault carries through »: therefore one and the same action can be meritorious and demeritorious; and if this is so, the same thing returns as before, that good and evil with respect to action are not opposites.

5. *Likewise*, « good and being are convertible »; but being is wider than action, therefore so too good: therefore if the inferior is not divided by its superior, deliberative action cannot be divided into good and evil as by opposite differences.

### Conclusion

> Action proceeding from the deliberative will is divided into good and evil action, as by differences not only disparate, but also directly opposite.

**I respond:** For the understanding of the foregoing it must be noted that deliberative action is of a nature to have a twofold goodness: both the goodness of *nature*, inasmuch as it is an action proceeding from some power, and the goodness of *morals*, inasmuch as it proceeds from free choice or from the will. When therefore it is asked  whether goodness and malice have incompatibility with respect to action, such that they divide it as opposite members; it must be said that this is not true of good, as it is said from *essential* or natural goodness; for thus good is not a difference of action, but rather is convertible with being and is found in every action. — But as good is said from the goodness of *morals*, thus it is a dividing difference of action, for the reason that the good of *morals* exists in a threefold difference. For one kind is good *in genus*, another *from circumstance*, and another a *perfect* good, or principal, or good *in itself*. And each of these differences has the difference of evil corresponding to it from the opposite side.

For to good in genus is opposed evil in genus, and to good from circumstance is opposed evil from circumstance, and to good simply or in itself is opposed evil in itself or demeritorious evil. And the examples of all these are manifest. — Thus therefore action proceeding from the deliberative will has to be divided into good and evil action, not only as by disparate differences, but also directly opposite ones. Whence the reasons which show this are to be conceded.

1. To that, therefore, which is objected first, that opposites are of a nature to come to be about the same thing; it must be said that, if it is understood of the same in number, it does not hold true except in a subject, which is a substance, properly speaking. « For it is proper to substance that, being one and the same in number, it is receptive of contraries »; but with respect to action, since it is an accident, it is not necessary that that hold true, namely that good and evil be about the same action in number, but it suffices, as regards the law of opposition, that they have to come to be about the same action in species. — There is also another reason why good and evil cannot succeed one another in the same action according to the same part of the action, on account of this, that the being of an action consists in succession. And this will be made clearer presently.

2. To that which is objected, that everything which God makes is very good; it must be said that this is understood as to the good of nature; but to that goodness the malice of morals is not repugnant, but rather presupposes it; and therefore the same action can be done by God and nonetheless be prohibited. From this, however, it does not follow that there is no contrariety between the goodness of morals and malice. Whence it is impossible that the same action be at one and the same time under prohibition and under precept.

3. To that which is objected, that the same action is meritorious and demeritorious; it must be said that the good and evil of merit and demerit with respect to action do not state *absolute* qualities, but *diverse comparisons*. Whence a good action is nothing other than an action ordered to an end; but an action is referred to an end through intention. Since therefore one and the same action can be from a twofold one intending and from a twofold intention, such that from the one as from a *principal mover*, but from the other as from an *instrument*; and one of these intentions can be *right*, and the other of them *oblique*: hence it is that one and the same action can be good and evil by comparison to diverse principles, speaking of the goodness and malice of *merit and demerit*. From this, however, it does not follow that good and evil are not opposites with respect to action. For although they are compatible about the same action in comparison to *diverse* intentions, they are nevertheless not compatible insofar as they are compared to the *same* intention. But relative opposites have the law of opposition in this respect, insofar as they are compared to the same thing.

Whence note that good is said in one way of the *will*, in another of the *exterior action*. For with respect to the will it states some superadded quality; and therefore it is impossible that one and the same will be at one and the same time good and evil, neither absolutely nor in comparison to diverse things. But with respect to action good states a comparison to the due principle and to the end. Whence two actions altogether alike, both in the genus of actions and in the genus of moral circumstances, frequently differ in this, that one is meritorious, the other not; because one is done by one having charity, the other by one not having it. And these things have been said of good and evil, insofar as they are worth as much as the meritorious and the demeritorious, because in this respect the objection ran.

4. To that which is objected, that an action begun out of charity can be ended out of vanity; it must be said that it is true; but although that action is one in the genus of nature, it is nevertheless not one in the genus of morals, for the reason that, even though the will, which is the principle of that action, is one, nevertheless it is dis-posed in different ways, by a disposition, I say, which varies in the genus of morals, as is right and oblique intention.

5. To that which is objected, that good is wider; the response is already clear; for the objection deals with the good of nature, and in this mode it is not a dividing difference of deliberative action.