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Article 2: Whether God, the Supreme Good, Is the Cause of Evil?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 November 2024
Question 49, Article 2: Granted that God is the supreme good, is He also the cause of evil? This is the only Article we take up out of order. Could it be that since the universe contains things like cancer and tapeworms, God is just evil? Or that in some sense God is good, but His idea of good is entirely unintelligible and irrelevant to us? Or that, in His goodness, God doesn’t mean to do us evil, but the evils we suffer are beneath His notice? St. Thomas addresses such concerns elsewhere in the Treatise on the One God. The equally dreadful possibility considered and rejected in the present Article is that God is indeed the Creator of good – but also the Creator of evil. Even if we understand the reasoning behind the proposition that God is altogether good, we may yet suffer the nagging doubt that He couldn’t be. For where would evil come from, if not from Him? The Universal Doctor presents rational solutions to such doubts.
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