Question I: On the Goodness and Malice of the Interior Act

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 19.

162. Principle I. The goodness and malice of the interior act properly and per se depends upon its object. For moral good and evil are per se and properly differences of an act of the will as moral, just as truth and falsity are differences of reason, because good per se pertains to the will as truth pertains to reason. Hence the will morally good and evil differ according to moral species. But an act properly and per se has moral species from the object proposed by reason, as was proved. Therefore goodness and malice in acts of the will properly and per se depend upon the object.

163. Principle II. The goodness and malice of the interior act depends upon the object alone.

Thus St. Thomas, whom Fr. Lehu explains almost as follows, Phil. Mor. et Soc. I, n. 182: "The sense is not that circumstances and the end are altogether irrelevant to the morality of interior acts, which would be altogether false... (for the circumstances of intensity or duration have value for the increase of goodness and malice, q. 20, a. 4)... Thus therefore it must be understood...: The interior act receives morality immediately only from the object, that is, from the willed thing; and in this the interior act differs both from the exterior act and from the human act considered in its integrity, which receive their morality from object, circumstances, and end as from three disparate and independent sources; whence there can be an exterior act good from the object and evil from circumstances or end. But there cannot be an interior act good from the object and evil from a circumstance: 'supposing that the will is of the good, no circumstance can make it evil' (q. 19, a. 2, ad 2)... For, 'when it is said that someone wills some good when he ought not or where he ought not, this can be understood in two ways. In one way, so that this circumstance is referred to the willed thing. And thus the will is not of the good: because to will to do something when it ought not to be done is not to will the good. In another way, so that it is referred to the act of willing; and thus it is impossible that someone will the good when he ought not, because man always ought to will the good; unless perhaps per accidens insofar as someone, by willing this good, is impeded from then willing some due good. And then evil does not arise from this, that someone wills that good, but from this, that he does not will another good. And similarly one must speak of the other circumstances.'

"Therefore an evil circumstance will make the willed thing evil, that is, the object of the will, and only by means of the object will it render the interior act evil, which does not happen in the exterior act. Therefore we assert: the morality of an elicited act depends immediately upon the object alone."

It is proved: the principle in each genus is something one and simple. But the principle of the goodness and malice of all human acts is from the act of the will, and this of itself has goodness from the object, as was said in the preceding number. Therefore the goodness and malice of the will is attended to according to the object alone and not from the accidents of circumstances.

1. The foundation of the argument is: the principle in each genus is per se, not per accidens, for everything which is per accidens is reduced to that which is per se as to a principle.

Therefore, since the end is the object of the will, in acts of the will the goodness which is from the object does not differ from the goodness which is from the end, except per accidens, if it happens that an end depends upon an end and a will upon a will (a. 2, ad 1), for example, if someone by one act wills medicine for health and health for the good of the republic, or if by a twofold act he wills adultery because he wills theft.

164. Corollary I. - The goodness and malice of the interior act, because it depends upon its object, therefore also depends upon those things upon which the goodness of the object depends:

1. Upon reason, because the object is proposed to the will through reason, which apprehends it as a good proportioned to the will; hence the proposing reason is the measure of the goodness of the will.

2. Upon the eternal law: for every effect depends more upon the first cause than upon the second cause, which does not act except through the power of the first cause. But that human reason shows us what is good and thus is the rule of our will, it has from the eternal law or divine reason, of which there is a participation in the created mind. Therefore the goodness of the will depends much more upon the eternal law than upon human reason.

Hence a twofold rule of human acts is distinguished: the first, fundamental and extrinsic, namely, divine reason by which God from eternity contemplates in his essence the order to be observed by creatures, namely, the essential relations of natures both to God their end and to one another; and the secondary, relative and intrinsic, namely, practical human reason insofar as it dictates that this order is to be observed. The first rule is objective and altogether remote; the other is twofold: for reason can be considered:

a) objectively, insofar as it is common to all men, and is a habitual light which is born to dictate in a universal mode which acts in general are good and which are evil (for example, it is good to praise God, evil to fornicate), and indeed is born to dictate the same thing in all and generally does dictate the same thing: thus it is law or the cognition of law;

b) subjectively, it can be considered insofar as it is proper to each one, and is the act by which someone judges in particular that such an act to be placed here and now in the individual is conformed or difform to law: it is the application of law to particular acts, which is called conscience and often varies in various men.

Reason considered objectively, although it is a nearer rule than the eternal law, nevertheless is more remote in relation to conscience, which is the altogether proximate and immediate rule.

165. Corollary II. - The goodness and malice of the interior act, because it depends upon the end or good, therefore depends upon all those things upon which the goodness of the end depends, namely, upon the ultimate end and upon the divine will.

It is proved: that which is first in each genus is the measure of the others of that genus. But the ultimate end of the human will, which it ought first to intend, is the Supreme Good, which first and per se is the proper object of the divine will. Therefore in order that the human will be right or conformed to the measure, it ought (at least implicitly) to tend to the Supreme Good and thus to be conformed to the divine will.

166. On the way in which our will ought to be conformed to the divine will. - Our will can be conformed to the divine will both negatively, by not contradicting it, and positively, by willing the same thing as it; moreover a threefold willed object is distinguished: the material willed object, or that which we will, for example, the life of one's father; the formal willed object, or the reason, end, motive on account of which we will, and indeed the particular or proximate motive, for example, because the father is good and necessary to the family; the formal willed object or ultimate and universal motive, that is, the glory of God.

Now 1) we are bound in all things to be conformed to the divine will negatively, that is, we can never disapprove the things which God wills (or murmur against them), because he is the supreme Lord who disposes all things wisely; 2) we are bound to be positively conformed to him in the ultimate formal willed object, for God wills all things for the sake of himself and his glory, to which the human will ought at least implicitly to refer all acts (n. 159, 2), as we do when we tend to good under the notion of good (a. 10, ad 1); 3) generally we are not bound to be positively conformed to him in the material willed object and the proximate formal willed object: for the same thing under a diverse respect can be good or evil, for example, the death of a robber considered by a judge or by his wife; but God considers things under universal reasons, that is, in order to the common good and to his glory (for example, damnation, death, disease, hunger of one's father), while a private man is not bound to attend to this but can consider things under particular reasons (that is, in order to a particular good), under which they can be evil; therefore he can will things opposed to what God wills, for example, the life of a father who is about to die, but under a diverse reason. And yet there is no opposition of wills, because we will diverse things but not according to the same reason (ad 3); 4) we are bound to be conformed to him in the material willed object, if God sometimes commands or prohibits something, because then God wills us to will that thing, that is, he wills to oblige us to this willing.

Hence a) we do not have to will positively virginity or other things which God only counsels, but it suffices negatively that we regard them as good and do not disapprove them; b) we cannot will the things which God only permits, for example, sins, but we can will their permission, and we are bound not to disapprove it; c) we can conform our will, even in the material willed object, to the divine will, which is most right, provided we will it for the same reason; indeed from a better motive we act best thus; d) God wills many things by antecedent and conditioned will or by preceptive will (for example, the salvation of one about to be damned, the life of a father about to die), which nevertheless he does not will by consequent or efficacious will; indeed thus he wills the opposite. Hence sometimes we are bound to will the opposite of that which God wills by efficacious will; indeed we are bound to strive to obtain it, because God wills us to will and procure it. Yet once the fact has been posited, we are bound not to contradict the will of God nor disapprove it.

167. Observation.

We can be conformed to the divine will in two ways: according to the notion of final cause, by willing under the same notion of divine good, and according to the notion of efficient cause, by willing that which God wills us to will. "As to both, in some way the human will is conformed to the divine will: because according as it is conformed to the divine will in the common notion of the thing willed (formally), it is conformed to it in the ultimate end; according as it is not conformed to it in the thing willed materially, it is conformed to it according to the notion of efficient cause; because a thing has from God as from an effective cause this proper inclination... or particular apprehension of this thing" (a. 10).