Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

244. Scholastic Theory CHAP. ix.
harmony of cause with cause, we have, in the place of two
truths, one truth, and the Divine Power is maintained, but
freewill is abandoned.
Such a compact and harmonious theory, however, en
countered in limine one great difficulty. Upon the idea
of the Divine Power, thus singly and determinately carried
out, and made the exclusive rationale of all the facts in
the universe, how were we to account for the origin of
evil ? The existence of evil was a plain fact. Was Grod
the cause of it ? That could not be ; for Grod could not
possibly will evil. Did it exist in spite of Him, and against
His will ? That could not be for God could not ; possibly
be deficient in power. Then how was its existence to be
accounted for ?
Now, evil is sometimes understood in a negative rather
than in a positive sense, in the sense of a defect and fall
ing short, of lesser as contrasted with greater good ; and
in this sense it was not difficult to account for the existence
of evil in the universe. For if we considered it inconsistent
with the justice and benevolence of Grod, that He should
not make everything the very best, where were we to stop
in our demand ? We could not pause till we reached in
our wishes the very highest point of all, and arrived at the
Uncreated Perfection itself. Wherever we stopped below
this culminating point, the same charge could be urged as
now, that things were not made so good as they could be
made. But a desire that tended straight to the confusion
of the distinction between the creature and Grod, and could
not be satisfied but by a contradiction, was absurd ; and a
charge which would always be made, whatever the Creator
might do, was untenable. The possibility, then, of things
being made better argued no envy in Grod who made them
worse, and the existence of evil, in the sense of lesser good,
was no real difficulty at all. 1
1
Cuilibet finite possibilis est ad- sibi debetur quam secundum deter-
ditio ; sed cujuslibet creaturae boni- urination em divinse voluntatis, et
tas finita est. Ergo potest sibi fieri ideo nulla invidia in Deo resultat,
additio, sed creatura nunquam po- si rem meliorem facere potuit quam
test attingere ad sequalitatem Dei. fecerit. Aquinas, in Lomb. Dist.
Nee alia mensura divinae bonitatis 43. Q. 1. A. 1.