Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica
Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica ideology gives a traditional philosophy addressing God, His existence, and His creation. The Summa Theologica, Thomas' best work, strives to provide an instructional guide to theology students and offers the rationale of the primary Christian theology. According to Thomas' ideology, God's existence is self-evident. While this reasoning is valid, the existence of evil raises a question because it is incomprehensible how evil can exist while God exists. Thomas makes a case for the two ideological arguments and presents evidence for this concept. The main argument that arises is that a good thing cannot result in an evil thing. The existence of God illustrates the existence of good. On the other hand, evil exists and cannot be caused by good. Therefore, how can evil exist while God still exist? Reinforcing this contention, objection one argues that a good thing cannot be the cause of evil. This argument is further reinforced by the objection that the good cannot be the cause of evil. Since evil has no cause, it can also be argued that good is not the cause of evil.
Aquinas' Resolving Argument
However, Aquinas provides a resolving argument that every evil in some way has a cause. He argues that evil prevails due to the absence of good. In addition, the absence of good occurs due to nature or due to a thing. For this reason, there must be an occurrence that must have caused the good, which will also lead to the presence of evil. This reasoning justifies the existence of both evil and good, which is a mutual exchangeable action between each of them. This means that since the absence of good results into the existence of evil, it is thereby evident that only good can cause evil.
Illustration of the Argument
The argument by Aquinas that evil occurs due to an effect of the good can be illustrated using a relevant example. An agent fails in its action due to an impediment, which is the main reason for the agent’s failure. We may note that a form transforms to an end product based on some kind of action, which may be attributed to the notion of good. Therefore, every form is attributed to possess the nature of good. Failure of the action to convert the form into the end product may result into non-conversion, which is attributed to be evil. Therefore, the absence of actualizing the good results into evil meaning that good contributes and is the main cause of evil.
Augustin's Argument
The argument by Augustin that evil exists as a result of good is persuasive and could be used to prove the existence of God. In his argument, Augustin proves that the absence of good generates the occurrence of evil, which is in fact practical. The revelation of this argument is that good represents the existence of God and evil represents the bad occurrences. To prove the existence of God, the evil things occur due to the exclusion of God in our actions, meaning that God dwells in purity and his absentia results in the existence of evil.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the ideology illustrated by Augustin provides a classical philosophy and an in-depth revelation of the existence of God. The fact that evils exist means that the good must have caused its occurrence. For this reason, good and evil exist, but either of them occurs sequentially as a result of the other.
Bibliography
Aquinas, T. "The existence of God." The Summa Theologica 2 (2006), 1-1814.
Davies, Brian. "Aquinas, God, and Evil." Thomas Aquinas on God and Evil, 2011, 113-132. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199790890.003.0010.
Jelinek, John P. "A Complete Index of the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas." The Modern Schoolman 35, no. 2 (1998), 145-147. doi:10.5840/schoolman195835225.
