Whether God is good?
Objection 1: It seems that to be good does not belong to God. For
goodness consists in mode, species and order. But these do not seem to
belong to God; since God is immense and is not ordered to anything
else. Therefore to be good does not belong to God.
Obj. 2: Further, the good is what all things desire. But all
things do not desire God, because all things do not know Him; and
nothing is desired unless it is known. Therefore to be good does not
belong to God.
_On the contrary,_ It is written (Lam. 3:25): "The Lord is good to them
that hope in Him, to the soul that seeketh Him."
_I answer that,_ To be good belongs pre-eminently to God. For a thing is
good according to its desirableness. Now everything seeks after its
own perfection; and the perfection and form of an effect consist in a
certain likeness to the agent, since every agent makes its like; and
hence the agent itself is desirable and has the nature of good. For
the very thing which is desirable in it is the participation of its
likeness. Therefore, since God is the first effective cause of all
things, it is manifest that the aspect of good and of desirableness
belong to Him; and hence Dionysius (Div. Nom. iv) attributes good to
God as to the first efficient cause, saying that, God is called good
"as by Whom all things subsist."
Reply Obj. 1: To have mode, species and order belongs to the
essence of caused good; but good is in God as in its cause, and hence
it belongs to Him to impose mode, species and order on others;
wherefore these three things are in God as in their cause.
Reply Obj. 2: All things, by desiring their own perfection,
desire God Himself, inasmuch as the perfections of all things are so
many similitudes of the divine being; as appears from what is said
above (Q. 4, A. 3). And so of those things which desire God, some
know Him as He is Himself, and this is proper to the rational
creature; others know some participation of His goodness, and this
belongs also to sensible knowledge; others have a natural desire
without knowledge, as being directed to their ends by a higher
intelligence.
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