Whether the Justice of God Is Truth?
Objection 1: It seems that the justice of God is not truth. For
justice resides in the will; since, as Anselm says (Dial. Verit. 13),
it is a rectitude of the will, whereas truth resides in the intellect,
as the Philosopher says (Metaph. vi; Ethic. vi, 2,6). Therefore
justice does not appertain to truth.
Obj. 2: Further, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. iv, 7),
truth is a virtue distinct from justice. Truth therefore does not
appertain to the idea of justice.
_On the contrary,_ it is said (Ps. 84:11): "Mercy and truth have met
each other": where truth stands for justice.
_I answer that,_ Truth consists in the equation of mind and thing, as
said above (Q. 16, A. 1). Now the mind, that is the cause of the
thing, is related to it as its rule and measure; whereas the converse
is the case with the mind that receives its knowledge from things.
When therefore things are the measure and rule of the mind, truth
consists in the equation of the mind to the thing, as happens in
ourselves. For according as a thing is, or is not, our thoughts or our
words about it are true or false. But when the mind is the rule or
measure of things, truth consists in the equation of the thing to the
mind; just as the work of an artist is said to be true, when it is in
accordance with his art.
Now as works of art are related to art, so are works of justice
related to the law with which they accord. Therefore God's justice,
which establishes things in the order conformable to the rule of His
wisdom, which is the law of His justice, is suitably called truth.
Thus we also in human affairs speak of the truth of justice.
Reply Obj. 1: Justice, as to the law that governs, resides in the
reason or intellect; but as to the command whereby our actions are
governed according to the law, it resides in the will.
Reply Obj. 2: The truth of which the Philosopher is speaking in this
passage, is that virtue whereby a man shows himself in word and deed
such as he really is. Thus it consists in the conformity of the sign
with the thing signified; and not in that of the effect with its
cause and rule: as has been said regarding the truth of justice.
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