I. Reply to the question
Ordinatio II, d. 40, q. un.
"Is every act good in virtue of its end?"
1 Regarding distinction 40, I ask whether every act is good in virtue of its end.
2 For the affirmative:
Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 31, as cited in the text of the Sentences: "The intention makes the act good."1
3 Furthermore, an act of understanding is true in virtue of the principle. Now the end is in acting what the principle is in understanding. Therefore, etc.
4 Also, the goodness of an act is from a single cause, and no other cause can be given but the end. Therefore, etc.
5 On the contrary:
Augustine says in Against Lying (and this is cited in the text of the Sentences) that many acts cannot be good, even if they are done for the sake of a good end.2
I. Reply to the question 6 I reply, we must speak first about natural goodness and second about moral goodness.
7 As to the first, I say that just as beauty in a body is a result of the aggregation of all the features that are suitable to that body and to each other—for example, quantity, color, and figure—as Augustine claims in On the Trinity VIII.3.4 ("a good face," etc.), so natural goodness—not that which is coextensive with being, but that which has badness as its opposite—is a thing's secondary perfection, made complete through all the features that are suitable to it and to each other. When all those features are present together, there is perfect goodness, in accordance with the dictum of Dionysius, "The good is from a perfect and complete cause."3 When all those features are lacking, but the nature that is apt to be perfected by them remains, it is altogether
1 Augustine, Enarrat. in Psalmos ps. 31 enarratio 2 n. 4; Peter Lombard, Sent. II d. 40 c. un. n. 2.
2 Augustine, Contra mendacium 7.18; Peter Lombard, Sent. II d. 40 c. un. n. 7.
3 Ps.-Dionysius, De div. nom c. 4.