6. Goodness, Oneness, and Infinity (SCG 1,37–43)
Goodness, Oneness, and Infinity (SCG 1,37–43)
PSALM 136 BEGINS: “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.” The psalm does not construe God’s goodness as a matter of universal beneficence. It takes God’s goodness to amount to conformity to his covenant promises to Israel and is happy to note how much woe and destruction God has brought on Israel’s enemies. Still, Psalm 136 speaks of God as good, and that God can be called good is bluntly asserted in other biblical texts. In the New Testament we are even told that only God is good.1 What biblical authors mean by the goodness of God is debated by Old and New Testament scholars, but there is no denying the fact that God’s goodness is proclaimed in the Bible. It has also been championed by postbiblical authors, even if not all of them have construed “God is good” in exactly the same way.
So you will not be surprised to find that in SCG 1,37–42 Aquinas speaks of God as good. You might, however, be puzzled to find that these chapters never refer to God as being good in a way that many people do. I say that since it is often assumed that “God is good” means that God is morally good or perfectly morally good and since Aquinas does not say that God is this in SCG 1,37–42 (or anywhere else in the SCG for that matter). Instead, he focuses on goodness as bound up with perfection and as being what all things desire.