Chapter XIX
Truth, Freedom, and Evil Chapter XIX That the will, insofar as it is, is good; and that no thing is an evil.
T. Let us return to considering the will and let us remember what we have already discussed, namely, that regardless of what the will for happiness wills, this will is not something evil, but is something good before it receives justice. Whence it follows that, after it has deserted the justice it received, the will for happiness is something good to the extent that it is (if it is the same being that it was before); but to the extent that the justice which was in it is no longer in it, it is called evil and unjust. For if to will to be ]ike God were evil, the Son of God would not have willed to be like the Father. Or if to will the meanest of pleasures were evil, the will of irrational animals would be called evil. But the will of the Son of God is not called evil, because it is just; and the will of an irrational animal is not called evil, because it is not unjust.
It follows that a will is not evil but good, to the extent that it is, because it is the work of God; and a will is evil only to the extent that it is unjust. So no thing is called evil except an evil will, or else on account of an evil will
(e.g., an evil man and an evil action); therefore, nothing is more apparent than that no thing is an evil, and that evil is nothing other than the absence of that lost justice in the will, or the absence of justice in another thing on account of an evil will.
Chapter XX How God is the cause of evil actions and evil wills; and how they are received from Him.
S. Your argument is bound together by such true, necessary, and clear reasons that I can't see how what you say can be unloosed by any counter-argument; but I see that something follows from it which I believe ought not be aflSrmed, and I do not see how to avoid this implication if what you are saying is true.
The Fall of Satan
For if to will to be like God is neither nothing nor evil, but a certain good, then this will could only be had from Him from whom all things come. For if Satan didn t have what he had not received, then whatever he had he had received from the One who had given it—for what did he receive from God except what God had given? Wherefore, if he had the will to be like God, he had it because God had given it.
T. What's so strange about this? For just as we say that God leads someone into temptation when he doesn't free him from it, so we say He gives an evil will by not prohibiting it when He can—especially since the abihty to will anything at all comes only from God.
In this way, the implication I pointed out seems acceptable.
T. Then if there is no giving without a receiving, it will not be unusual to say "someone gives .
." both when he freely grants something and when he merely allows something although not approving it; so too, it will not be inconsistent to say "someone receives .
." both when he receives what is freely granted and when he dares take forbidden things.
It seems that what you say is neither inconsistent nor unusual.
T. So what's wrong with saying that when Satan willed what he should not have willed, he both received this willing from God, because God permitted it, and yet did not receive it, because God did not consent to it?
S. Nothing seems wrong with this.
T. So when Satan turned his will to what he should not, both that willing and that turning were something; and yet he had this something only from God and by the will of God,^^ since he could neither move his will nor will anything except through the permission of the One who makes all substantial and accidental and universal and individual natures.
Insofar as Satan's will and its turning, or movement, are something, they are good and they are from God. But insofar as his will lacks the justice that it shouldn't lack, it is something evil—though not purely an evil; and whatever is evil is not from God but from willing, or from the moving of the will. Of course, injustice is an absolute 18 Reading with Migne, "de del voluntate."