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Famous Thomas Aquinas Quotes

“The fact that the evil ones, as long as they live, can be corrected from their errors does not prohibit that they may be justly executed, for the danger which threatens from their way of life is greater and more certain than the good which may be expected from their improvement.”

WayMayLongDoeFactsLife IsCertainEvilGreaterDangerErrorsExpectedImprovementDeath Penalty
Book:Summa Contra Gentiles: Book 3: Providence
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“Natural inclinations are present in things from God, who moves all things. So it is impossible for the natural inclinations of a species to be toward evil in itself. But there is in all perfect animals a natural inclination toward carnal union. Therefore it is impossible for carnal union to be evil in itself.”

MovingEvilNaturalPerfectAnimalImpossibleAll ThingsUnionsSpeciesInclination
Book:Summa Contra Gentiles: Book 3: Providence
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“It is due to neither impotence nor ignorance on God’s part that evils occur in the world, but it is owing to the order of his wisdom and to the greatness of his goodness, whence come the many and divers grades of goodness in things, many of which would be lacking were he to allow no evil to exist. Thus there would be no good of patience without the evil of persecution, nor the good of the preservation of its life in a lion, without the evil of the destruction of the animals on which it lives.”

IfsWorldWould BeOrderEvilAnimalGreatnessIgnoranceGoodnessWeaknessDestructionAccountsDuesGradesLionsDiverseLackingPreservationPersecutionPreservation Of Life
Author:Thomas Aquinas
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“Good and evil are essential differences of the act of the will. For good and evil pertain essentially to the will; just as truth and falsehood pertain to the reason, the act of which is distinguished essentially by the difference of truth and falsehood (according as we say that an opinion is true or false.) Consequently, good and evil volition are acts differing in species.”

ReasonEvilDifferencesOpinionEssentialsSpeciesGood And EvilFalsehoodDistinguishedVolitionTruth And FalsehoodTrue Or False
Book:Basic Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, Volume 2
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“Evil denotes the lack of good. Not every absence of good is an evil, for absence may be taken either in a purely negative or in aprivative sense. Mere negation does not display the character of evil, otherwise nonexistents would be evil and moreover, a thing would be evil for not possessing the goodness of something else, which would mean that man is bad for not having the strength of a lion or the speed of a wild goat. But what is evil is privation; in this sense blindness means the privation of sight.”

MenMayMeanDoeCharacterWould BeEvilTakenGoodnessNegativeSightMereSpeedAbsenceLionsDisplayBlindnessGoatsPossessingNegation
Book:Philosophical Texts
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“Given the sin of impiety through which they [the Romans] sinned against the divine nature [by idolatry], the punishment that led them to sin against their own nature followed.... I say, therefore, that since they changed into lies [by idolatry] the truth about God, He brought them to ignominious passions, that is, to sins against nature; not that God led them to evil, but only that he abandoned them to evil.”

ChristianLyingPassionEvilGivenSinChangedDivineHistoricalPunishmentAbandonedIdolatryDivine Nature
Author:Thomas Aquinas
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