Chapter 006 - The Goodness of God

God is the Supreme Good. He is the Efficient Cause of all things, whence all derive their being, and have a desire for Him in order to participate in His likeness, for likeness to the agent is the perfection proper to each thing. Wherefore, if His very likeness is an object of desire, much more is God Himself to be desired. Hence He is not only Good, but He is simply Goodness itself. Good, therefore, belongs to Him as the Source of all perfections, and as the First Cause, not as the agent of like nature with the effect, but as One not belonging to the same order as the effect, either according to species or genus; in a superexcellent way the First Cause of all things, not of the same kind, but outside of genus, and the principle of existing creatures; whence He is called the Supreme Good.

God only is Good by His Essence. The rule of goodness is that of the degree of perfection which is possessed, and perfection is threefold; as, for instance, the first perfection of fire consists in the existence which is given by its substantial form; its second perfection is found in the accidents added to it for its perfect action, such as heat, dryness, lightness, and so on; its third perfection, that it remains in its own place. Such perfections, as these belong to no creature by its own essence, but in that way to God only, whose Essence is His Existence, and in whom there is nothing accidental. For such things as are said to be accidental in others belong to Him essentially, as, for example, to be powerful and wise. Nor is He related to an end, for He is Himself the Last End of all things. Hence God alone has all perfections by His Essence; and so He only is essentially Good. Each thing is called good by the Divine Goodness; from the Exemplar, the First Efficient Cause and the Final End of all goodness. Each thing is good formally by its likeness to Him. This goodness is one, and it is also multiform.