A. First Opinion about the Definition of Justice and its Distinctions

7. Here first about the definition of justice:

8. Its most general idea is posited by Anselm On Truth 12, that “justice is rectitude of will, kept for its own sake.”

9. This idea is made specific by justice as Aristotle treats of it in Ethics 5.3.1129b30-30a9, who adds (in addition to the above idea) that it is ‘toward another’.

10. And taken in both ways, it is clear that justice belongs to God.

For, in the first way, he has rectitude of will, indeed un-pervertible will, because the first rule is ‘kept for its own sake’ [n.8]. Now insofar as it is ‘kept’, it states a receiving or undergoing with respect to someone who does the keeping, but it is ‘kept for its own sake’, that is always spontaneously held for its own sake.

11. In the second way too the point is plain, because God can have rectitude toward another, and therefore in every act of his toward another there is rectitude.

12. This second rectitude is subdivided, because either it is as it were universal to another, namely as to legislator and law insofar as law is determined by the legislator (and this is called legal justice by some); or it is particular, namely in something determinate belonging to the law, that is, rectitude toward another.

13. And this second one is subdivided, because it can either be ‘simply toward another’ or ‘toward one’s self as other’. And this second member is plain from what is said in the material about penance [Ord. IV d.14 n.154, d.16 nn.18-24], that it is punitive justice not only with respect to another simply, but with respect to oneself as other, because punishment of oneself as guilty is conceded to oneself as minister of the judge.

14. The first of these, namely legal justice, could be posited in God if there were another law prior to the determination of his will, with which law (that is, with which legislator as other) his will would rightly agree. And it is indeed this law: ‘God is to be loved’ - if however it is rightly called law, and not a practical principle of law. At least it is a practical truth, preceding every determination of the divine will.

15. Now particular justice, justice ‘to oneself as other’, exists in God, because his will is determined by rectitude toward willing what befits his goodness. And this is as it were the rendering of what is due to himself and to his goodness as other - if however it could be called particular, because it is in some way universal, namely virtually.

16. And these two members, namely legal justice and particular justice toward oneself as other [nn.14-15], are as it were identical in God, because they are rectitude of the divine will with respect to his goodness.

17. If we speak then of the remaining part of justice, which is justice simply to another, it is divided into commutative and distributive - and thus is justice in us distinguished, as is plain from Ethics 5.5.1130b10-31a9. In distributive justice equality of proportion is required, not equality of quantity; in commutative justice, according to some, equality of quantity is required not equality of proportion (these are expounded in Aristotle ibid.).

18. To the issue at hand:

Commutative justice properly concerns punishment and reward, namely so that rewards may be rendered for merits (as by mutual exchange) and punishment for sins.

19. Distributive justice has regard to superadded natures and perfections, as it were, namely so that the perfection proportioned to nature be distributed to them. Just as in the case of our distributive justice, persons according to their ranks in a republic have proportionally distributed to them the goods pertaining to those ranks, so in the hierarchy of the universe a nobler nature has distributed to it by the hierarchy, that is, by God as prince, nobler perfections or perfections agreeing with that sort of nature, and an inferior nature has distributed to it the perfections agreeing with it.

20. The first of these justices [sc. commutative justice] cannot simply be in God with respect to creatures, because equality simply cannot be in him; but it can in some way be in him according to proportion, as between master and slave. For it befits a generous master to give a greater good than the slave could merit, provided however there is the following sort of proportion: that as the slave does what is his, so the master gives what is his, and does the same by punishing less than deserved.

21. But the second justice [distributive justice, n.19] can exist simply in God, because he can simply give to natures the perfections due to or agreeing with them according to the degrees that perfect them.

22. Thus, therefore, the whole distinction of justice in its genus [nn.10-17], in the way it can belong to God, can be reduced to the two members, so that justice in the first way is called ‘rectitude of will in its order to what befits the divine will’; in the other way ‘rectitude of will in its order to the exigencies of what there is in the creature’. This distinction can be got from Anselm Proslogion 10 where, speaking to God, he says, “When you punish the bad, it is just, because it befits their merits.” As to the second member he adds at once, “when you spare the bad it is just, not because it is appropriate to their merits but to your goodness.”

23. And a distinction so great is put between these members because God cannot operate against the first justice nor operate tangentially to it, but he can act tangentially to the second, though not universally, because he cannot damn the just or the blessed.

24. If it is objected that this and that justice cannot be different in God, because then one justice would be rule (as the first justice) and the other would be ruled (as the second); but in the divine will there cannot be any ruled rectitude. - And there is proof of this in us: the same thing inclines to the end and to what is for the end as it is for the end; therefore if what inclines to the end were simply perfect, it would simply perfectly incline to what is for the end, as is plain of the charity of the blessed; but the first divine justice is simply perfect; therefore no other justice beside it is required in the divine will.

25. As to the remark that sometimes God is not able to act tangentially to the second justice [n.19], it does not seem probable, because he can simply do, and thus will, whatever does not involve a contradiction; but he cannot will anything that he could not will rightly, because his will is the first rule; therefore God can rightly will whatever does not include a contradiction. And so, since this justice determines to something whose opposite does not include a contradiction, God can will and rightly well and act tangentially to this second justice.

26. As to the first of these points [n.24], the objectors would perhaps concede that there is not a double justice in God but only a single one, having however as it were different effects, as ‘willing in accord with what fits his own goodness’ and ‘willing in accord with the exigency of the creator.’

27. But the second argument [n.25] seems clearly to prove that whatever the first justice inclines the divine will toward, the second justice will be able to incline it toward, since it inclines determinately and by way of nature. But it does not so incline without the divine will being able to will against it and tangentially to it; and so there will not be a distinction between these willings as to ‘being able to act tangentially to it’ and ‘not being able to act tangentially to it’.