Question One. Whether Sin comes from Good as from a Cause

1. Concerning the thirty fourth distinction I aska, as to the cause of sin, whether sin is from good as from a cause.

a. a[Interpolation] About the thirty fourth distinction, where the Master deals with actual sin and first with its original cause, the question is asked:

2. That it is not:

Because in Matthew 7.18 it is said: “A good tree cannot bring forth good fruit;” and the gloss there on it [“There is no intermediate between the cause of good being good and the cause of evil evil”].

3. Further, “every agent makes the effect like itself” (On Generation and Corruption 1.7.324a9-11), at least in the case of the most remote effects; likeness in what is most remote is in what is most common; so at least in the case of the most common perfections the effect is like the cause, and     therefore in goodness too. Sin, then, is not from good as a cause but from evil.

4. Further, whatever is from good as from the efficient cause is directed to good as end; sin is not directed to good as end, because it turns from the end; therefore etc     . Proof of the minor: Aristotle Metaphysics 5.2.1013b9-11 and Physics 2.3.195a8-11, “the efficient and final causes are mutually causes of each other.”

5. Further, what is bad in nature is not in the effect from the efficient cause as cause; for a deformed effect or a morally bad effect is never produced save by a cause that is imperfect; therefore here too.

6. Further, there is some first evil (as I will prove [n.8]), so every other evil comes from it. This consequence is proved about good stated elsewhere [1 d.2 n.43], and by the Philosopher Metaphysics 2.1.993b23-30 about that being most such through which all other things are such [1 d.8 n.79, d.3 n.108].

7. And in addition: if nothing good comes from the first evil, then the evil too that comes from the first evil does not come from any good. The proof of this consequence is that the same thing does not come from diverse causes that are not ordered to each other.

8. The proof of the first proposition [n.6] is that either there is some supreme evil, and then the intended conclusion is gained because this supreme is first; or there is not, and then for every evil a worse evil can be taken ad infinitum; but it is unacceptable for there to be an infinite regress in things that are permanent (Metaphysics 2.2.994a1-11), and this was made clear in 1 d.2 nn.43, 46, 52-53; therefore there can be a single intensively infinite evil, and thus the conclusion.

9. The opposite is maintained by the Master in the text, and he adduces Augustine On Marriage and Concupiscence 2.28 n.48 [“The cause and first origin of sin is some good thing, because before the first sin there was nothing bad from which it might arise. For since it had an origin and cause, it had it either from good or from evil; but there was no evil before;     therefore evil is from good, etc     .”].