I finally weighed in with my thoughts concerning the evil God challenge set forth by Stephen Law. My original post argued for two primary principles: 1) evil is the negation of good and requires no ontological grounding and 2) that everyone always acts according to what they believe is good. (1) Certainly may appear as a mere assertion and it may be reversed and hence the problem of good. I won’t be defending (1) in this post but I would like to explicate (2) more because I believe it is much stronger and (1) follows from (2) logically later on.
Thomas’ meta-ethic was that being and goodness are the same in reference but differ only in sense. He follows Aristotle in making the connection between goodness and desirability. “The formula of the good consists in this, that something is desirable, and so the Philosopher says that the good is what all desire.”[1] Although all things desire goodness, not all things capable of pursuing goodness with understanding understand what really is good; it is possible for creatures with intellect and will to desire an apparent good as a real one.[2]
Something is desire in two ways, either because it is good or because it appears good. Of these, the first is what is good, for an apparent good does not move by itself but insofar as it has some appearance of good; but the good moves by itself.[3]
Desirability is an essential aspect of goodness. The perfection of anything is goodness and perfection is attained in actuality, “As regards nature the good of anything is its actuality and perfection.”[4] Again, following Aristotle, goodness appears in the notion of that which desire culminates:
Sententias 