>>11198118>does that mean you think that things that only have the ability to cause human suffering are good?No, absolutely not. The opposite in fact. Read the jackedaquinas pic again: "only good can be a cause; because nothing can be a cause except inasmuch as it is a being, and every being, as such, is good." Being here refers literally to something existing physically. Some material thing. Created things. Only good things can be a cause (in the Aristotlean sense) because only good things exist materially to have cause upon each other for us to observe.
>Or is this some abstract "divine good", far removed from our traditional understanding of the word good?No. There are no tricky word games here, this is philosophy not sophism. It is based in good faith argument - we don't want to win arguments, we want to seek and know truth.
>Is children with bone cancer good? Is parasites that devour men's organs from the inside out good? Is a plague good? Are earthquakes and forest fires and droughts that kill millions good?Your first example is one frequently brought around by atheist apologists like Hitchens. That's fine, I like Hitchens quite a lot. But it's an appeal to emotion and you know it. The inconvenient and unappealing answer is yes. I'll explain why. It's good in the sense that bone cancer is a material thing. If cancer should be perceived as injustice, it is only evidence for Aquinas' premise. We call it evil because as I said twice before -- we have only our mortal faculties that are incapable of understanding the intentions of the transcendent and therefore don't know the final cause of any of these events. Theologians call it divine providence. It's a black box. If there is blame to be placed, it can go there. And then I would refer you to the title character of the book of Job, and the answer he received therein.
