of evil, each taken in itself, and as it were detached (particulariter et secundum quid:  Thom., I, qu. 19, art. 6) according to the measure of the degree of each good or of each evil.  Likewise one may say that the consequent, or final and total, divine will tends towards the production of as many goods as can be put together, whose combination thereby becomes determined, and involves also the permission of some evils and the exclusion of some goods, as the best possible plan of the universe demands.  Arminius, in his Antiperkinsus, explained very well that the will of God can be called consequent not only in relation to the action of the creature considered beforehand in the divine understanding, but also in relation to other anterior acts of divine will.  But it is enough to consider the passage cited from Thomas Aquinas, and that from Scotus (I, dist. 46, qu. 11), to see that they make this distinction as I have made it here.  Nevertheless if anyone will not suffer this use of the terms, let him put ‘previous’ in place of ‘antecedent’ will, and ‘final’ or ‘decretory’ in place of ‘consequent’ will.  For I do not wish to wrangle about words.

[384] OBJECTION V

Whoever produces all that is real in a thing is its cause.

God produces all that is real in sin.

Therefore God is the cause of sin.

ANSWER

I might content myself with denying the major or the minor, because the term ‘real’ admits of interpretations capable of rendering these propositions false.  But in order to give a better explanation I will make a distinction.  ‘Real’ either signifies that which is positive only, or else it includes also privative beings:  in the first case, I deny the major and I admit the minor; in the second case, I do the opposite.  I might have confined myself to that; but I was willing to go further, in order to account for this distinction.  I have therefore been well pleased to point out that every purely positive or absolute reality is a perfection, and that every imperfection comes from limitation, that is, from the privative:  for to limit is to withhold extension, or the more beyond.  Now God is the cause of all perfections, and consequently of all realities, when they are regarded as purely positive.  But limitations or privations result from the original imperfection of creatures which restricts their receptivity.  It is as with a laden boat, which the river carries along more slowly or less slowly in proportion to the weight that it bears:  thus the speed comes from the river, but the retardation which restricts this speed comes from the load.  Also I have shown in the present work how the creature, in causing sin, is a deficient cause; how errors and evil inclinations spring from privation; and how privation is efficacious accidentally.  And I have justified the opinion of St. Augustine (lib.  I, Ad.  Simpl., qu. 2) who explains