I call action -or "act"- those movements whose final cause is consciously assumed by the agent in the first place; the opposite is passion.
Intention is the root of every act.
You cannot intend to do what you don't understand;
You cannot understand what lacks an intelligible essence;
Everything that has an intelligible essence is something.
Therefore, you cannot do that which is nothing.
Evil is done,
thus, evil is before it is done;
evil is before it is intended to do;
evil is before it is understood.
From this it follows that evil preexists thought and, as far as man is inasmuch as he can think, also preexists man.
However, evil cannot subsist by itself, since it's always relative to a greater good or a lesser bad. So evil is created. But, if it preexists man and every creature, only can be created by God.
We must admit, then, that evil is previous to human kind and created by God; that man cannot do anything which isn't previously intended by him and, last, that he cannot understand anything which is nothing and has no power over his consciousness.
Never the less, evil can show up necessarily or freely. Necessarily if it depends on second causes; freely, if it only depends on God. Since it depends only on God (as we have already seen), evil shows up freely and beyond man's will.
If evil can act freely, evil doesn't lack intention;
if it doesn't lack intention, it doesn't lack understanding;
if it doesn't lack understanding, it thinks, and therefore it's a subject;
and, if it's previous to man and to every creature, it's a non-human subject, the first among angels: Satan.
Cheers.
Daniel.
Theological Miscellany (in Spanish):
http://www.miscelaneateologica.tk
Intention is the root of every act.
You cannot intend to do what you don't understand;
You cannot understand what lacks an intelligible essence;
Everything that has an intelligible essence is something.
Therefore, you cannot do that which is nothing.
Evil is done,
thus, evil is before it is done;
evil is before it is intended to do;
evil is before it is understood.
From this it follows that evil preexists thought and, as far as man is inasmuch as he can think, also preexists man.
However, evil cannot subsist by itself, since it's always relative to a greater good or a lesser bad. So evil is created. But, if it preexists man and every creature, only can be created by God.
We must admit, then, that evil is previous to human kind and created by God; that man cannot do anything which isn't previously intended by him and, last, that he cannot understand anything which is nothing and has no power over his consciousness.
Never the less, evil can show up necessarily or freely. Necessarily if it depends on second causes; freely, if it only depends on God. Since it depends only on God (as we have already seen), evil shows up freely and beyond man's will.
If evil can act freely, evil doesn't lack intention;
if it doesn't lack intention, it doesn't lack understanding;
if it doesn't lack understanding, it thinks, and therefore it's a subject;
and, if it's previous to man and to every creature, it's a non-human subject, the first among angels: Satan.
Cheers.
Daniel.
Theological Miscellany (in Spanish):
http://www.miscelaneateologica.tk