1 As to the first question, it is argued that there is no justice in God:

According to Book 5 of Aristotle's Ethics, chapter 11, there is no justice in a master with respect to his servant, since there is no equality between them. A fortiori, there is no justice in God with respect to any creature, or vice versa, since he is that master who is entitled above all others to say to his servant, in the words of 1 Corinthians 4, "What do you have that you did not receive from me?"

Moreover, according to Book 10 of the Ethics, it is ridiculous to praise separated substances for exercising the virtues; Aristotle argues for this point with special reference to justice. And this is confirmed by analogy, since there is no temperance in God, and so, by parity of reasoning, no justice either.

Moreover, justice inclines one to pay back what is owed. But God owes no one. Therefore.

On the contrary: In Psalm [48:10] it says, "Your right hand is full of justice."

Justice understood in this second way is subdivided: either it is quasi-universal with respect to another, i.e., with respect to a legislator and to a law insofar as it is a certain rule determined by the legislator (some call this "legal justice"); or it is particular, i.e., rectitude with respect to another in some determinate particular pertaining to the law. And this second type is in turn subdivided: it can be either with respect to another in an unqualified sense or with respect to oneself as if with respect to another. The second of these is clear from what was said in the material on penitence, because penitence is punitive justice not only with respect to another in an unqualified sense but also with respect to oneself as if with respect to another, since one has been entrusted with the punishment of oneself, when guilty, as an agent of the Judge.

3 The first of these, namely legal justice, could be ascribed to God if there were some law prior to any determination of his will, such that his will would rightly conform to that law, and to that legislator, as if with respect to another. And there is indeed such a law, namely, God is to be loved (if in fact this should be called a law and not a practical principle of law--it is, at any rate, a practical truth that precedes any determination of the divine will). There is also in God that particular justice with respect to himself as if with respect to another, since his will is determined by its rectitude to will that which befits his own goodness. This is, as it were, God's paying back what he owes to himself, i.e., what he owes to his own goodness as if to another--if, however, this could be called particular, since in one way--i.e., virtually--it is universal. And these two subdivisions, legal justice and particular justice with respect to oneself as if with respect to another, are practically the same in God, since they are the rectitude of the divine will with respect to his own goodness.

Now the remaining justice, which is with respect to another in an unqualified sense, is divided into compensatory and distributive. As the Philosopher makes clear in Ethics 5, they are distinguished in us in the following way: distributive justice requires equality of proportion but not equality of quantity, whereas compensatory justice, according to some, requires equality of quantity and not merely equality of proportion. These things are expounded there.

4 As to our present question, compensatory justice properly has to do with punishment and reward, so that rewards are dealt out as if in compensation for merits and punishments for sins. Distributive justice has to do with natures, as it were, and their superadded perfections, i.e., with distributing to a nature the perfection proportionate to it. In our human distributive justice the goods consonant with people's rank in the polity are distributed proportionally to them in accordance with their rank; in the same way, in the hierarchy of the universe suitable perfections are distributed to a nobler nature by the Hierarch, i.e., by God the Ruler.

Compensatory justice cannot be in God in an unqualified sense with respect to a creature, since there cannot be equality between them in an unqualified sense. But in a way there can be equality according to proportion, as between a master and his slave. For it is fitting for a generous master to reward his slave with a greater good than the slave can actually deserve, and yet his doing so is still in keeping with proportion: just as the slave does what is his to do, the master repays him with what is his to give; and the same is true in punishing him less than he deserves. Distributive justice, on the other hand, can be in God in an unqualified sense, since in an unqualified sense he can give natures the perfections that are due to or suitable for them in accordance with the levels [of goodness] that make them perfect [after their kind].

5 So the whole gamut of justice as it can pertain to God can be reduced to two headings. In the first, 'justice' means the rectitude of his will in its ordering to what befits the divine will; in the second, it means the rectitude of his will in its ordering to the requirements of that which is in a creature. This distinction can be drawn from Anselm, Proslogion 10, where he says, speaking to God, "When you punish the wicked, this is just, because it accords with their merits"--this with regard to the second heading. But with regard to the first heading, he immediately adds, "When you spare the wicked, this is just, not because it accords with their merits, but because it accords with your goodness." And it is said that this distinction is so great that God cannot act contrary to the first justice, but he can act contrary to the second justice, although not in every case, since [for example] he cannot damn someone who is just or good.

One might object that there cannot be two distinct justices in God, since if there were, one would be the rule and the other bound by the rule, whereas there cannot be any rule-bound rectitude in the divine will. This point is proved in our own case as follows: the same thing inclines us to our proper end as inclines us to the things that are about the end. Therefore, if that which inclines us to the end were unqualifiedly perfect, it would incline us in an unqualifiedly perfect way to the things about the end, as is evident in the case of the charity of the blessed. Now the first divine justice is unqualifiedly perfect; therefore, no other justice in addition to the first in needed in the divine will.

6 And the claim that God sometimes cannot act in violation of his second justice does not seem probable. After all, God can unqualifiedly do, and thus will, whatever does not involve a contradiction. But he cannot will anything that he cannot rightly will, since his will is the first rule; therefore, he can rightly will anything that does not involve a contradiction. And thus, when this second justice determines his will to something whose opposite does not involve a contradiction, God can will, and rightly will, and act in violation of that second justice.

Some thinkers would perhaps concede the first of these arguments and say that there is not a twofold justice in God, but merely one justice that has, as it were, two effects: willing in conformity with what befits the divine goodness, and willing in conformity with the demands of the creature. But the second argument seems to prove evidently that God's second justice can incline him to anything to which his first justice can incline him, when it inclines naturally and therefore determinately. But it does not incline him in such a way that the divine will cannot act in violation of it and contrary to it, and thus there will be no distinction on the basis of his being able or unable to act in violation of it.

7 Without bothering to disprove these distinctions, I will answer the question more briefly by saying that in God there is only one justice. one both really and notionally. But taking 'justice' in a broader sense, it is possible to identify a sort of justice, or rather something just, in creatures.

By way of explaining the first point: Since justice in the strict sense is the rectitude of a will that has been habituated, and therefore inclines one naturally, as it were, to another or to oneself as if to another; and since there is no rectitude in the divine will inclining it determinately to anything other than its own goodness as if to another--for to any other object the divine will is related merely contingently, so that it can incline equally well to that object and to its opposite-- it follows that the there is no justice in the divine will other than with respect to repaying to his own goodness what befits it.

Moreover, this justice with respect to his own goodness inclines him determinately only to one act, one both really and notionally. But in virtue of its consequences this act bears on many secondary objects in the same way as was discussed in Book 1 regarding the divine intellect: just as the divine intellect, in addition to having one first object and one act [bearing on that object], also bears on many secondary objects. But there is a difference between the two cases. The intellect necessarily bears on its secondary objects, whereas the will bears on its secondary objects only contingently. So not only does the will's act, like that of the intellect, not depend on its secondary objects, but the will--unlike the intellect--is not necessarily determined to them.

8 Now if you wanted to distinguish what is really one act of will into many notionally distinct acts, as his one act of intellect is distinguished into many notionally distinct acts insofar as it bears on many secondary objects, I say that with respect to those secondary objects there are not, as it were, notionally distinct justices. There is not even one justice, however distinct or indistinct. For a habit inclines after the manner of nature and thus inclines determinately to one thing, so that a power habituated in accordance with that habit cannot tend to the opposite; but there is nothing in the divine will in virtue of which it is so determinately inclined to any secondary object that it cannot justly be inclined to the opposite of that object. After all, the divine will can, without contradiction, will the opposite; and so it can will the opposite justly, since otherwise it would be able to will by its absolute power and yet not justly, which is absurd. This is what Anselm says in Proslogion 11: "That alone is just which you will, unjust what you do not will." Accordingly, if some intellectual habit were to be identified in the divine intellect with respect to God and other things, we would be better able to distinguish many notionally distinct habits, insofar as it bears on secondary objects, than we are when it comes to the divine will, since the divine intellect is inclined determinately to each secondary object, whereas the will is not.

One could still say, however, that this one and only justice, which does not incline the divine will determinately except to its first act, modifies the secondary acts--although it does not modify any of them necessarily, in such a way that it could not modify the opposite act. Nor does this justice precede the will, as it were, inclining it after the manner of nature to some secondary act. Rather, the will first determines itself to any given secondary object. A secondary act is modified by that first justice in virtue of its being in conformity with the will to which it is accommodated, as if his first justice were the rectitude inclining him to that act.

9 In a second way, what is just is said to be in a creature in virtue of the correspondence of one created thing to another; for example, it is just on the part of the creature for fire to be hot, water cold, fire above, earth below, and so forth, since such-and-such a created nature demands so-and-so as something corresponding to it. This is analogous to what we could say in political affairs: given that it is only in the ruler that there is justice, nonetheless in the things he governs there is something just in a certain way, namely, that such-and-such things be arranged in this way and such-and-such in that, since that is what the things themselves demand as apt to serve the needs of the citizens. But God's intrinsic first justice does not determine his will to what is just in this sense: neither with respect to his first act, since that act has nothing to do with such an object; nor with respect to any secondary act, since (as I have said) that justice does not incline determinately insofar as it bears on such an object.

Someone might object to my view. First, there cannot be justice in any will unless it inclines that will in conformity with a dictate of prudence, and consequently, in conformity with the conclusion of a practical syllogism. But the divine intellect does not reason syllogistically, since it does not operate discursively.

Moreover, the divine intellect apprehends a possible action before the will wills it, and the will cannot fail to harmonize with the intellect in its apprehension. Now the intellect apprehends a given possible action determinately, not indiscriminately as this or that, since otherwise it would be in error. Therefore, the will determinately wills a given possible action, so that it cannot will the opposite if it is to will rightly.

Moreover, if it is just for Peter to be saved, and God wills this justly, then it is unjust for Peter to be damned. Thus, if God can will that Peter be damned, he can will something unjust.

10 As to the first, I say that if we can have a moral virtue inclining us in conformity with the conclusion of a practical syllogism, all the more so do we have an upright appetive habit that inclines us in conformity with the first practical principle, since that principle is truer and consequently more upright. Now the one and only justice (one both really and notionally, as has been said) that is in God inclines him in conformity with the first practical principle, namely, "God is to be loved." But if you insist that strictly speaking what does not incline in conformity with the conclusion of a practical syllogism is not a particular virtue, I concede that God's justice is nothing other than a quasi-universal and root virtue from whose rectitude all particular justices are apt to proceed, although not necessarily.

As to the second, I say that the intellect apprehends a possible action before the will wills it, but it does not apprehend determinately that this particular action is to be done, where 'apprehend' means 'dictate'. Rather, it offers this action to the divine will as neutral, and the will determines through its volition that it is to be done. Then, as a consequence of this volition, the intellect apprehends as true [the proposition that] it is to be done--as was said in the discussion of future contingents in Book One, distinction 39.

Nevertheless, even granting that the intellect apprehends something as to-be-done before the will wills it, as it apprehends "God is to be loved," the following argument is still a non-sequitur: "It apprehends this by natural necessity, and the will cannot fail to harmonize with the intellect; therefore, the will wills this by natural necessity." True, it cannot fail to harmonize in terms of the object so as to be able either to will or to will-against what the intellect presents as to-be-willed; but it does fail to harmonize in terms of the manner in which it tends towards that object.

11 Or more properly, there is a distinction [rather than a lack of harmony] between the two, since the intellect tends to the object in its characteristic way, i.e., naturally, and the will in its characteristic way, i.e., freely, and those powers are always in harmony because they always tend to the same object, each in its characteristic way of tending--as the fantasy and the intellect are in harmony even though the fantasy tends to an object as singular and the intellect to an object as universal.

As to the third, I say this: In political affairs a legislator in and of himself aims at what is unqualifiedly just, i.e., that justice which pertains to the common good; yet in a qualified sense he aims at certain partial instances of justice, although always as proportioned to what is unqualifiedly just. This is why in certain cases it is just not to abide by just laws bearing on those partial instances of justice, namely, when observing them would de detrimental to the common justice, i.e., the well-being of the state. In the same way, God is determined in an unqualified sense to the common justice--not for community as aggregation, as in a city, but for community as eminent containment ⁽¹⁾--which is the justice that befits his goodness. Every other instance of justice, however, is particular, so that now one thing is just and now another, depending on its being ordered to or consonant with this common justice. I therefore say that God can will, and rightly will, for Peter to be damned, since this particular instance of justice, that Peter be saved, is not necessarily required for the common justice in such a way that its opposite could not be ordered to it, i.e., to the befitting of the divine goodness. For that is indeed an end that does not necessarily require any determinate means.

12 As for the preliminary arguments:

To the first I say that in God there is no equality, in an unqualified sense, except to himself; therefore, neither is there any justice in him, in an unqualified sense, except to himself as if to another. But a certain sort of equality can be attributed to him, of the sort that there can be between a greatly superior master and his greatly inferior slave.

As for the second, I say that the virtues are not in God according to what is imperfect about them, but rather without their imperfections, as is evident in the example of temperance which was brought up. Temperance, after all, requires that the tempered nature be capable of some immoderate pleasure, and that is a mark of imperfection. For that reason we can more properly ascribe justice to God than temperance, since justice does not require any excess in a passion, or any other such imperfection, as temperance does. Now it is not so clear whether justice as it exists in God is a virtue in the sense that it is formally distinct from the will and is, as it were, a rule for the will, or whether it just is the will itself qua self-determining first rule. The reply to this argument is more effective if we adopt the second possibility, since then justice would not be in God under the ratio of moral virtue.

As for the third, I say that in an unqualified sense God owes nothing except to love his own goodness; what he "owes" to creatures--that he bestow on them what their natures require--is a matter of generosity. This requirement is said to be something just, as if it were a secondary object of his justice; but the truth of the matter is that nothing is both determinately just and external to God except in a certain respect, namely, with the qualification "so far as it is on the part of a creature." What is just in an unqualified sense is only what is related to the first justice, namely, because it is actually willed by the divine will.

1 Thus we come to the second question.

Arguments that there is not:

Argument for the opposite view:

Psalm 102 says "He is patient and very merciful."

2 I reply: in us, mercy is a habit or (however you want to put it) a form by which we will-against someone else's misery. It inclines us first to an act of willing-against the misery of another--whether this is future misery, in which case it prevents the misery if possible, or present misery, in which case it alleviates the misery if possible. Then, as a result, it disposes us after this action to a passion, namely, to displeasure over the future or current misery. Now as to this second aspect, that is, so far as mercy inclines us to a passion, there is no mercy in God. And it appears that the word 'mercy', if we attend to its etymology, was applied primarily on account of the passion; for 'merciful' (misericors) means "having a sorrowful heart (miserum cor)" because one feels for someone else's misery. For in so doing one has a sorrowful heart, that is, a heart that shares in misery.

But as to the action of willing-against future or present misery, there is mercy in God properly speaking. A proof that this is true with regard to future misery: just as nothing good happens unless God wills it, so also nothing is prevented from happening unless God wills-against it. Now many possible miseries are prevented from happening to someone; therefore, God wills against them. The proof that this is true with regard to present misery goes in just the same way. For no misery is eliminated unless God wills-against its being present in someone; and quite often, many miseries are eliminated. Therefore, etc.

3 Now one could make a distinction regarding this sort of mercy [that has to do with willing-against misery]. Just as Augustine distinguishes an antecedent and a consequent willing in God, one could distinguish in him a twofold willing-against. And just as he always antecedently wills the good of a creature, so also he always antecedently wills-against evil for a creature, [willing] that the evil be prevented or eliminated: as the Apostle says in 1 Timothy 2, "He wills that all human beings be saved." But just as he does not always consequently will the good, so also he does not always consequently will-against some evil that is to be eliminated.

Now it is not the first but the second sort of willing-against that is the defining characteristic of one who is merciful. And a further distinction in this can be drawn as follows: God wills-against future misery either totally or partially. The first is called "liberating mercy," which eliminates all evil, whether future or already present. The second is called "sparing" or "mitigating mercy," which does not eliminate all evil, but only some part of the evil that is due someone because of his merits. Now both sorts of mercy are in God, since he helps everyone: he helps some, on occasion, by preventing all future misery or at any rate alleviating [all present misery]; whereas he helps other by remitting some part of the misery they deserve.

1 Arguments that they are:

Cassiodorus on Psalm 50, speaking of mercy and justice, says, "These two things are always side by side [adiunctae] in the ways of the Lord."

Furthermore, if they were not distinct but rather the same, each would have the same effect. The inference is clear, since one and the same formal principle has one and the same effect. But the conclusion is false, since the effect of mercy is to set someone free without merit, whereas the effect of justice is to condemn someone where there is no merit, or to save someone on account of merit.

Argument for the opposite:

In City of God 11.10, Augustine holds that "God is simple in such a way that he is whatever he has." And this applies to whatever is predicated of him in himself, ⁽³⁾ as 'mercy' and 'justice' are. Therefore, God is mercy, and God is justice; therefore, justice is mercy.

2 By way of an answer to this question: if we are to hold the first alternative set forth in Question 1, it is said that mercy is a part of justice in the first sense, that is, the befitting of his own goodness. But if we are to hold the second alternative, it is clear that justice and mercy are not formally the same, since justice has as its first object the divine goodness, whereas mercy has to do with something in a creature, excluding the something-just that there can be in a creature, namely, the requirement [that it be granted its proper perfections]--for there is no mercy in God with respect to that which is just in this sense. Now mercy and justice have these two [distinct] first objects only because those objects are in some way not formally identical. Nevertheless, identity pure and simple is consistent with formal non-identity, as was said in Book One, d. 2, and d. 8, q. 4.

Now if one asks about the order of justice, so understood, with respect to these two objects, justice is unqualifiedly prior to mercy in terms of their objects, as the object [of justice] is prior to the object [of mercy]. But in terms of the things themselves, they have no ordering, except in the way in which other formally non-identical perfections are regarded as having an order on the grounds that one would be said to inhere really in a prior way if there were in fact a real distinction between them. And consequently, on the basis of this distinction, one is prior to the other; ⁽⁴⁾ by this "possible priority" justice is prior to mercy, as Anselm says in Proslogion 11, "mercy is born from justice."

3 As to the first, it shows that they are two things in a relative sense of 'two' that I discussed in Book 1, distinction 8. Nor is there any need to understand 'things' in the sense of "realities" or "formalities," since the distinction of one thing from another is similar to the distinction between one reality and another or one formality and another.

As to the second, it is said that 'mercy' connotes something different from what 'justice' does, even though in an unqualified sense the two are really one and the same. But against this is the point that this difference in connotation does not require any distinction between the two as they are in themselves, but merely as they are conceived and signified, since a difference in connotation is necessary for that reason. The preliminary argument, however, claims that there is some distinction between them in themselves as the causes of distinct effects. A distinction of reason would not, it seems, be enough to account for the difference in effect, since a thing of reason is not that by which some effect is brought about in reality. Indeed, as a universal rule, no real distinction in an effect depends on a relation of reason in the cause, as was proved in Book 1, distinction 13. Now this distinction of the effect of mercy from the effect of justice depends essentially on a distinction in the cause; therefore, it is not a distinction of reason alone.

4 I therefore concede that, just as in God the intellect is not formally the will, or vice versa, and yet one is the same as the other by the truest sort of identity, so also justice is not formally or quidditatively the same as mercy, or vice versa; and because of this formal non-identity, one of them can be the proximate principle of some external effect of which the other is not a formal principle, in the same way as if justice and mercy were two things. For the status of being a formal principle belongs to something on the basis of what sort of thing it is formally.

Against this, one might argue as follows: [a] the divine being is altogether actual. It therefore includes every divine perfection. But it would not include every divine perfection if one perfection were distinct from another and from the divine essence, since anything formally distinct from the divine being is actually present in God, and so it would be present in him as something actually distinct, and thus the divine essence itself as a distinct thing would not include every actuality present in God. [b] Furthermore, if there are distinct real formalities in God, there are distinct realities in him, and thus distinct things. A proof of the first inference: any given formality is distinct in virtue of its own reality.

As to [a], the essence contains every actuality of the divine essence in a unitive way, and what is contained without any distinction at all is not contained in a unitive way, since without any distinction at all there is no union. Moreover, items that are really distinct in an unqualified sense are also not contained in a unitive way, since such items are contained in a manifold or scattered way. Therefore, this expression "in a unitive way" implies some distinction between the items that are contained in that way, a distinction that makes it sensible to talk of their "union"; and yet a union of this sort, which is inconsistent with any composition or aggregation of distinct things, cannot exist unless we posit a formal non-identity alongside a real identity.

5 I therefore concede the point that the divine essence contains every actuality, and consequently every formality; but it does not contain them as formally the same, since if it did, it would not contain them in a unitive way. And if you were to object that it contains them to the utmost extent to which they are capable of being contained, I would say that this is true insofar as [the divine essence is] something of one ratio. Now something of one ratio cannot contain two or more formally non-identical items any more perfectly than in a unitive way, which is to say, identically.

As to the second argument, it can be said that there are as many realities and things in the divine essence as there are formalities, but that any [such] plurality is merely a plurality in a certain respect, as was shown earlier. Or, alternatvely, one could deny that the inference "more than one real formality, therefore more than one reality" is valid, just as we deny that the inference "more than one divine person, therefore more than one divinity" is valid. But the first response is more accurate.