Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/128

comprehend it. When the human will deviate from the divine will, it was thus separated from good, ceased to desire 1t, and therefore to execute it. But as man could not cease to exercise his inherent and inamissible faculties, so he could not cease to understand, to will, and to act; for this would have been ceasing to exist. But, separated from God, what he understood was not the truth, which dwells in God alone; what he willed was not the good, which is to be found only in God; and what he did, could not be that which he neither understood nor willed; and which, not being accepted by his understanding or will, could not be the term of his actions. The term of his understanding was therefore error, which 1s the negation of truth; the term of his will was evil, which is the negation of good; and the end of his actions was sin, which is the simultaneous negation of truth and good; these being only diverse manifestations of the same thing, considered under different points of view.

As sin denies all that God affirms with his understanding, which is truth; and all that he affirms with his will, which is good; and as there are no other affirmations in God than truth, which is in his understanding, and good which 1s in his will—God being these same affirmations substantially considered —1it follows that sin, which denies all that God affirms, virtually denies God in all his affirmations; and because it denies him, and does no other thing but deny him, it is therefore the supreme, universal, and absolute negation.

This negation did not and could not affect the essence of things that exist independently of the human will, and which, after as before the prevarication, were not only good in themselves, but likewise perfect and excellent.