Question Six
Whether God acts reasonably in cooperating in the souls arising from illicit intercourse
It is asked whether God acts reasonably in cooperating in the souls arising from illicit intercourse. Certain persons argue falsely against this as follows. If God infuses souls from without, as has been said and as the Philosopher adduces in his book On the Generation of Animals, God will cooperate in adulteries, from whose illicit intercourse offspring are sometimes generated.
To this it is said, according to Thomas in Part I, question 118, article 2, in the reply to the final objection, that in the action of adulterers that which belongs to nature is good, and God cooperates with this. That which belongs to disordered pleasure, however, is evil, and God does not cooperate with this. Thus Thomas in Part I, and Master Johannes de Turrecremata, cardinal of Saint Sixtus of the Order of Preachers, on the Decretum.
Addition
Augustine teaches that God is not to be blamed for the offenses of any vices, but is to be praised in the consideration of all natures, in Book XII of The City of God, chapter 5, and in his book against Adimantus, the disciple of Manichaeus. For even if he may seem to cooperate in the act, he nevertheless does not cooperate in the deformity of the act.
To this pertains what Saint Bonaventure says in Book IV, distinction 31: evil can be joined to a good in two ways, either to it as corruptible or insofar as it is medicinal. In the first manner evil defiles the good; in the second manner it is thus cured and expelled.
For example, a disease joined to nature vitiates and weakens it; but a disease joined to medicine does not render the medicine diseased, but is instead cured by it. And because matrimony is a medicinal good, it is therefore not defiled by evil, but rather cures the evil. In this way the Master is to be understood in Book IV, distinction 31, when he says that intercourse which takes place for the sake of offspring is without fault.