Divine Compassion and Divine Punishment

By Rev. Aaron Pidel, S.J. 

As with most tricky pastoral questions, distinctions prove helpful. Ever since Augustine, the tradition has distinguished between two different kinds of evil: “Fault (culpa) is the evil we do, but punishment (poena) is the evil we suffer” (De lib. arb., bk. 1, ch. 1). Aquinas inherits this distinction, differentiating broadly between the evil of fault (malum culpae), e.g., sin and guilt, and the evil of punishment (malum poenae), or defects of “form or integrity” such as sickness or poverty (De malo, q. 1, a. 4). There is, moreover, a key difference between the two kinds of evil. Whereas the evil of fault is sheer waste, contributing nothing to the good of the universe, the evil of punishment is always connected to some other creature’s flourishing. A stab wound is the consequence of steel being good steel; pandemics are the consequence of a coronavirus flourishing in its own way. The evil of punishment always takes place within an interconnected order, where creatures depend not only on God, but also on each other. As a result, one may say that the evil of punishment is not directly willed by God, but only indirectly, as the consequence of maintaining the good of order.

Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, Volume 9, Number 10, October 2020, 4p.