1 After briefly establishing certain truths about the Trinity of God and the creation of the world, we now undertake a brief treatment of the corruption of sin. On this subject we must hold in summation that sin is not any kind of essence but a defect and corruption by which the mode, species and order in the created will are corrupted. Hence the corruption of sin is opposed to good itself; it has no existence except in the good; it has no source except from the good which is the free choice of the will, and the will is neither completely evil, since it can wish good, nor completely good, since it can fall into evil.
   The discussion of evil here is after St. Bonaventure's discussions on the Trinity and the creation of the world. Evil itself, as St. Bonaventure established, only "exists" as a parasite on something which is of itself good. One can say that evil exists, but only in the sense of equivocation; it exists, because we can have mentally connect some defects to having the quality of evil. In reality, what we are doing in this: we are using our mind to establish the concept of evil. When we see something that follows the concept, we then establish that what we see is then evil.. Thus, in this way,  we say evil exists. We have seen something which is not as good as it should be, and then establish it must be evil.  It is like a hole in a piece of paper can be said to "exist", because one can see the hole. In reality, the hole is not anything, it is the lack of paper which we see. Since evil is in reality a defect of nature, its nature is that of non-being, that is, non-existence; evil is a corrupting force which destroys the nature it entangles itself with, with the final result, if it is allowed to do its work, of destroying both itself and that which it has contaminated. For evil exists in that which is good, but evil itself is not good; whatever existence that we see as evil, lies in the fact that we see something which does exist, and see that what exists has a mode of existence less than what it should be, and thus, call what we see evil When we call something evil, then, we ignore what little good remains.
    According to St. Bonaventure, sin is itself formed within the will of man; the will, being free, is able to choose to follow what is natural to man (that is, what is good), but it is also able to freely choose to ignore its proper function, and allow one to do what is contrary to nature, and thus, follow what is evil. St. Bonaventure wrote here that the will is neither good nor evil, because it can choose one or the either; however, St. Augustine points out that the will itself is good, but man's personal use of it can be either good or evil. The will itself, being established by God as a gift to man, must be considered a good tool given to man by God, but how man personally uses it, that is where the tool can used for the good or the bad. St. Augustine points out that the tool was created for one purpose: so that man can freely do what is good: "If human beings are good things, and they cannot do right unless they so will, then they ought to have a free will, without which they cannot do right. True, they can also use free will to sin, but we should not believe that God gave them free will so that they would be able to sin. The fact that human beings could not live rightly without it was sufficient reason for God to give it." (On Free Choice of the Will, II:1, trans. Thomas Williams, Hackett:1993) However, St. Augustine and St. Bonaventure could be considered to be discussing two different things when discussing the "will"; St. Augustine is looking at the natural will of man, which is good; St. Bonaventure is looking at how man has appropriated what is natural for him, and as such, looking at the gnomic will of man, his personal will, which he considers is neither good nor bad of itself.

   2. The explanation of this is as follows: Since the first principle is a being from itself and not from another, it is necessary that it is a being because of itself and hence completely good, having no defect. Therefore there is not anything nor can there be anything which is the first and complete evil because the first principle bespeaks the greatest perfection, and the greatest evil bespeaks the very greatest defect. Since the first principle as the greatest and most perfect being cannot be deficient in essence or in operation, the greatest evil cannot exist, nor does something evil exist, nor can evil in any way reign. Because the first principle is omnipotent, it is able to bring good from non-existence into existence even without the prop of any matter. The first principle did this when it shaped the creature to whom it gave existence, life, intelligence, and choice, and it is fitting that the creature since it has an existence according to the triple cause, should have in its substance and will a mode, species, and order. The creature was born to perform its works from God, according to God, and because of God, and this according to the mode, species and order implanted within it.
   The first principle is God. Since God gains His being from Himself, and from no other source, God is thus a necessary being. God's existence, being necessary and from Himself, has no allowance for any defects; He is the primal being, of which all other beings draw their existence from. There is no room for defect, because there is no room for any error in God's participation in himself. He is thus, perfect, free from defect, and thus, the good. Existence gains itself from participating in the existence of God, and thus, shares this attribute with God, in such a way that anything which participates of existence, is thus participating of something which is good.
    Following this understanding, St. Bonaventure then discusses evil. Since evil is a deficit of what is good, evil itself can not have a nature, nor can there be a "greatest evil" that exists as a principle, because the "greatest evil" would not be able to exist. There is thus no possibility for a rival principle for the first principle, God, to be an equal and opposite principle: the greatest good, being perfection and what all that partakes of being participates in, does not have an equal and opposite principle, that is, the greatest evil, because it would entail a contradiction of having something which is good, existence, while being the greatest form of evil. Because there can be no rival principle for the good first principle, evil cannot be said to reign, and so that which is good, God, must be the sole ruler.
    As the sole principle of creation, God is also omnipotent and able to give other entities existence. They participate in existence through God's being. Hence, God is able to create, without the need of any other principle, other than what He has Himself. When St. Bonaventure discusses the creation of a creature created by God with which God gave existence, life and intelligence, St. Bonaventure probably only was discussing the creation of man, but what he says here of man relates to all creatures in varying degrees. God created man, according to St. Bonaventure, with a triple-cause: that is, according to a mode, species and order. The gift of life given by God to man (and to all of creation), is one where the existence is to perform its works: from God, according to the laws established by God, and because of God, that is, because of God's desires for each of creation.

   3. Because the creature is from nothing and is defective, it can withdraw from acting because of God, so that it may do something because of itself, and not because of God, and thus something neither from God, according to God, nor because of God. This is sin, which is the corruption of mode, species, and order. Because sin is a defect, it does not have an efficient cause but a deficient cause, namely, the defection of the created will.
   Here, we see St. Bonaventure beginning to explain where sin comes from. It is proper for a creature, when it acts, to act according to the dictates of nature given to him by God. This is precisely what God wills and desires, that the creature will follow this natural principle where he will rely upon God. But instead, the creature focused upon himself. By focusing upon himself, the creature is thus focused on something which is less real: himself, his personal life, rather than having focused upon that which is most real, that is reality itself inside God. Because a creature's existence participates in God, when he does not follow the proper way of action, which is from and in and by God, he then focuses on what is not-- and hence, sin is the result. Man turns from God, and turns to himself; in man, the root of existence, the root of reality is not primary but participatory, and as such, less real. Sin, being a disorder in nature, is thus seen to be the result of an improper will, where an individual acts solely as an individual, and tries to place himself in the place of God, that is, place himself as the center of his own existence, when it is God where existence flows forth.

   4. Because corruption exists and is of the good, and all corruption exists in a corruptible thing, corruption does not exist except in the good. Whence, since free will corrupts the mode, species, and order in itself by withdrawing from the true good, all sin, in so far as it is of this kind, both exists from the will as its origin and exists in the will as its proper subject. The will does this when by its defection, mutability, and vertibility, it adheres to the commutable good, rejecting the non-deficient and incommutable good.
   Corruption can only exist in something which exists, that is, if there is nothing, then there is nothing to corrupt. Since all that exists participates in God for their existence, and thus have some good, all corruption exists only in the good. However, instead of having its being in God, sin can only participate in something which is not God, and which focuses itself away from God: that is, in free will. Hence it is said that sin exists from the will as its origin and exists in the will as its proper subject. For it is through the will that corruption begins to destroy, and it is inside the will that it is allowed to continue its destruction. For when the will continues to be used against its proper use, it will have residing in it this corruptible sin which will then begin to destroy the person who is allowing sin to reside in his will.

   5. From these statements we gather that 'sin is not an appetite for evil things, but a rejection of the better' (Augustine, De natura boni, 34 and 36). Hence there is in the appetite of the will a corruption of modes, species and order, and through this, 'I proceed voluntarily, and if involuntarily it is not sin.' (Augustine, De vera religione XIV, 27). Understanding these matters will beforehand, the heresy of the Manichaeans in positing a greatest evil, the first principle of all evil, clearly falls. Also it is clear what the origin of evil is and what is the subject of evil.
   When it is said that we now understand that sin is not an appetite for evil things, we must remember that evil itself does not exist, so evil things do not themselves exist. To have an appetite for evil things, would require one to understand that evil exists, and one can desire something which participates in the principle of evil; but that is precisely one of the errors of the Manichaeans, and one which is rejected by the Catholic Church. Indeed, that is why St. Bonaventure says that the Manichaean error falls, because with a proper understanding of what it is that we mean when we describe something as evil, we learn that evil can not itself exist purely and by itself, so that the dualism of the Manichaeans must itself be false. Hence, as St. Athanasius wrote in relation to the origin of evil,: "This conceit of theirs, then, being evidently rotten, the truth of the Church's theology must be manifest: that evil has not from the beginning been with God or in God, nor has any substantive existence; but that men, in default of the vision of good, began to devise and imagine for themselves what was not, after their own pleasure" (St. Athanasius, Against the Heathen, VII:3; Nicene-Post Nicene Father, Series II Volume IV, ed. by Schaff and Wace). Evil can not be said to exist, it can not be said to have substance; this refutes all dualism, of which the Manichaeans are the archetypal representations within the Christian context. St. Bonaventure has established the orthodox understanding of evil, in indicating its lack of substance, its lack of existence, and thus the question "Why does evil exist?" can only most properly be answered, "It does not."
    There is also, here, the indication that sin must be done voluntarily. Since sin achieved through the will, sin must be something which is voluntarily desired, something freely done-- so that there can be said to be a true deficiency in the will of the one who desired improperly, that is, contrary to God.

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