Thomas Aquinas 'Euclidean Theodicy'

Having considered what the nature and purpose of Creation is, both its beauty and its corruption, it is necessary to consider what things might be said about God. For how God the Creator and the Creation interact give insight into the question of natural evil. In particular, sheds light on how Divine freedom, and earthly freedom, can interact. How can God be both free and good when suffering exists?
The belief in the goodness of God is both a source of great frustration, and comfort, in regards to the question of natural evil. Defining God as good is a source of pain because it flies in the face of how many people experience the world. The classic Euclidean theodicy operates with three assumptions, one of which must be false: God is all-loving,
Aquinas proposed three different models of how humans can understand things: univocal, equivocal, or analogical. Aquinas dismisses both univocal and equivocal. A univocal approach will put God and humans on the same plane, with the idea that the way God loves and the way a human loves are identical. In sharp contrast, equivocal understanding argues instead there is no overlap, no shared same-ness of being. There are problems with both views. If there is only difference between humanity and God, then what hope can there be to ever understand another, especially if some level of understanding is required for relationships which God seems to desire? Yet, to conflate God and humanity is to confuse boundaries of Creator and creature, placing the same human limitations and confines on God who does not exist within creaturely existence. Thus, both univocal and equivocal understandings of how to speak of God fall short of being helpful or
Allowing for the created order’s freedom means allowing for the possibility that freedom will be used to turn away from God: “Every free act, even an act of hating God—arises from and is sustained by a more original love of God”. However, no act of disobedience or no privation of the good is enough to stop God’s plan for humanity. “God can both allow created freedom its scope and yet so constitute the world that nothing can prevent him from bringing about the beatitude of his kingdom”. God’s agency and human agency do not have to be competitive, nor does every act of human agency (or act of natural evil) need be directly attributed to God. Divine will and divine permission are not interchangeable, and by allowing created beings’ freedom God allows for the created world to be in loving, free union with