St. Thomas argues that being and goodness are actually the same thing, simply considered in different ways:

Goodness and being are really the same, and differ only in idea; which is clear from the following argument. The essence of goodness consists in this, that it is in some way desirable. Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. i): “Goodness is what all desire.” Now it is clear that a thing is desirable only in so far as it is perfect; for all desire their own perfection. But everything is perfect so far as it is actual. Therefore it is clear that a thing is perfect so far as it exists; for it is existence that makes all things actual, as is clear from the foregoing (I:3:4; I:4:1). Hence it is clear that goodness and being are the same really. But goodness presents the aspect of desirableness, which being does not present.

We pointed out in the last post that the formal element of desire is the tendency to something. But it is easy to see that existing things tend to exist and to continue to exist, although they do not always succeed in continuing. So in this way existence implies the desire to exist, and the natural explanation for this desire is that existence as such is good, as St. Thomas says here.

Someone might say that this refutes our earlier argument against Richard Dawkins. If being as such a good, then life is necessarily good, and could not have been bad, while we suggested there that the idea was not intrinsically absurd.

However, this refutation fails, for a number of reasons.

First, one might argue that it makes the argument unnecessary, but the basic point is that the universe is not “at bottom” indifferent. And if being as such is good, then in fact the universe is at bottom good, without any qualification.

Second, one of the points in the earlier argument is that in terms of experience life could have been much worse than it is, or at least much more “indifferent” than it is, and this fact is not refuted by the present argument.

Third, the point of saying that as far as we can tell, things could have been different, was that there is something needing explanation. Once you have explained it, it is perfectly possible that you will show that things in fact could not have been different. It is in fact the case that life is necessarily good, but that is precisely because the universe and its cause “at bottom” is not only good but necessarily good.