Thank you for subscribing to Annotated Thomist...check back each day for a new section of St. Thomas' corpus, annotated and summarized. (FREE TRIAL FOR NEW SUBSCRIBERS!!!)
AT is also available to donors of $10 or more on Patreon or SubscribeStar along with all of the other benefits (daily bonus videos, bonus articles, PDFs, etc.
If you need more personalized help reading the Summa, I am available for 1-on-1 sessions, here.
The answer to this is in the affirmative, he begins by demonstrating that all the works of God are rooted in justice. For, as we saw above, justice consists in the idea of paying a certain debt of faithfulness. Now, since God works always in accordance with his goodness, he will always work all things in justice.
Further, mercy consists in the idea of the dispelling of miseries by the bestowal of goodness. This is seen from the idea of Divine Justice. For, it is of the nature of justice that it be given on the basis of something due. Yet, since creatures are contingent, this basis must be something that precedes them. Now, this can only be the goodness of God, which is merciful as stated above.
"Prior to the works of mercy and justice taken in their strict sense, the ideas of these perfections are in some manner preserved in creation, inasmuch as beings are, as it were, mercifully changed from non-existence to existence, and justice is seen in the production of these beings in a manner that accords with the divine goodness and wisdom, particularly in sparing and having mercy."