The
Aristotelian and
Neo-Aristotelian views of GodGod is a deity in theistic and deistic religions and other belief systems, representing either the sole deity in monotheism, or a principal deity in polytheism....
have been influential in Western intellectual history.
The Metaphysics
In his book on first philosophy, which most now call the
MetaphysicsMetaphysics is one of the principal works of Aristotle and the first major work of the branch of philosophy with the same name. The principal subject is "being qua being", or being understood as being. It examines what can be asserted about anything that exists just because of its existence and...
,
AristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.Together with Plato and Socrates , Aristotle is one of...
discussed the meaning of "being as being". Some see contradictions in this book, and conclude that it puts together many different works that Aristotle wrote at different times. Others find a coherent argument in the book. According to the latter reading, Aristotle concluded that "being" primarily refers to the Unmoved Movers, and assigned one of these to each movement in the heavens. In the
AristotelianAristotelianism is a tradition of philosophy that takes its defining inspiration from the work of Aristotle. Aristotelianism is understood by its proponents as critically developing Plato’s theories. Most particularly, Aristotelianism brings Plato’s ideals down to Earth as goals and goods internal...
theory, each Unmoved Mover continuously contemplates its own contemplation, and everything that fits the second meaning of "being" by having its source of motion in itself, moves because the knowledge of its Mover causes it to emulate this Mover (or should).
Aristotle's criticism of Plato
Aristotle devotes special attention to the
PlatoPlato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world...
nic theory, according to which ideas are the ultimate principles of Being. That theory, he contends, was introduced to explain how things are, and how things are known; in both respects, it is inadequate. To postulate the existence of ideas apart from things is merely to complicate the problem; for, unless the ideas have some definite contact with things, they cannot explain how things came to be, or how they came to be known by us. Plato does not maintain in a definite, scientific way a contact between ideas and phenomena -- he merely takes refuge in expressions, such as participation, imitation, which, if they are anything more than empty metaphors, imply a contradiction. In a word, Aristotle believes that Plato, by constituting ideas in a world separate from the world of phenomena, precluded the possibility of solving by means of ideas the problem of the ultimate nature of reality.
The principles of being
In the metaphysical order, the highest determinations of Being are Actuality (
entelecheia - Greek:
ἐντελέχεια) and Potentiality (
dynamisFor the Roman Client Queen of the Bosporan Kingdom, see Dynamis .Dunamis or dynamis is an Ancient Greek word meaning "power" or "force". It is the root of the English words "dynamic", "dynamite", and "dynamo". The word "dunamis" is sometimes seen in English texts because of its importance in...
- Greek:
δύναμις). The former is perfection, realization, fullness of Being; the latter imperfection, incompleteness, perfectibility. The former is the determining, the latter the determinable principle. Actuality and potentiality are above all the Categories; they are found in all beings, with the exception of the Supreme Cause, in Whom there is no imperfection, and, therefore, no potentiality. God is all actuality,
Actus PurusActus Purus is a term employed in scholastic philosophy to express the absolute perfection of God.Created beings have potentiality that is not actuality, imperfections as well as perfection. Only God is simultaneously all that He can be, infinitely real and infinitely perfect: `I am who I am`...
. All other beings are composed of actuality and potentiality, a dualism which is a general metaphysical formula for the dualism of matter and form, body and soul, substance and accident, the soul and its faculties, passive and active intellect. In the physical order, potentiality and actuality become Matter and Form. To these are to be added the Agent (Efficient Cause) and the End (Final Cause); but as the efficiency and finality are to be reduced, in ultimate analysis, to Form, we have in the physical order two ultimate principles of Being, namely, Matter and Form. Aristotle's
four generic causesIn Aristotle's Metaphysics, there are four main causes of change in nature: the material cause, the formal cause, the efficient cause, and the final cause....
-- Material, Formal, Efficient, and Final -- are seen in the case, for instance, of a statue:
- The material cause, that out of which the statue is made, is the marble or bronze.
- The formal cause, that according to which the statue is made, is the idea existing in the first place as exemplar in the mind of the sculptor, and in the second place as intrinsic, determining cause, embodied in the matter.
- The efficient cause, or Agent, is the sculptor.
- The final cause is that for the sake of which (as, for instance, the price paid the sculptor, the desire to please a patron, etc.) the statue is made.
Mere potentiality without any actuality or realization--(what is called materia prima in Latin)--nowhere exists by itself, though it enters into the composition of all things except the
Supreme Cause. It is at one pole of reality, He is at the other. Both are real. Primortal Matter possesses what may be called the most attenuated reality, since it is pure
indeterminatenessIndeterminacy, in philosophy, can refer both to common scientific and mathematical concepts of uncertainty and their implications and to another kind of indeterminacy deriving from the nature of definition or meaning...
, God possesses the highest and most complete reality, since He is in the highest grade of determinateness. To prove that there is a Supreme Cause is one of the tasks of metaphysics the Theologic Science. And this Aristotle undertakes to do in several portions of his work on First Philosophy. In the "Physics" he adopts and improves on
Socrates Socrates was a Classical Greek philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known only through the classical accounts of his students...
' teleological argument, the major premise of which is, "Whatever exists for a useful purpose must be the work of an intelligence". In the same treatise, he argues that, although motion is eternal, there cannot be an infinite series of movers and of things moved, that, therefore, there must be one, the first in the series, which is unmoved, to proton kinoun akineton--primum movens immobile.
In the "
MetaphysicsMetaphysics investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. Cosmology and ontology are traditional branches of metaphysics. It is concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world...
" he takes the stand that the actual is of its nature antecedent to the potential, that consequently, before all matter, and all composition of matter and form, of potentiality and actuality, there must have existed a Being Who is pure actuality, and Whose life is self-contemplative thought (
noesisNoesis is a word meaning "understanding as the ability to sense, or know something, immediately".-Etymology:...
, noeseos). The Supreme Being imparted movement to the universe by moving the First Heaven, the movement, however, emanated from the First Cause as desirable; in other words, the First Heaven, attracted by the desirability of the Supreme Being "as the soul is attracted by beauty", was set in motion, and imparted its motion to the lower spheres and thus, ultimately, to our terrestrial world. According to this theory God never leaves the eternal repose in which His blessedness consists. Will and intellect are incompatible with the eternal unchangeableness of His being. Since matter, motion, and time are eternal, the world is eternal. Yet, it is caused. The manner in which the world originated is not defined in Aristotle's philosophy.
Influence
This influenced
AnselmAnselm of Canterbury was a Benedictine monk, an Italian medieval philosopher, theologian, and church official who held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. Called the founder of scholasticism, he is famous in the West as the originator of the ontological argument for the...
's view of God, whom he called "that than which nothing greater can be conceived" (TTWNGCBC). Anselm thought that God did not feel emotions such as anger or love, but appeared to do so through our imperfect understanding. The incongruity of judging "being" against something that might not exist, may have led Anselm to think that he had proved God's existence (see
ontological argumentAn ontological argument for the existence of God attempts the method of a priori proof, which uses intuition and reason alone. In the context of the Abrahamic religions, ontological arguments were first proposed by the Medieval philosophers Avicenna and Anselm of Canterbury...
).
Many medieval philosophers made use of the idea of approaching a knowledge of
GodGod is a deity in theistic and deistic religions and other belief systems, representing either the sole deity in monotheism, or a principal deity in polytheism....
through negative attributes. For example, we should not say that God exists in the usual sense of the term; all we can safely say is that God is not nonexistent. We should not say that God is wise, but we can say that God is not ignorant (i.e. in some way God has some properties of knowledge). We should not say that God is One, but we can state that there is no multiplicity in God's being. See apophatic theology.
Aristotelian theology was accepted by many later
JewThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
ish philosophers, such as
MaimonidesMoses Maimonides, also known as Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon or the acronym the Rambam , was born in Cordoba, Spain on March 30, 1135, and died in Egypt on December 13, 1204....
,
GersonidesLevi ben Gershon , better known as Gersonides or the Ralbag , philosopher, Talmudist, mathematician, astronomer/astrologer. He was born at Bagnols in Languedoc, France.- Biography :...
, Samuel Ibn Tibbon and many others; their views of God are considered mainstream by many Jews of all denominations even today. Aristotelian theology was also accepted by many later Christian and Islamic philosophers and theologians in the medieval era, notably
Thomas AquinasSaint Thomas Aquinas, O.P. was a priest of the Roman Catholic Church in the Dominican Order from Italy, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus and Doctor Communis...
.
See also
- God
God is a deity in theistic and deistic religions and other belief systems, representing either the sole deity in monotheism, or a principal deity in polytheism....
- Names of God
-Hinduism:Within Hinduism, there are number of names of God which are generally in Sanskrit, each supported by a different tradition within the religion...
- Conceptions of God
Conceptions of God can vary widely, despite the use of the same term for them all.The God of monotheism, pantheism or panentheism, or the supreme deity of henotheistic religions, may be conceived of in various degrees of abstraction:...
- Existence of God
Arguments for and against the existence of God have been proposed by scientists, philosophers, theologians, and others. In philosophical terminology, "existence-of-God" arguments concern schools of thought on the epistemology of the ontology of God....
- Henosis
The goal of Henosis is union with the hen, the one, source or Monad. This concept is prominent in the realm of Neoplatonic philosophy, within the mystery religions, and in the writings of the Corpus Hermeticum.-Divine Work:...
- Henotheism
Henotheism is a term coined by Max Müller, to mean worshiping a single god while accepting the existence or possible existence of other deities...