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Peter Pham

Professor LaBarge

PHIL 14

November 1, 2017

Too Perfect to Care

In Metaphysics, Aristotle develops arguments to prove the existence of God and the role

that this God plays in his explanation of why the world exists and behaves as it does. In this

paper, I will summarize Aristotle's development of his understanding of God: his proof for the

existence of a God, what his God is, and the role that his God plays in the world. After that, I

will attempt to apply Aristotles logic to current understandings of science to further prove that

God exists. Then, I will express a concern about what Aristotle defines God to be and its

detached role by providing an alternative answer that leads to a different role for God to play.

Starting with two essential definitionspotentiality and actuality, potentiality is any

possibility that a subject can be, while actuality what actually manifests: motion, change,

activity. With this as a foundation, Aristotle observes that substances are the first of existing

things, and if they are all destructible, all things are destructible (1071b 5-7). However, looking

back in time it is impossible that movement should either come into being or cease to be; for it

must always have existed. Nor can time come into being or cease to be; for there could not be a

before and an after (1071b 7-10). Therefore, movement and time are continuous.

However, movement needs a causea first moverto transpire, but if there is

something which is capable of moving things or acting on them, but is not actually doing so,

there will not be movement; for that which has a capacity need not exercise it. Nothing, then, is

gained even if we suppose eternal substances (1071b 11-14). The first mover needs to ensure
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eternal movement, but that is impossible for anything physical to be the first mover. Physical

matter means that there is a possibility for no movement like a rock; it has potentiality.

Furthermore, if something physical is the first mover, nothing at all will exist; for it is possible

for things to be capable of existing but not yet to exist (1071b 24-25). There must, then, be

such a principle, whose very nature is actuality (1071b 19-20) and without matter; for they

must be eternal, at least if anything else is eternal (1071b 21-22) in order to avoid the problem

of potentiality in an eternally moving world. Matter will surely not move itself (1071b 30), so

the first mover needs to be immaterial and eternal.

Observing the world, Aristotle further notices that nothing is moved at random, but there

must always be something present [and that] a thing moves by force or through the

influence of thought or something else (1071b 34-37). Therefore, the first mover needs to be

immaterial. He also observes that the same things have always existed (either passing through a

cycle of changes or in some other way) [in] a constant cycle (1072a 7-9). That means that

the first mover moves without being moved, being eternal (1072a 25-26), and is immaterial.

Aristotle thinks the solution to this criteria would be thinking, because all desire is consequent

on opinion [or thought] rather than opinion on desire (1072a 28-29) and that which is capable

of receiving the object of thought is thought. And is active when it possesses this object

(1072b 23). Thinking is independent of anything external, but is able to cause movements, such

as when a man thinks he wants to drink; thinking is not quantifiable and is immaterial, while

being something that exists eternally and independent of external factors: immovable. Therefore,

the first mover of the cosmos is the actuality of thinking, and Aristotle names it God.

However, Aristotle also recognizes that the act of thinking is inherently neutral where

the act of thought will belong even to one who has the worst of thoughts (1074b 32). So, he
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clarifies that the thing that God thinks about must be [God] itself (since it is the most

excellent of things), and its thinking is a thinking on thinking (1074b 33-35). Furthermore, God

thinks that which is most divine and precious, and it does not change; for change would be

change for the worse [deviating away from perfection], and this would be already a movement

(1074b 25-28). If God thinks about something else, this would circle back to the problem of

potentiality where the first movers activity is suppose to be eternal while constantly active to

explain why all the movements of the world continue to take place; there cannot be any change.

So, Aristotles God can only think about itself in order to meet the criteria of being eternal,

immaterial, and unmoved that Aristotle sets previously.

Since God only thinks about itself constantly, God cannot and does not think about the

world and human affairs:

1. God needs to think about the best thing in order to be God.

2. The best thing is God itself.

3. Thinking about anything else, like human affairs, takes away from Gods ability to think

about the best thing: itself.

4. Plus, thinking about anything else would deviate from perfection, because it is not

perfection.

5. God never thinks about anything other than itself.

Therefore, Aristotles God is a God detached from the world. The problem then seems to be why

a detached God would matter. Aristotle answers this by pointing out that the good, also, and

that which is in itself desirable [by people] are on this same side of the list [of what God, the

prime mover, is]; and the first in any class is always best, or analogous to the best (1072a 34-

36). People want to be happy, and the best way to achieve happiness and fulfillment
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(eudaimonia) is to do good and attain virtues. For Aristotle, God is the ultimate good, so people

strive to become as close as possible to Gods perfection in hopes of being happy. Even if

Aristotles God remains distant and does not participate in the world, God serves as a goal for

all.

Furthermore, Aristotle reminds people that, by his reasoning, the world would cease all

movement if there is no God or prime mover, even if it is unconcerned with the world. This is

due to how there will be no first principle, no order, no becoming, no heavenly bodies, but each

principle will have a principle before it [even] if the Forms or the numbers are to exist, they

will be causes of nothing; or if not that, at least not of movement (1075b 24-28). Aristotle

reaffirms the need for God to exist, so that Gods activity will cause movement in the world:

1. All movements in the world are dependent on a prime mover.

2. God (the actuality of thinking the greatest good) is the prime mover.

3. All movements in the world are dependent on Gods existence.

Also, he points out that all things [in the universe] are ordered together somehow

[and] are connected (1075a 15-18). Aristotle then states that good is found in the order [or

structure of something] (1075a 13). Since God is the ultimate good, order must be a

consequence of Gods existence. Even if God remains detached from the world, Gods

existenceas the ultimate good, the prime mover, and activities that propel movement and bring

order to the worldvalidates the significance of Aristotles God.

Despite Aristotles lifetime being centuries before now, his argument about the need for a

prime mover in a world filled with movement still holds. After Aristotles death until now, time

and movement continue to persist, and it seems that it will remain this way in the foreseeable

future. Since every action needs an equal reaction, there must be something causing a particular
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action that is a reaction to that cause. Provided that the world is deeply interconnected

(environmentally, physically, socially, etc), if one were to trace back the source of all causes, it

would quickly become difficult to answer concretely what that source is; Aristotle provides the

logical explanation for this. Before the Big Bang, there must be a Big Banger. Yet the Big Bang

is the start of the universe and all matter does not exist before that moment, so the Big Banger

must be immaterial; this echoes a lot of Aristotles reasoning. A sceptic may contest that the Big

Banger no longer matters now, but it is clear that everything in the world is connected in some

way. So, everything must still be a consequence of the Big Bangerthe prime mover, which

reiterates Aristotles point about the significance of his God.

Yet, Aristotles Gods detached role seems incompatible with its effects on the world.

The specific premise that I am attacking is that thinking is the highest good, and that God is the

actuality of thinking the best thing. In some cases, thinking is not the sole source of desire;

people choosing one dish to eat over another can have little to do with thinking if people are

choosing out of gut feelings or mindlessly doing so without any specific preferences in mind.

Furthermore, thinking cannot always be the best action; when an an individual confides in

another, thinking and rationalizing would be among the worst actions to take. Instead, the

listening person only needs to sympathize and express emotions to show reciprocation, which

requires no thinking. Like thinking, feeling is eternal, immaterial, and unmovable. Following

Aristotles logic, this would mean that God also needs to be the actuality of feeling the best

things. Then God feels love, for love is the best feeling. If that is the case, then love will lead

God to care for the world, especially during moments of clear adversity, pain, and injustice.

Those feelings for the world then leads to God participating in the world constantly, which still

meets Aristotles criteria of a constantly active prime mover. It will also maintain Gods
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immovability, because the feeling prime mover will act from its feeling love and not anything

external. Two different people can have different feelings towards the same specific subject and

act differently as a result of them. So the subject cannot be causing anything, but rather the

peoples act of feeling brings them to behave in certain ways. In short, it seems that Aristotle

overlooks feelings as another possible answer to what the prime mover is doing in trying to

rationally explain the existence of and role of the prime mover; not everything in the world is

rational.
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Work Cited

Aristotle. Metaphysics.