ARISTOTLE
ON THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
Here is Aristotle's argument for the
existence of God, from chapters 6 to 10 of book 12 of the Metaphysics.
In chapter 6, Aristotle argues that
there must be some eternal and imperishable substance, otherwise all substance
would be perishable, and then everything in the world would be perishable. But the world and time are not perishable,
therefore &c. In chapter 7 he argues
that this eternal actual substance must be a single prime mover, which, while the source of all process and change, is
not itself subject to process or change.
This substance does what is the highest form of life ought to do, namely
to think. The God of the philosophers,
perhaps. Having proved that there is
only one prime mover, in chapter 8 he rather oddly shows there are in fact 47
or 55 of them.
The bold Latin expressions refer to
Moerbeke's Latin translation of Aristotle's Greek, used as placemarkers by commentators
such as Aquinas, Ockham and Scotus. At a
later stage of the Logic Museum project, I intend to bring together the Latin
version of the Metaphysics, and the main commentaries on it, in an extended
hypertext version. There are also links
pointing to a beautiful 14th century manuscript version of Moerbeke.
Aristotle,
Metaphysics, Book 12 (Lambda) chapters 6-10
6 [m61 71b 3]
[Sed quoniam tres sunt] Since there were three kinds of substance, two of them physical and one unmovable, regarding the latter we must assert that it is necessary that there should be an eternal unmovable substance. For substances are the first of existing things, and if they are all destructible, all things are destructible. But it is impossible that movement should either have come into being or cease to be (for it must always have existed), or that time should. For there could not be a before and an after if time did not exist. Movement also is continuous, then, in the sense in which time is; for time is either the same thing as movement or an attribute of movement. And there is no continuous movement except movement in place, and of this only that which is circular is continuous.
[At vero si] But if there is something which is capable of moving things or acting on them, but is not actually doing so, there will not necessarily be movement; for that which has a potency need not exercise it. Nothing, then, is gained even if we suppose eternal substances, as the believers in the Forms do, unless there is to be in them some principle which can cause change; nay, even this is not enough, nor is another substance besides the Forms enough; for if it is not to act, there will be no movement. [Adhuc neque] Further even if it acts, this will not be enough, if its essence is potency; for there will not be eternal movement, since that which is potentially may possibly not be. There must, then, be such a principle, whose very essence is actuality. [Amplius igitur] Further, then, these substances must be without matter; for they must be eternal, if anything is eternal. Therefore they must be actuality.
[Quamvis dubitatio] Yet there is a difficulty; for it is thought that everything that acts is able to act, but that not everything that is able to act acts, so that the potency is prior. But if this is so, nothing that is need be; for it is possible for all things to be capable of existing but not yet to exist.
[At vero si hoc] Yet if we follow the theologians who generate the world from night, or the natural philosophers who say that ‘all things were together’, the same impossible result ensues. For how will there be movement, if there is no actually existing cause? Wood will surely not move itself-the carpenter’s art must act on it; nor will the menstrual blood nor the earth set themselves in motion, but the seeds must act on the earth and the semen on the menstrual blood.
[Propter quod] This is why some suppose eternal actuality-e.g. Leucippus and Plato; for they say there is always movement. But why and what this movement is they do say, nor, if the world moves in this way or that, do they tell us the cause of its doing so. Now nothing is moved at random, but there must always be something present to move it; e.g. as a matter of fact a thing moves in one way by nature, and in another by force or through the influence of reason or something else. (Further, what sort of movement is primary? This makes a vast difference.) But again for Plato, at least, it is not permissible to name here that which [72a] he sometimes supposes to be the source of movement-that which moves itself; for the soul is later, and coeval with the heavens, according to his account.
[Potentiam quidem] To suppose potency prior to actuality, then, is in a sense right, and in a sense not; and we have specified these senses. [Quod autem] That actuality is prior is testified by Anaxagoras (for his ‘reason’ is actuality) and by Empedocles in his doctrine of love and strife, and by those who say that there is always movement, e.g. Leucippus.
[Quare non fuit infinito tempore] Therefore chaos or night did not exist for an infinite time, but the same things have always existed (either passing through a cycle of changes or obeying some other law), since actuality is prior to potency. [Si itaque quidem semper] If, then, there is a constant cycle, something must always remain, acting in the same way. And if there is to be generation and destruction, there must be something else which is always acting in different ways. This must, then, act in one way in virtue of itself, and in another in virtue of something else-either of a third agent, therefore, or of the first. Now it must be in virtue of the first. For otherwise this again causes the motion both of the second agent and of the third. Therefore it is better to say ‘the first’. For it was the cause of eternal uniformity; and something else is the cause of variety, and evidently both together are the cause of eternal variety. This, accordingly, is the character which the motions actually exhibit. What need then is there to seek for other principles?
Since (1)
this is a possible account of the matter, and (2) if it were not true, the
world would have proceeded out of night and ‘all things together’ and out of
non-being, these difficulties may be taken as solved. There is, then, something
which is always moved with an unceasing motion, which is motion in a circle;
and this is plain not in theory only but in fact. Therefore the first heaven
must be eternal. [Est igitur] There
is therefore also something which moves it. And since that which moves and is
moved is intermediate, there is something which moves without being moved,
being eternal, substance, and actuality. [Movet
autem] And the object of desire [m62 72a 25]
and the object of thought move in this way; they move without being moved. The
primary objects of desire and of thought are the same. For the apparent good is
the object of appetite, and the real good is the primary object of rational
wish. But desire is consequent on opinion rather than opinion on desire; for
the thinking is the starting-point. [Intelligibilis
autem altera] And thought is moved by the object of thought, and one of the
two columns of opposites is in itself the object of thought; and in this,
substance is first, and in substance, that which is simple and exists actually.
(The one and the simple are not the same; for ‘one’ means a measure, but
‘simple’ means that the thing itself has a certain nature.) [At vero quod bonum] But the beautiful,
also, and that which is in itself desirable are in the same column; and the
first in any class is always best, or analogous to the best.
[72b] That a final
cause may exist among unchangeable entities is shown by the distinction of its
meanings. For the final cause is (a) some being for whose good an action is
done, and (b) something at which the action aims; and of these the latter
exists among unchangeable entities though the former does not. [Movet
autem ut amatum] The final cause, then, produces motion as being loved, but
all other things move by being moved. Now if something is moved it is capable
of being otherwise than as it is. Therefore if its actuality is the primary
form of spatial motion, then in so far as it is subject to change, in this
respect it is capable of being otherwise,-in place, even if not in substance.
But since there is something which moves while itself unmoved, existing
actually, this can in no way be otherwise than as it is. For motion in space is
the first of the kinds of change, and motion in a circle the first kind of
spatial motion; and this the first mover produces. The first mover, then,
exists of necessity; and in so far as it exists by necessity, its mode of being
is good, and it is in this sense a first principle. For the necessary has all
these senses-that which is necessary perforce because it is contrary to the
natural impulse, that without which the good is impossible, and that which
cannot be otherwise but can exist only in a single way.
On such a
principle, then, depend the heavens and the world of nature. [Deductio autem] And it is a life such
as the best which we enjoy, and enjoy for but a short time (for it is ever in this
state, which we cannot be), since its actuality is also pleasure. (And for this
reason are waking, perception, and thinking most pleasant, and hopes and
memories are so on account of these.) And thinking in itself deals with that
which is best in itself, and that which is thinking in the fullest sense with
that which is best in the fullest sense. [Seipsum
autem] And thought thinks on itself because it shares the nature of the
object of thought; for it becomes an object of thought in coming into contact
with and thinking its objects, so that thought and object of thought are the
same. For that which is capable of receiving the object of thought, i.e. the
essence, is thought. But it is active when it possesses this object. Therefore
the possession rather than the receptivity is the divine element which thought
seems to contain, and the act of contemplation is what is most pleasant and
best. If, then, God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are,
this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet more. And God
is in a better state.
[Et vita autem] And life also belongs to
God; for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God’s
self-dependent actuality is life most good and eternal. We say therefore that God
is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and
eternal belong to God; for this is God.
[Quicumque autem putant] Those who
suppose, as the Pythagoreans and Speusippus do, that supreme beauty and
goodness are not present in the beginning, because the beginnings both of
plants and of animals are causes, but beauty and completeness are in the
effects of these, are wrong in their opinion. For the seed comes from other
individuals which are prior and complete, and the first thing is not seed but
the complete [73a]
being; e.g. we must say that before the seed there is a man,-not the man
produced from the seed, but another from whom the seed comes.
It is clear
then from what has been said that there is a substance which is eternal and
unmovable and separate from sensible things. [Ostensum autem est] It has been shown also that this substance
cannot have any magnitude, but is without parts and indivisible (for it
produces movement through infinite time, but nothing finite has infinite power;
and, while every magnitude is either infinite or finite, it cannot, for the
above reason, have finite magnitude, and it cannot have infinite magnitude
because there is no infinite magnitude at all). [m63 73a 11]
But it has also been shown that it is impassive and unalterable; for all the
other changes are posterior to change of place.
It is
clear, then, why these things are as they are. [Utrum vero una ponenda] But we must not ignore the question whether
we have to suppose one such substance or more than one, and if the latter, how
many; we must also mention, regarding the opinions expressed by others, that
they have said nothing about the number of the substances that can even be
clearly stated. For the theory of Ideas has no special discussion of the
subject; for those who speak of Ideas say the Ideas are numbers, and they speak
of numbers now as unlimited, now as limited by the number 10; but as for the
reason why there should be just so many numbers, nothing is said with any
demonstrative exactness.
[Nobis autem ex suppositis] We however
must discuss the subject, starting from the presuppositions and distinctions we
have mentioned. The first principle or primary being is not movable either in
itself or accidentally, but produces the primary eternal and single movement.
But since that which is moved must be moved by something, and the first mover
must be in itself unmovable, and eternal movement must be produced by something
eternal and a single movement by a single thing, [videmus autem] and since we see that besides the simple spatial
movement of the universe, which we say the first and unmovable substance
produces, there are other spatial movements-those of the planets-which are
eternal (for a body which moves in a circle is eternal and unresting; we have
proved these points in the physical treatises), each of these movements also
must be caused by a substance both unmovable in itself and eternal. For the
nature of the stars is eternal just because it is a certain kind of substance,
and the mover is eternal and prior to the moved, and that which is prior to a
substance must be a substance. Evidently, then, there must be substances which
are of the same number as the movements of the stars, and in their nature
eternal, and in themselves unmovable, and without magnitude, for the reason
before mentioned. [73b]
That the movers are substances, then, and that one of these is first and
another second according to the same order as the movements of the stars, is
evident.
[pluralitatem vero lationum] But in the
number of the movements we reach a problem which must be treated from the
standpoint of that one of the mathematical sciences which is most akin to
philosophy-viz. of astronomy; for this science speculates about substance which
is perceptible but eternal, but the other mathematical sciences, i.e.
arithmetic and geometry, treat of no substance. That the movements are more
numerous than the bodies that are moved is evident to those who have given even
moderate attention to the matter; for each of the planets has more than one
movement. But as to the actual number of these movements, we now-to give some
notion of the subject-quote what some of the mathematicians say, that our
thought may have some definite number to grasp; but, for the rest, we must
partly investigate for ourselves, Partly learn from other investigators, and if
those who study this subject form an opinion contrary to what we have now
stated, we must esteem both parties indeed, but follow the more accurate.
[Eudoxus quidem] Eudoxus supposed that
the motion of the sun or of the moon involves, in either case, three spheres,
of which the first is the sphere of the fixed stars, and the second moves in
the circle which runs along the middle of the zodiac, and the third in the
circle which is inclined across the breadth of the zodiac; but the circle in
which the moon moves is inclined at a greater angle than that in which the sun
moves. And the motion of the planets involves, in each case, four spheres, and
of these also the first and second are the same as the first two mentioned
above (for the sphere of the fixed stars is that which moves all the other
spheres, and that which is placed beneath this and has its movement in the
circle which bisects the zodiac is common to all), but the poles of the third
sphere of each planet are in the circle which bisects the zodiac, and the
motion of the fourth sphere is in the circle which is inclined at an angle to
the equator of the third sphere; and the poles of the third sphere are
different for each of the other planets, but those of Venus and Mercury are the
same.
[Calippus autem] Callippus made the
position of the spheres the same as Eudoxus did, but while he assigned the same
number as Eudoxus did [m64 73b 35]
to Jupiter and to Saturn, he thought two more spheres should be added to the
sun and two to the moon, if one is to [74a] explain the observed facts; and one more to each of the other
planets.
But it is necessary,
if all the spheres combined are to explain the observed facts, that for each of
the planets there should be other spheres (one fewer than those hitherto
assigned) which counteract those already mentioned and bring back to the same
position the outermost sphere of the star which in each case is situated below
the star in question; for only thus can all the forces at work produce the
observed motion of the planets. Since, then, the spheres involved in the
movement of the planets themselves are—eight for Saturn and Jupiter and
twenty-five for the others, and of these only those involved in the movement of
the lowest-situated planet need not be counteracted the spheres which
counteract those of the outermost two planets will be six in number, and the spheres
which counteract those of the next four planets will be sixteen; therefore the
number of all the spheres—both those which move the planets and those which
counteract these—will be fifty-five. And if one were not to add to the moon and
to the sun the movements we mentioned, the whole set of spheres will be
forty-seven in number.
[Quare et substantias] Let this, then,
be taken as the number of the spheres, so that the unmovable substances and
principles also may probably be taken as just so many; the assertion of
necessity must be left to more powerful thinkers. [Si autem nullam possibile] But if there can be no spatial movement
which does not conduce to the moving of a star, and if further every being and
every substance which is immune from change and in virtue of itself has
attained to the best must be considered an end, there can be no other being
apart from these we have named, but this must be the number of the substances.
For if there are others, they will cause change as being a final cause of
movement; [sed alias] but there
cannot he other movements besides those mentioned. And it is reasonable to
infer this from a consideration of the bodies that are moved; for if everything
that moves is for the sake of that which is moved, and every movement belongs
to something that is moved, no movement can be for the sake of itself or of
another movement, but all the movements must be for the sake of the stars. For
if there is to be a movement for the sake of a movement, this latter also will
have to be for the sake of something else; so that since there cannot be an
infinite regress, the end of every movement will be one of the divine bodies
which move through the heaven.
(Evidently
there is but one heaven. For if there are many heavens as there are many men,
the moving principles, of which each heaven will have one, will be one in form
but in number many. But all things that are many in number have matter; for one
and the same definition, e.g. that of man, applies to many things, while
Socrates is one. But the primary essence has not matter; for it is complete
reality. So the unmovable first mover is one both in definition and in number;
so too, therefore, is that which is moved always and continuously; therefore
there is one heaven alone.) [74b]
[Tradita autem sunt] Our forefathers in
the most remote ages have handed down to their posterity a tradition, in the
form of a myth, that these bodies are gods, and that the divine encloses the
whole of nature. The rest of the tradition has been added later in mythical
form with a view to the persuasion of the multitude and to its legal and
utilitarian expediency; they say these gods are in the form of men or like some
of the other animals, and they say other things consequent on and similar to
these which we have mentioned. But if one were to separate the first point from
these additions and take it alone-that they thought the first substances to be
gods, one must regard this as an inspired utterance, and reflect that, while
probably each art and each science has often been developed as far as possible
and has again perished, these opinions, with others, have been preserved until
the present like relics of the ancient treasure. Only thus far, then, is the
opinion of our ancestors and of our earliest predecessors clear to us.
[Quae vero circa intellectum] The nature
of the divine thought involves certain problems; for while thought is held to
be the most divine of things observed by us, the question how it must be
situated [m65 74b 17]
in order to have that character involves difficulties. [Nam si non intelligat] For if it thinks of nothing, what is there
here of dignity? It is just like one who sleeps. And if it thinks, but this
depends on something else, then (since that which is its substance is not the
act of thinking, but a potency) it cannot be the best substance; for it is
through thinking that its value belongs to it. [Amplius autem sive intellectus]
Further, whether its substance is the faculty of thought or the act of thinking,
what does it think of? Either of itself or of something else; and if of
something else, either of the same thing always or of something different. [Ergo utrum differt] Does it matter,
then, or not, whether it thinks of the good or of any chance thing? Are there
not some things about which it is incredible that it should think? [Palam ergo quod divinissimum]
Evidently, then, it thinks of that which is most divine and precious, and it
does not change; for change would be change for the worse, and this would be
already a movement. [Primum quidem]
First, then, if ‘thought’ is not the act of thinking but a potency, it would be
reasonable to suppose that the continuity of its thinking is wearisome to it. [Deinde palam] Secondly, there would
evidently be something else more precious than thought, viz. that which is
thought of. [Et est intelligentia] For both thinking and the act of thought will
belong even to one who thinks of the worst thing in the world, so that if this
ought to be avoided (and it ought, for there are even some things which it is
better not to see than to see), the act of thinking cannot be the best of
things. Therefore it must be of itself that the divine thought thinks (since it
is the most excellent of things), and its thinking is a thinking on thinking.
But
evidently knowledge and perception and opinion and understanding have always
something else as their object, and themselves only by the way. [Amplius si aliud] Further, if thinking
and being thought of are different, in respect of which does goodness belong to
thought? For to be an act of thinking and to be an object of thought are not
the same thing. [75a]
[Aut in quibusdam] We answer that in
some cases the knowledge is the object. In the productive sciences it is the
substance or essence of the object, matter omitted, and in the theoretical
sciences the definition or the act of thinking is the object. Since, then,
thought and the object of thought are not different in the case of things that
have not matter, the divine thought and its object will be the same, i.e. the
thinking will be one with the object of its thought.
[Adhuc autem] A further question is
left-whether the object of the divine thought is composite; [transmutabitur enim] for if it were,
thought would change in passing from part to part of the whole. [aut indivisibile] We answer that
everything which has not matter is indivisible - as human thought, [aut quod] or rather the thought of
composite beings, is in a certain period of time (for it does not possess the
good at this moment or at that, but its best, being something different from
it, is attained only in a whole period of time), so throughout eternity is the
thought which has itself for its object.
[Perscrutandum est autem qualiter habet]
We must consider also in which of two ways the nature of the universe contains
the good, and the highest good, whether as something separate and by itself, or
as the order of the parts. [Aut utroque
modo] Probably in both ways, as an army does; for its good is found both in
its order and in its leader, and more in the latter; for he does not depend on
the order but it depends on him. [Omnia
vero coordinata] And all things are ordered together somehow, but not all alike,-both
fishes and fowls and plants; and the world is not such that one thing has
nothing to do with another, but they are connected. For all are ordered
together to one end, but it is as in a house, where the freemen are least at
liberty to act at random, but all things or most things are already ordained
for them, while the slaves and the animals do little for the common good, and
for the most part live at random; for this is the sort of principle that
constitutes the nature of each. I mean, for instance, that all must at least
come to be dissolved into their elements, and there are other functions
similarly in which all share for the good of the whole.
[Quaecumque vero impossibilia] We must
not fail to observe how many impossible or paradoxical results confront those
who hold different views from our own, and what are the views of the subtler
thinkers, and which views are attended by fewest difficulties. [Omnes enim] All make all things out of
contraries. But neither ‘all things’ nor ‘out of contraries’ is right; nor do
these thinkers tell us how all the things in which the contraries are present
can be made out of the contraries; [impassibilia
namque] for contraries are not affected by one another. Now for us this difficulty is solved
naturally by the fact that there is a third element. These thinkers however
make one of the two contraries matter; this is done for instance by those who
make the unequal matter for the equal, or the many matter for the one. But this
also is refuted in the same way; for the one matter which underlies any pair of
contraries is contrary to nothing. [m66 75a 33] [Amplius
autem omnia pravi participatione] Further, all things, except the one,
will, on the view we are criticizing, partake of evil; for the bad itself is
one of the two elements. [Alii autem]
But the other school does not treat the good and the bad even as principles;
yet in all things the good is in the highest degree a principle. [Alii vero] The school we first
mentioned is right in saying that it is a principle, but how the good is a
principle they do not say-whether as end or as mover or as form.
[75b] [Inconvenienter autem] Empedocles also
has a paradoxical view; for he identifies the good with love, but this is a
principle both as mover (for it brings things together) and as matter (for it
is part of the mixture). Now even if it happens that the same thing is a
principle both as matter and as mover, still the being, at least, of the two is
not the same. In which respect then is love a principle? It is paradoxical also
that strife should be imperishable; the nature of his ‘evil’ is just strife.
[Anaxagoras autem] Anaxagoras makes the
good a motive principle; for his ‘reason’ moves things. But it moves them for
an end, which must be something other than it, except according to our way of
stating the case; for, on our view, the medical art is in a sense health. It is
paradoxical also not to suppose a contrary to the good, i.e. to reason.
[Omnes autem contraria dicentes] But all
who speak of the contraries make no use of the contraries, unless we bring
their views into shape. [Et quare haec
quidem] And why some things are perishable and others imperishable, no one
tells us; for they make all existing things out of the same principles. Further,
some make existing things out of the nonexistent; and others to avoid the
necessity of this make all things one.
[Amplius propter] Further, why should
there always be becoming, and what is the cause of becoming?-this no one tells
us. [Et duo principia] And those who
suppose two principles must suppose another, a superior principle, and so must
those who believe in the Forms; for why did things come to participate, or why
do they participate, in the Forms? [Et
aliis] And all other thinkers are confronted by the necessary consequence
that there is something contrary to Wisdom, i.e. to the highest knowledge; but
we are not. For there is nothing contrary to that which is primary; for all
contraries have matter, and things that have matter exist only potentially; and
the ignorance which is contrary to any knowledge leads to an object contrary to
the object of the knowledge; but what is primary has no contrary.
[Amplius si non erunt] Again, if besides
sensible things no others exist, there will be no first principle, no order, no
becoming, no heavenly bodies, but each principle will have a principle before
it, as in the accounts of the theologians and all the natural philosophers. But
if the Forms or the numbers are to exist, they will be causes of nothing; or if
not that, at least not of movement. [Adhuc
quomodo] Further, how is extension, i.e. a continuum, to be produced out of
unextended parts? For number will not, either as mover or as form, produce a
continuum. [at vero] But again there
cannot be any contrary that is also essentially a productive or moving
principle; for it would be possible for it not to be. Or at least its action
would be posterior to its potency. The world, then, would not be eternal. But
it is; one of these premisses, then, must be denied. And we have said how this
must be done. [Adhuc quomodo]
Further, in virtue of what the numbers, or the soul and the body, or in general
the form and the thing, are one-of this no one tells us anything; nor can any
one tell, unless he says, as we do, that the mover makes them one. [Dicentes autem numerum] And those who
say mathematical number is first and go on to generate one kind of substance
after another and give [76a] different principles for each, make the substance of the
universe a mere series of episodes (for one substance has no influence on
another by its existence or nonexistence), and they give us many governing
principles; but the world refuses to be governed badly.
‘The rule
of many is not good; one ruler let there be.’