Aristotle's Concept of God in the Metaphysics Explained

Introduction: Being as Being in the Metaphysics

Aristotle's theory of the existence of God has been highly influential throughout the development of Western philosophy. In his first discussion of God in his famous work the Metaphysics, Aristotle began by discussing the notion of "being as being." While some believe the Metaphysics was cobbled together from several disparate writings, others hold that it forms a cohesive worldview — as well as a cohesive theory of God. It is to this position that the present discussion turns.

In the Metaphysics, Aristotle claims that "being" refers almost exclusively to what he termed the "Unmoved Movers." In his view, one Unmoved Mover is attached to each movement in the heavens, and every one of these Unmoved Movers exists in a state of continual contemplation of its own contemplation. Everything that falls into the second notion of "being" — by having its source of motion within itself — is able to move purely because its knowledge of its mover impels it to emulate that particular Mover.

Aristotle's Critique of Platonic Theory

One of the key components of Aristotle's theory is his refutation of Platonic theory. According to Plato, ideas serve as the ultimate principles of Being. Aristotle believed Plato advanced this theory in order to explain how things are and how things come to be known — but as such, it is an inadequate theory. Aristotle contends that when we postulate the idea of things apart from the things themselves, we introduce unnecessary complications. The ideas must have some definite contact with the things; otherwise, they cannot explain how those things came into existence or how we came to know them.

As a scientific theory, Plato's account fails because, instead of supporting his ideas with rigorous argument, Plato relies on abstract expressions such as "imitation" and "participation." Such expressions imply a contradiction if they are to be taken as anything more than empty metaphors. By implying that ideas exist in a world separate from the world of phenomena, Plato — in Aristotle's view — forecloses the possibility of using ideas to solve the problem of the ultimate nature of reality.

Aristotle designates the two highest determinations of Being as Actuality and Potentiality. Actuality represents perfection, realization, and the fullness of being, while Potentiality designates imperfection, perfectibility, and incompleteness. Actuality serves as the determining principle; Potentiality is the determinable principle. These two determinations stand above all other categories in the Aristotelian universe and are present in all beings except the Supreme Cause, in which there is no imperfection — and therefore no potentiality whatsoever.

Actuality, Potentiality, and the Four Causes

According to this scheme, God is all actuality — or Actus Purus. All other beings are composed of both actuality and potentiality. This dualism lies at the heart of all Western metaphysics and was later developed into such concepts as body and soul, matter and form, and passive and active intellect. In the physical order, potentiality and actuality were transformed into Matter and Form. To this dualism one may also add the Efficient Cause and the Final Cause (that is, the Agent and the End). Because efficiency and finality are ultimately reducible to Form, however, in the physical order there are really only two ultimate principles of being: Matter and Form.

Aristotle excelled at classification (Adler, 1997) and broke down the generic causes into four types: the material cause, the formal cause, the efficient cause, and the final cause. The material cause refers to the substance out of which a thing is constructed. The formal cause is the idea of the thing in the mind of the creator who sets about making it. The efficient cause is the Agent — the being that creates the thing. The final cause is the purpose for which the thing has been created.

Mere potentiality does not exist on its own but enters into the creation of all things except the Supreme Cause. Mere potentiality thus stands at one pole of reality, while the Supreme Cause — God — stands at the other. Both entities are real. Materia prima contains the most attenuated reality, as it is pure indeterminateness. God, by contrast, contains the highest and most complete reality, existing at the highest level of determinateness. One of the central tasks of metaphysics, therefore, is the demonstration of the existence of the Supreme Cause — which is precisely what Aristotle attempts in his First Philosophy.

God as the Unmoved Mover and Supreme Cause

Departing from the first major premise of Socrates' teleological argument — "Whatever exists for a useful purpose must be the work of an intelligence" — Aristotle argues that, while motion is eternal, it is not possible for there to be an infinite series of movers and things moved. There must therefore be one mover — the first in the series — that is itself unmoved.

In the Metaphysics, Aristotle develops the idea that the actual is inherently antecedent to the potential. Thus, before all matter came into existence, there must have existed a Being of pure actuality whose life consists of self-contemplative thought. This is what God is. This Supreme Being imparts movement to the universe by moving the First Heaven, which was set in motion through the desirability of the Supreme Being. As a result, a kind of chain reaction was established, wherein motion was imparted to the lower spheres and, eventually, to our terrestrial realm of existence.