Aristotle's Theology

Abstract

When Aristotle speaks of theologikê, he means not the study of a single God, but the study of gods and divine things in general. He never uses the phrase “the unmoved mover” to pick out just one being (or even to pick out the many movers of the heavenly spheres), and that phrase would not express the essence of the beings it applies to. To see what sort of religious interest there might be in such a being, and how the words “god” and “divine” enter into Aristotle's philosophy, it is best to start with what he says about gods and divine things in moral and political contexts. Guided by his criticisms of Plato on the soul's self-motion, Aristotle sets out, in Physics VIII, to give a revised version of Plato's cosmotheological argument in Laws X. This article focuses on Aristotle's theology and his views about gods, the soul, the cosmos, heavens and heavenly bodies, and the first principle or first cause.

Leading change and Plato

“…The philosopher in Phaedo (75a-76d) (Plato, 2014) links the argument of reminiscence, that is, preexisting knowledge or soul's remembrance of the prenatal state (Sloterdijk, 2013) [a kind of foreshadowing of the vision], with the universals ( katholou : invariable ontological principles), that is Ideas (Grondin, 2012). The access of human estimation of the “eternal sensibles” (Menn, 2012) or “sense-perceptible world” ( aisthita : changeable in every way and indeterminate things) (Politis, 2005), presupposes the recognition – a remembrance of its proper Idea, for which the senses alone are not sufficient, as dianoia (discursive thought through internal speech) (Duncombe, 2016) is also required. The consequence of the latter discovery is the existence of the Idea of the corporate vision of change (or any other Idea) approximately.…”

Knowing in Aristotle part 2:Technē, phronēsis, sophia,and divine cognitive activities

“…19 19 For example Ross 1924, I, cxli‐cxliii; Modrak, 1987, 228‐33; Brunschwig, 2000; Judson takes the divine knowledge to be of a number of essences. Menn, 2012 also agrees that the divine understanding cannot admit any sort of plurality, since it cannot be composed (443 and 459, n. 35). …”