« Religion and Philosophy Forum

Aristotle's view of an impassive God

Alright, grain of salt because I can't remember everything I studied, but I find the way Aristotle conceives God to be very interesting. For him, God isn't really what is thought by the Abrahamic religions, but is the initial cause of all movement that requires no cause, and doesn't care about humans. This is because he is perfect (pure actuality, if you know your Aristotle lol); since he is pure actuality, he isn't in movement towards anything, and causes movement because he attracts all things because all things love him. Bear with me, I know Aristotle is finnicky. Following this reasoning, he is perfect and so cannot move towards anything because he does not love (and so does not think about) anything, not out of malice, but because he is already complete, and love implies something that is missing, something yet to be achieved (which can't apply to God, because he is perfect and has everything).

Apologies Prof Saiu because this explanation definitely didn't do you justice.

Anyway. We now have a God who exists and is the cause of everything, but doesn't care about humans, nor interfere with them. 

What do you guys think (not necessarily in relation to my poorly explained Aristotle)? An indifferent God, or an all-loving one? God that interferes or not? 


Report Topic

1 Reply

Reply by Leo

posted

This is complicated to grasp for me, as I am not religious at all (if we stick to the definition of religion in which the worshipping of a deity is implied). I remember hearing about this back in high school, during philosophy class.

I will say this: it is harder for me to consider the existence of an all-loving God than that of an indifferent one. In this way, my opinion aligns with Aristotle's. I think it sensible, and logical, to imagine that God (if God there be) is an all-powerful entity that simply chooses to stay still and let human matters run their course.

However, I can't get behind the idea that this stems from a state of perfection; that God would be a being of such completion that they merely wouldn't strive to give love, and wouldn't need to reach towards us as we reach towards them. If God is indifferent to us, if they let things happen, good and bad, I would surmise it's because it is their way of loving (whatever that means). Or their way of making sure that we continue to be human. They would be loving, but not in the way that we define the verb. If there is a God, they must be above our perception of morals and ethics, of fairness and justice. But that is not to say they would be perfect, on the contrary. In a way, I agree with Aristotle, but I am just unsure about his point regarding perfection and fulfillment.

If God is an indifferent being, then I think we should infer from this that they are also actively choosing indifference, hence meaning that they are not unmoving nor unmovable. And thus imperfect.

I don't know if this makes any sense but anyways. I could probably have written a better answer if I could see your prompt while typing but I can't, so I might've remembered some of it poorly or skipped over some stuff, sorry.


Permalink Report Reply