Aristotle's Concept of God as Final Cause

T. M. Forsyth

doi:10.1017/S0031819100025328

Aristotle's Concept of God as Final Cause

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2009

T. M. Forsyth

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During my student days at Edinburgh I became particularly interested in Aristotle's doctrine of God as Final Cause. Concern with other problems and periods of Philosophy, along with many years of teaching in most of its branches, has kept me from ever writing anything down on the subject except in the very briefest way. But it has always seemed to me to claim fuller attention than is commonly accorded to it. That Aristotle's conception, however independently it was worked out, owes much to the philosophy of Plato appears to be beyond question. The design of the present article is to relate Aristotle's view on the subject with that of Plato. I will first state Plato's allied doctrine; then, after indicating Aristotle's criticisms of Plato, so far as relevant to the subject, summarize his argument for his own position; and, lastly, consider the significance of the concept concerned.

Type: Articles
Information: Philosophy , Volume 22 , Issue 82 , July 1947 , pp. 112 - 123

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0031819100025328 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1947

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^{page 112 note 1} Whatever distinction may be drawn between Plato's teaching in the Academy and the immediate tenor and purpose of this or of other Dialogues, I take it as indubitable that these give, in certain doctrines repeatedly stressed, an authentic presentation of Plato's philosophy.

^{page 112 note 2} A short statement of Plato's cosmological theory was contained in a previous article of mine—“The New Cosmology in its Historical Aspect: Plato, Newton, Whitehead” (Philosophy, Vol. VII, No. 25, January 1932). What follows is on the same lines, but is concerned rather with the theological implications.

^{page 113 note 1} Timaeus, 27d–9d.

^{page 113 note 2} 29d–30C; 34b–c.

^{page 113 note 3} Phaedrus, 245c–d; cf. Philebus, 28–30, where soul or mind is shown to have the essential nature of a cause.

^{page 113 note 4} Laws, X, 895e–7b.

^{page 114 note 1} Timaeus, 37c–8c.

^{page 114 note 2} 48e–53c. Cf. Cornford, F. M., Plato's Cosmology, pp. 199–206Google Scholar.—Aristotle also looks upon space as a kind of receptacle or container; but he dissents from the identification of space and matter, which he finds in Plato's statement, on the ground that this involves defining body or matter by reference to its spatial form (Physics, IV. 4, 212a 20; 2, 209b 11).

^{page 114 note 3} 46c–e; 47e–8a. Cf. Skemp, J. B., The Theory of Motion in Plato's Later Dialogues, p. 75Google Scholar.—There are difficulties of interpretation here, especially as to the precise relation of necessity to what Plato calls adventitious or subsidiary causes (συνατℓıα), I take them to be essentially identical. This is not to say that the distinction of reason and necessity is that of mind and matter viewed as quite independent existents; for mind or soul is the only real cause. It is the distinction between mechanism and purpose, that is between the aimless and random (“errant”) operation of natural sequence, which Plato calls by the name of chance, fate, or necessity (àνáγκη), and the spontaneity or freedom implied in working for a desirable end or good, which he identifies with law and reason. In modern terminology it is the distinction between “the processes of nature” and their “control through knowledge.” But I think the difference between matter (or body) and mind is ultimately one with this difference between mechanism and purpose or necessity and freedom. (This was suggested in a short paper of mine published in the South African Journal of Science, vol. xiv, “Note on the Relation between Mind and Body”; cf. English Philosophy: A Study of its Method and General Development, p. 203 ff.).

^{page 115 note 1} Plato's distinction in the Timaeus is therefore the same as that which Socrates is represented as making in the Phaedo (98–9); cf. also the passage in the Laws already referred to. Skemp (op. cit., p. 21) makes an interesting reference to Sophist, 265, where “the ‘demiurgic’ work of God is distinguished from the workings of øύσıς àνευ δıανοℓας.”

^{page 115 note 2} A somewhat similar principle is expressed by Tolstoy in War and Peace when he says: “If we allow that human life is always guided by reason, we destroy the premise that life is possible at all.”

^{page 115 note 3} Cf. the article in Philosophy mentioned above.—That the opposition of necessity and reason does not imply a principle of evil wholly independent of the good—although the possibility of evil is involved in the very conditions under which particular finite creatures can alone realize the good—seems an essential aspect of Plato's thought. This is indicated in his statement that for the most part necessity is subservient to reason.

^{page 115 note 4} Though the Idea or Form of the Good is explicitly mentioned only in the Republic, where (509b) it is said to be above both being and knowledge as their source or condition, the principle of the Good none the less dominates all or most of Plato's thought.

^{page 115 note 5} Esp. 74–6, 78–9. The relation becomes still clearer by connecting the argument for immortality in the Phaedo with that of the Phaedrus (in the passage referred to before).

^{page 116 note 1} Skemp (op. cit,, pp. 16–18) quotes in full a passage from the Sophist (248e–9d) which clearly has this implication.

^{page 116 note 2} See Skemp (ibid., p. 115).—Ritter, C. upholds the identification (The Essence of Plato's Philosophy, pp. 374–6)Google Scholar.—In his treatment of the theory of ideas Ritter reiterates (e.g. pp. 111–13, 184) the conception that its essential meaning is the assertion of the objectivity of knowledge—that the distinction of truth and falsity depends on the principle that knowledge assuch is knowledge of reality, and that the idea, therefore, is reality. The theory of ideas is thus Plato's answer to subjectivism and scepticism, as his doctrine of self-moving soul is his answer to materialism and mechanism.

^{page 116 note 3} Nor again that they are, properly speaking, made by God, as the language of Republic, 596–7, might suggest.

^{page 116 note 4} The ideas as numbers express the determinate ratios or proportions which constitute the essential natures of different things by giving limit or definite character to what is indeterminate or limitless.

^{page 117 note 1} A recent publication on the subject, which I have not had an opportunity of seeing, is H. Cherniss's Aristotle's Criticism of Plato and the Academy, vol. i.

^{page 117 note 2} Physics, VIII. 5, esp. 258b 4–10; cf. Metaphysics, 1012b 31.

^{page 117 note 3} Timaeus, 38b.—In his Metaphysics (1071b 32) Aristotle says Plato holds that movement is eternal, but does not show why or how.

^{page 117 note 4} Physics, VIII. 1, 251b 10–28. The passage is quoted from the Oxford translation.

^{page 117 note 5} 35a ff.

^{page 117 note 6} De Anima, 1. 3, 406b 26.

^{page 117 note 7} 406a 16.

^{page 117 note 8} III. 10.

^{page 118 note 1} Cf. Metaphysics, 1072a 2.

^{page 118 note 2} Metaph., 1. 6.

^{page 118 note 3} 1. 9.

^{page 118 note 4} E.g. XIII. 5; cf. 1032b 23–34a 8.

^{page 118 note 5} VII. 13.

^{page 118 note 6} 1036a 2–6, 1039b 28–40a 7.

^{page 118 note 7} Cornford (op. cit.) in commenting on the general purport of the Timaeus makes the same point, and notes the similarity to Aristotle's position in spite of all differences.

^{page 119 note 1} The potential is never mere abstract or unlimited possibility, the possibility of anything whatever, but is always concrete possibility. It is the possibility of some definite actuality, and is indeterminate only relatively to further and more determinate actualization.

^{page 119 note 2} Metaphysics, IX. 3, 6 and 7.

^{page 119 note 3} 1071b 7; cf. the passage in the Physics quoted above.—This may not preclude the conception of time's being ultimately merged in eternity, though Aristotle says nothing to that effect. In Plato's statement in the Timaeus time (χρόνος) and eternity (αℓών) seem to be at once related to, and contrasted with, each other; and perhaps Aristotle's may be said to have the same implication.

^{page 120 note 1} Cf. Anal. Post., I. i.

^{page 120 note 2} Metaph., IX. 8.

^{page 120 note 3} XII. 6; cf. 1072a 25.

^{page 114 note 4} It is also formal cause as defining the nature of eternal being or ultimate reality; and indeed material cause too, for, as none of the four causes taken alone can explain the world process, so the true cause unites them all.

^{page 120 note 5} XII. 7, 1072a 26; cf. the passage in the De Anima referred to above.

^{page 120 note 6} ένέργυıα åκıνησℓας(Eth. Nic., VII. 14, 1154b 27).

^{page 121 note 1} XII. 9, 1074b 35 (νόησıς νοήσεως=the unity of knowing and known or subject and object).

^{page 121 note 2} 1072b 14–30.

^{page 121 note 3} 1072b 3.

^{page 121 note 4} XII. 6, 7, 9 and 10.—Ch. 8 may well be an insertion to deal with its special topic, though it is not altogether irrelevant to the general subject.

^{page 121 note 5} E.g. 29d–30b, embodying, as it has been put, “the basal thought of Plato.”

^{page 121 note 6} Already stated in Book I and implied throughout.

^{page 121 note 7} Cf. Whitehead: “All ultimate reasons are in terms of aim at value.”

^{page 122 note 1} This has been shown conclusively by Bradley among other thinkers.

^{page 123 note 1} XII. 10, 1075a 11–24.

^{page 123 note 2} Ethics, V. 19.

^{page 124 note 3} ibid., prop. 36 and cor.

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