Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
physics
is the proof of the existence of an immaterial substance—that is,
the unmoved mover or god.
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Structurally, there is no doubt that the
unmoved mover, or pure activity (energeia) is crucial to Aristotle's
system. But is the point of the system to show the existence of god (a
central concern for Aquinas), or is the importance of the existence of god
not so much in the conclusion that god exists or in the work that god
does in the system itself? If the former, then, like Aquinas, Aristotle will
find humans existing in the shadow of God. But, if the answer is in the
latter possibility, then the question of the point of the system itself
becomes the primary question, and Aristotle's human is different. Meta-
physically, the conceptual point of contact between humans and god
regards activity (energeia). Activity is god's nature, purely actual, utterly
immaterial. Humans may aspire to this (that is, happiness is the activity
of virtue), but because of the simple reality of their emmattered form,
they cannot achieve it.
When he describes pure energeia, the substance of god, Aristotle
depicts it as thought thinking thought.
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The basis for this is the pure-
ness of divine activity as shown in the proof of the existence of god. Since
divine existence is shown by the necessity of a prime mover, a pure activ-
ity the existence of which prevents an infinite regress of potencies actu-
alized by another being in act that itself had an origin in potency, divine
existence must be that pure activity. Such pure activity, he thinks, must
be thought, following both Greek tradition (in, for example, Xenophanes
and Parmenides) and his own suggestion that human thinking is the least
enmattered of all human activities.
Aristotle further argues that divine thought must be about something,
or else it would be more like divine sleeping and unworthy of venera-
tion as a first cause. But if it must be about something, either a god thinks
of itself or of something else; and if it thinks of something else, then it
must be something that is either always the same or something that
changes. But does it make any difference whether a god is thinking of
that which is noble rather than of any chance thing? Would it not be
absurd for such a being to be thinking of anything less than the most
noble things? Clearly, then, Aristotle's god is thinking of that which is
most divine and most honorable, and it is not changing, for change could
only be for the worse, and this change would then be motion (kinesis).
