Aristotle + God

Al-Farabi Avicenna Ockham

Anselm Averroes 1287-1347 AD
870-950 CE 980-1037 CE 1126-1198 CE
1038-1109 AD

900 1300

Al- Kindi Al-Ghazali Maimonides Aquinas

801-873 CE 1058-1111 CE
1138-1204 AD 1225-12742AD

*All images link to scholarly articles

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Aquinas was dubbed “the dumb

ox” by his fellow students, for
being large and quiet. He was
apparently quiet because he was
busy thinking; he became the
Catholic church’s top theologian,
a title he still holds today,
without dispute.
Aquinas’s major work, the Summa
Theologica, is divided into 4 parts.

 Prima Pars (1st Part) Existence and

Nature of God
 Prima Secundae (1st Part of the 2nd
Part) Happiness, Psychology, Virtues,
Law (Human, Natural, Divine)
 Secunda Secundae (2nd Part of the 2nd
Part) The virtues in detail
 Tertia Pars (3rd Part) Christian
Doctrine
During the Middle Ages, many of Aristotle’s works were
lost to Western Europe, beginning in the first few
centuries AD.

Aquinas merged Aristotle with Christianity after the

recovery of his philosophy via Muslim scholars in the
12th and 13th century.

The ‘purposiveness’ or ‘end-directedness’ of nature in

Aristotle is identified by Aquinas with God’s purposes.
Human nature determines God’s commands determine
what is ‘natural’ in what is ‘lawful’ in
‘Natural Law’. ‘Natural Law’.

Viewed from the human Viewed from God’s

perspective, the perspective, humans
principles of natural participate in the Eternal
law are knowable by Law, which is God’s
human nature and are eternal plan— “A law is a
structured to aid in rule of action put in
furthering individual place by someone who
and communal goods. has care of the
community” –Mark Murphy
Aquinas’s first principle of morality is:
 Good should be done, and evil avoided

We are by nature inclined toward the Good, according to

Aquinas, but we cannot pursue the good directly because
it is abstract—we must pursue concrete goods which we
know immediately, by inclination. Those goods are:
 Preservation of life
 Procreation
 Knowledge
 Society
 Reasonable Conduct
Aquinas, then, has a value-based ethical theory. The rightness or
wrongness of particular actions is determined by how those
actions further or frustrate the goods.

Certain ways of acting are “intrinsically flawed” or “unreasonable”

responses to these human goods.

Like Aristotle, Aquinas seems sure there can be no formula

provided to determine what action is right or wrong in all
particular cases.

Prudence (practical wisdom) is required for the most part, if not

always, to determine if a given act is intrinsically flawed or not.
Murphy provides a nice account of how acts can be
intrinsically flawed or unreasonable:
Aquinas does not obviously identify some master principle that one can use to
determine whether an act is intrinsically flawed … though he does indicate where to
look -- we are to look at the features that individuate acts, such as their objects …,
their ends …, their circumstances …, and so forth. An act might be flawed through a
mismatch of object and end -- that is, between the immediate aim of the action and
its more distant point. If one were, for example, to regulate one's pursuit of a greater
good in light of a lesser good -- if, for example, one were to seek friendship with God
for the sake of mere bodily survival rather than vice versa -- that would count as an
unreasonable act. An act might be flawed through the circumstances: while one is
bound to profess one's belief in God, there are certain circumstances in which it is
inappropriate to do so…. An act might be flawed merely through its intention: to
direct oneself against a good -- as in murder …, and lying …, and blasphemy … -- is
always to act in an unfitting way. –Mark Murphy
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-ethics/
Is an action ever intrinsically flawed because it fails
to maximize goodness? Murphy, again:
His natural law view understands principles of right to be
grounded in principles of good; on this Aquinas sides with
utilitarians, and consequentialists generally, against Kantians. 
But Aquinas would deny that the principles of the right enjoin
us to maximize the good -- while he allows that considerations
of the greater good have a role in practical reasoning, action
can be irremediably flawed merely through (e.g.) badness of
intention, flawed such that no good consequences that flow
from the action would be sufficient to justify it -- and in this
Aquinas sides with the Kantians against the utilitarians and
consequentialists of other stripes. –Mark Murphy
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-ethics/
Must prudence determine the right action in every
situation, or are there at least some universal general
rules that are always valid or correct?

And while Aquinas is in some ways Aristotelian, and

recognizes that virtue will always be required in order to hit
the mark in a situation of choice, he rejects the view
commonly ascribed to Aristotle (for doubts that it is
Aristotle's view; see Irwin 2000) that there are no universally
true general principles of right. –Mark Murphy
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-ethics/
Title Slide: Library, St. Paul’s College, Washington,
D.C.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lricecsp/2365699386
 The
Good
Analogy of the Sun

Mind

The Sun The Good

is… a visible object an intelligible object
that makes… objects visible objects intelligible
to the … eye soul
through the power of… sight understanding
by providing … light truth

The tree above is the visible object, the Forms (Universals) are the
intelligible objects that the Good shines on. Both the Sun and the
Good create their objects.

http://www.boisestate.edu/people/troark/didactics/ancient/materials/Line_Sun.pdf
 The Good as a transcendental property

Substance Quality Place Position Action

Quantity Relation Time Possession Passion

Socrates is white is in is seated is

Athens speaking

is one is a it is has a is being

friend noon toga spoken
to to
Plato
Is it odd that ‘good’ can be predicated in any of the 10 categories?
 God = Being = The Good
Angels
The
Great Humans Actuality

Chain Animals
of Plants
Being
Rocks
Potentiality
Mud
Nothingness
Aquinas gets the chain from Plotinus (his student, Porphyry),
Augustine, Boethius, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and others,
and adds to it
Suppose there are 4 modes of existence:

1. Necessary

2. Actual

3. Possible

4. Impossible

If a perfect being is possible, it must be actual, because it's more perfect to be actual
than just possible. The argument succeeds.

But there's more: if a perfect being is actual, it must be necessary, for the same
reason ... it's more perfect to be necessary than just actual.

SO ... a necessary being that is all good, all powerful, and all knowing, exists.
Necessary beings can have no cause of their existence (except trivially themselves),
and so it is confusion to ask who made God. God actually explains the existence of
himself and everything else.
Objection: But is ‘existence’ a real predicate? A feature a thing may have or lack?
Response: It isn't claimed that there is a possible perfect being. It's just pointed out
that a perfect being is possible, or ‘perfect being’ is contradiction free.
Think of it this way: there are red things. For them to exist, there did not have to be
possible red things capable of having or lacking the property ‘existence’. 'What it is
to be red', though, had to predate red things.
What it is to be a perfect being predates, logically, but not temporally, a perfect
being. The argument is one of reason, not causation. Does that make sense?

There's nothing contradictory about a perfect being if that being is a person

(personal qualities admit of perfection, unlike physical qualities ... no such thing as a
perfect island, for instance, because you can always add another nice palm tree or
nubian maiden ... but personal qualities, like knowledge, power, and goodness,
have intrinsic maxima ... they have upper limits which, when met, yield perfection of
that quality.