Concept of God According to Aristotle

He is not the Creator

The concept of God is a little bit weird as suggested by Aristotle. According to Aristotle, God is not the Creator of the universe but the One who causes it to move.

This is so because a creator is a dreamy person and a dreamer is always a dissatisfied one or an unhappy man who is questing for happiness or in simple words an imperfect being who desires to seek perfection.

However, God is perfect and a perfect being is self-sufficient having no desires and thus is neither dissatisfied nor unhappy. Hence He is not the Maker but the Mover of the world.

He is the Mover

Except for the God every other source of motion in the world, whether it may be a person or a thing or a thought, is, according to Aristotle, a โ€œmoved moverโ€.

Thus a car runs on the road, the man runs the car, the brain moves the hands, the desire to travel moves the brain, the instinct to reach the destination moves the desire.

The master of every slave is the slave of some other master. However, God is not the slave of anything or anybody. He is the master of all the masters and the source of all the actions and emotions.

His behaviour towards the World

According to Aristotle, God is not interested in the world and the worldly things, however, the world is interested in God. The reason is that one seeks interest in someone when he lacks something that the other owns.

Hence it is the imperfection that makes one take interest in others in general and in God in particular. However, God being passionless, emotionless and perfect moves the world without taking an interest in it.

Conclusion

Thus Aristotelian God, who is loved by all and is indifferent to the fate of the people of the world, is a cold, impersonal and perfectly unsatisfactory type of Supreme Being (in the modern context). He resembles the Primal Energy of scientists rather than the Heavenly Father of the poet.