believed to undergo no change except motion), the third includes the rational soul in man, and
also God.
The main argument for God is the First Cause: there must be something which originates motion,
and this something must itself be unmoved, and must be eternal, substance, and actuality. The
object of desire and the object of thought, Aristotle says, cause movement in this way, without
themselves being in motion. So God produces motion by being loved, whereas every other cause
of motion works by being itself in motion (like a billiard ball). God is pure thought; for thought is
what is best. "Life also belongs to God; for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that
actuality; and God's self-dependent actuality is life most good and eternal. We say therefore that
God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belong
to God; for this is God" (1072b).
"It is clear then from what has been said that there is a substance which is eternal and unmovable
and separate from sensible things, It has been shown that this substance cannot have any
magnitude, but is without parts and indivisible.... But it has also been shown that it is impassive
and unalterable; for all the other changes are posterior to change of place" (1073a).
God does not have the attributes of a Christian Providence, for it would derogate from His
perfection to think about anything except what is perfect, i.e. Himself. "It must be of itself that the
divine thought thinks (since it is the most excellent of things), and its thinking is a thinking on
thinking." (1074b). We must infer that God does not know of the existence of our sublunary
world. Aristotle, like Spinoza, holds that, while men must love God, it is impossible that God
should love men.
God is not definable as "the unmoved mover." On the contrary, astronomical considerations lead
to the conclusion that there are either forty-seven or fifty-five unmoved movers ( 1074 a). The
relation of these to God is not made clear; indeed the natural interpretation would be that there are
forty-seven or fifty-five gods. For after one of the above passages on God Aristotle proceeds: "We
must not ignore the question whether we are to suppose one such substance or more than one,"
and at once embarks upon the argument that leads to the fortyseven or fifty-five unmoved movers.
The conception of an unmoved mover is a difficult one. To a mod-