A Defense of Aquinas’s Reading of Aristotle Regarding God’s Efficient

Causality

RYAN J. BRADY
Ave Maria University
Ryanjbrady@gmail.com

Abstract

Many contemporary scholars doubt Aristotle ever arrived at a notion of God’s efficient causality.
They are often willing to accept that his first mover is a final cause, but they wholly reject the
view that this mover is the efficient cause we call God.1 According to Thomas Aquinas, however,
even if the pre-Socratic materialists were forced by their ideas to absolutely reject that “all things
proceed from an efficient cause,” Aristotle’s consideration of universal being led him to posit a
“universal cause of all things”2 that is identified with the efficient cause we call God.3 The goal of
this essay is to defend this interpretation. In light of Aquinas’s teaching that all creatures only
exist because of God’s causative knowledge of them,4 we will initially investigate his teaching
regarding God’s knowledge of creatures and then that of God’s efficient causality (doing so in
both cases vis-à-vis the thought of Aristotle and the observations of modern scholars). In doing
so, I hope to establish the viability of St. Thomas’s interpretation of the Aristotelian corpus on
this question.

1
Gregory Vlastos, for instance, says the notion that the Unmoved Mover would have acted as any
other kind of cause than a final one “is not borne out by a single scrap of direct evidence and is
flatly incompatible with the cardinal doctrine that the only activity of the Unmoved Mover is
noesis noeseos.” Cf., G. VLASTOS, Studies in Greek Philosophy: Vol. 2; Socrates, Plato, and
Their Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 283. See also: M.J. NYVLT,
Aristotle and Plotinus on the Intellect: Monism and Dualism Revisited (Lanham, MD: Lexington
Books, 2012), 5; E. GILSON, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), 66-68; J. OWENS, “The Reality of the Aristotelian
Separate Movers” in Review of Metaphysics 3 (1950): 322-23; J. H. RANDALL, Aristotle, New
York, Columbia University Press, 1960, 150; J. RIST, The Mind of Aristotle (Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 1989), 174; M.R. JOHNSON, Aristotle on Teleology (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
2005), 19-20.
2
My translation and paraphrase of AQUINAS, De Pot., q. 3 a. 5c. For an English translation, see
AQUINAS, On Creation [Quaestiones Disputatae de Potentia Dei, Q. 3], trans. S. C. Selner-
Wright (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011).
3
See ScG, Bk 1, Ch. 13 n. 3, where Aristotle is said to have showed the necessity of arriving at
one first efficient cause: “et hanc dicimus Deum.”
4
See., AQUINAS, Summa Theologiae, I q.14 a.8 s.c., ScG, Bk. I, Ch. 61 n. 7 and De Pot. q. 3 a.
4 arg. 13.

1
Introduction

For Aristotle, "in certitude and in completeness, our knowledge of terrestrial things has

the advantage” over the "scanty conceptions" we can attain of heavenly things.5 In view

of this, it might seem likely that despite his earnest desire to attain some degree of clarity

about the principle upon whom “depend the heavens,”6 the Philosopher never came to

anything more than “scanty conceptions” about it. Actually, there are many who have

maintained this is the case. Robert Sokolowski, for instance, maintains Aristotle’s

unmoved mover cannot be identified with the “God that Christians worship”7 due to

Aristotle’s supposed inability to perceive how radically the true God transcends the

world.8 Other scholars often wholly reject the view that this mover exercises efficient

causality.9 For Aquinas, however, Aristotle not only posited the existence of one first

efficient cause of all things, “scilicet Deus,” but he also provided proofs worthy of being

incorporated into the Thomistic corpus.10 In light of Aquinas’s doctrine that all creatures

5
ARISTOTLE “Parts of Animals,” in The Complete Works of Aristotle; The Revised Oxford
Translation, ed. J. Barnes, trans. W. Ogle, Vol. I (Princeton: Princeton Press, 1984), 644b34-
645a2 (Bk. 1, Ch. 5).
6
See ARISTOTLE, “Metaphysics,” in The Complete Works of Aristotle; The Revised Oxford
Translation, edited by J. Barnes, trans. W.D. Ross vol. II (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1984), 1072b14; Bk, 12, Ch. 7. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations of this work will be from
this translation.
7
R. SOKOLOWSKI, The God of Faith and Reason, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: The Catholic
University of America Press, 1995), 48. See p. 47.
8
See Ibid., page x.
9
Joseph Owens said “an immobile Mover of the Metaphysics can function only as a final cause,
and that its causality requires the Aristotelian Heavens to be animated, may be taken as admitted
in this question, and indeed should now be beyond controversy.” He went on to give a list of
thinkers who agree with him. See, J. OWENS, “The Reality of the Aristotelian Separate Movers”
in the Review of Metaphysics 3 (1950): 322-23. Similarly, John Herman Randall argued
Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover is merely “an arche, a principle of intelligibility, a ' reason why'.”
J.H. RANDALL, Aristotle, New York, Columbia University Press, 1960, 135.
10
See Sent., lib. 2 d. 1 q. 1 a. 5 s. c. 5 for the phrase “scilicet Deus” in reference to the “prima
causa essendi” the philosopher is said to “prove” (probat) must exist. See also ScG, Bk 1, ch. 13
n. 33 and n. 34 (where we are told Aristotle showed the need to posit an efficient cause of being
we call God); De Pot., q. 3 a. 5c.; ST, I q. 2 a.3c.; ST, I q.44 a.1 arg. 2 and ad 2.

2
only exist because of God’s causative knowledge of them,11 I will attempt to defend his

reading of Aristotle by initially investigating his doctrine regarding God’s knowledge of

creatures and then that of the efficient causality such knowledge makes possible (doing

so in both cases vis-à-vis the thought of Aristotle).

The Prerequisite to God’s Efficient Causality: His Knowledge of Creatures

If we prescind from Aristotle’s thought for the moment, we see that for Thomas, “God

brings things into being by the knowledge of his intellect” and his intellect “extends its

causality to whatever is not incompatible with the notion of being.”12 He necessarily,

therefore, has knowledge of all potential beings,13 which become actual beings insofar as

his will for their existence is joined to his knowledge.14 The sine qua non for the very

existence of creatures, therefore, is that God is able to know things other than himself. If

Gilson is correct that St. Thomas only thought philosophy to be worthy of significant

attention to the degree it was “envisaged under [the] divine aspect of being conformed to

theological principles”,15 it might seem that here he is imposing omniscience and

effective causality upon Aristotle’s God due to “theological reasons which would have

obliged him” to do so (as Oehler suggested).16 There are, in fact, many places Aristotle

11
See ST, I q.14 a.8 s.c. and ScG, Bk. 1, Ch. 61 n. 7: “Intellectus autem divinus per suam
scientiam est causa rerum.”
12
AQUINAS, Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Summa Contra Gentiles, vol. 2
(London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, 1924), Bk 2, ch. 26. See also ST, I. q. 14 a. 11.
13
See ScG, Bk. 1, Ch. 66 and Sent., lib. 1 d. 39 q. 1 a. 2 c.
14
“It is manifest that God causes things by His intellect, since His being is His act of
understanding; and hence His knowledge must be the cause of things, in so far as His will is
joined to it.” ST, I q.14 a.8 c. (AQUINAS, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English
Dominican Province (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, n.d.).
15
E. GILSON, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame: University of
Notre Dame Press, 2002), 14-15.
16
K. OEHLER, “Aristotle on Self-Knowledge” in Proceedings of the American Philosophical
Society, Vol. 118, No. 6 (Dec. 27, 1974), 493-506.

3
suggests that God, “the end with a view to which wisdom issues its commands,”17 is too

perfect to think of anything besides himself.18 With such assertions in mind, Van

Steenberghen says that even though Aquinas is mostly objective in his interpretation of

Aristotle, “he takes advantage of ambiguity” in his writings when he attributes to him

doctrines compatible with Christian views of divine knowledge and efficient causality.

Aristotle’s God, according to Van Steenberghen, “does not know the lower world and

does not exercise any kind of personal providence with respect to it.”19 This Aristotelian

god, therefore, must be distinguished from the first mover of the Physics, which is clearly

an efficient cause.20 This reading would seem plausible if it were true that the divine

Mind of Aristotle only knows itself (and thus only “causes motion as being an object of

love”),21 but we will now turn to the evidence indicating scholars such as Lear are correct

to insist that even though it is true “God’s activity transcends the world and is unaffected

by it, … the conception of God thinking himself need not be empty” in the sense that he

be thought unable to think about “the essences that are embodied in the world.”22

Thomas De Koninck argues that to even “entertain the opinion that Aristotle’s God

in Metaphysics 12 is ignorant” one would have to “isolate that book from the rest of the

corpus, making it contradict a whole variety of other texts in Aristotle stating or implying

17
ARISTOTLE, “Eudemian Ethics,” in The Complete Works of Aristotle; The Revised Oxford
Translation, ed. J. Barnes, trans. J. Solomon, Vol. II. (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1984), 1249b.15 (Bk. 7, Ch. 15), emphasis added.
18
See Eudemian Ethics 1245b15 (Bk. 7, Ch. 12) and Metaphysics, 12.9 1075a 14 (Bk. 12, Ch. 9).
19
F.VAN STEENBERGHEN, “The Problem of the Existence of God in Saint Thomas’
Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle,” translated by John Wippel in The Review of
Metaphysics, Vol. 27, No. 3. Thomas Aquinas, 1224-1274 (Mar., 1974), 565-556 and 568.
20
Ibid., 556-557.
21
Ibid., 1073b12 (Bk. 12, Ch. 8).
22
J. LEAR, Aristotle: The Desire to Understand (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999),
301 & 303.

4
the opposite.”23 Demonstrating the sagacity of this assertion will require a thorough

examination of many texts, but perhaps the ones to begin with are those pertaining to the

divine Mind of Anaxagoras, the philosopher Aristotle seems to be most dependent upon

when thinking about God’s intellectual activity. Aquinas suggests that he alone came

close to the truth about God in comparison to the other pre-Socratics,24 and Aristotle

strikingly said his recognition that νοῦς was “the cause of the world and of all its order”

made him seem “like a sober man in contrast with the random talk of his predecessors.”25

For Anaxagoras, the divine Mind is the “principle of all things… [and], alone of all

that is, is simple, unmixed, and pure.”26 The reason it had to be unmixed was so that it

could exercise control over things. As Aristotle says, “Anaxagoras is right when he says

that Mind is impassive and unmixed, since he makes it the principle of motion: for it

could cause motion in this sense only by being itself unmoved, and have supreme control

only by being unmixed.”27 This is a remarkable assertion because if Anaxagoras is

correct to say Mind is the cause or principle of motion, Aristotle seems to be agreeing

Mind is an efficient cause because he defines that kind of cause in terms of a principle of

motion (ὅθεν ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς κινήσεως28). Indeed, for Anaxagoras (Aristotle tells us), Mind

23
T. DE KONINCK, “Aristotle on God as Thought Thinking Itself” in The Review of
Metaphysics Vol. 47, No. 3, (Mar., 1994), 474.
24
“Inter antiquos autem solus Anaxagoras ad veritatem accesit” ScG, Bk. 1, Ch. 20 n.40.
25
ARISTOTLE, “Metaphysics,” in The Complete Works of Aristotle; The Revised Oxford
Translation, edited by J. Barnes, trans. W.D. Ross vol. II (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1984), 984b.16–19 (Bk. 1 Ch. 3).
26
ARISTOTLE, “On the Soul,” in The Complete Works of Aristotle; The Revised Oxford
Translation, ed. J. Barnes, trans. J.A. Smith, Vol. I. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984),
405a16 (Bk. 1, Ch. 2).
27
ARISTOTLE, “Physics,” in The Complete Works of Aristotle; The Revised Oxford Translation,
ed. J. Barnes, trans. R.P. Hardie and R.K. Gaye, Vol. I; 256b26-27 (Bk. 8, Ch. 5).
28
ARISTOTLE, Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Ed. W.D. Ross (Medford, MA: Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1924); Met. 994a.5 (Bk. 2, Ch. 2); cf., 1013b10 (Bk. 5, Ch. 2). All references to the Greek
of the Metaphysics are from this source.

5
was not only responsible for the very origin (ἀρχήν) of “coming to be” (γενέσεως) but

also for ordering the things that were to be (ἔσεσθαι)29 and moving them “for some

end.”30 Clearly, therefore, Anaxagoras believed that Mind knew things other than itself

because it could not otherwise move things toward an end (especially things that were not

yet in existence). Moreover, the movement certainly is intentional. It makes sense,

therefore, that Aristotle would conclude that Anaxagoras assigned both “knowing and

origination of movement to the same principle [by saying] it was mind that set the whole

in movement.”31

Nevertheless, the notion that the divine Mind could know its effects is difficult to

reconcile with its simplicity. If it were truly one and simple, how could it be even

conceptually divided between that which understands and that which is understood? In

the Metaphysics, the problem is phrased as follows:

Mind is held to be of all phenomena the most supernatural (θειότατον); but the
question of how we must regard it if it is to be of this nature involves certain
difficulties. If Mind thinks nothing (µηδὲν νοεῖ), where is its dignity? It is in just the
same state as a man who is asleep. If it thinks, but something else determines its
thinking, then since that which is its essence is not thinking but potentiality, it cannot
be the best reality (οὐσία); because it derives its excellence from the act of thinking
(διὰ... τοῦ νοεῖν).32

29
See Physics 203a30 (Bk. 3, Ch.4). All references to the Greek of the Physics are taken from
ARISTOTLE, On the Soul; Parva Naturalia, On Breath, trans. W.S. Hett (London: Harvard
University Press, 1957).
30
ARISTOTLE, “Metaphysics,” in The Works of Aristotle, ed. W. D. Rose and J. A. Smith, vol. 8
(Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1908), 1075b.9 (Bk. 12, Ch. 10). The full sentence as found there
says, “Mind moves things, but moves them for an end” and this is W.D Ross’s original translation
of νοῦς κινεῖ. ἀλλὰ κινεῖ ἕνεκά τινος. The Revised Oxford Translation, though listing Ross as the
translator, altered the original and does not use the word, ‘end.’ However, ἕνεκά τινος is
essentially Aristotle’s definition of end: τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα; see 983a31 (Metaphysics Bk. 1, Ch. 3).
31
ARISTOTLE, “On the Soul” in The Complete Works of Aristotle; The Revised Oxford
Translation, ed. J. Barnes, trans. J.A. Smith, Vol. I. (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1984); 405a18 (Bk. 1, Ch.2).
32
ARISTOTLE, Metaphysics, tr. Hugh Tredennick. (Medford, MA: Cambridge, MA, Harvard
University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd., 1989) 1074b.15–21 (Bk. 12, Ch. 9).. I use
this translation here because νοῦς is best understood as Mind rather than ‘thought’ as the word is
rendered in the Revises Oxford Translation. ‘Thought’ denotes discursive in common parlance.

6
 Thomas says Aristotle asks where its dignity would be if it thought of nothing

because the Stagirite himself recognized that everyone thinks of the primum movens as

the most honorable principle (videtur omnibus apparens, quod principium sit

dignissimum).33 Actually, that Aristotle himself thought the first mover to be most

honorable is evident from the way he discusses the activity of the divine Mind in

Metaphysics 12. After discussing some characteristics of the necessarily existing first

principle, he explains the reasons this “most excellent of things”34 has a life that “is such

as the best we enjoy.”35 The first reason given is that it always “deals with that which is

best in itself”36 because its essence37 is always the same as the object of its thought. In

God, “thought and the object of thought are not different.”38 In this way, his thought is

distinct from “human thought, or rather the thought of composite objects.”39 So he is

simple in as much as he does not need to reason things out or ever have the misfortune

humans have of only possessing “the good at this moment or that.”40 This reality follows

upon his perfection because he does not have anything greater than himself to which he

has to turn in order to perfect his intellect. As De Fillippo explains:

Nothing may be κύριον over [the divine Mind] by being ontologically prior to it,
as that which causes its potential to be realized, in any sense of the word, ‘cause’.
God is τὸ κράτιστον [the best or strongest; 1074b.34] by being completely
independent ontologically, and he is the only substance about which this claim
can be made.41

33
In Metaph., Lib. I Lectio XI, par. 2600 on 1074b16.
34
ARISTOTLE, Metaphysics 1074b34 (Bk. 12, Ch. 9).
35
1072b14; Bk. 12, Ch. 7.
36
1072b19; Bk. 12, Ch. 7.
37
1072b22; Bk. 12, Ch. 7.
38
Metaphysics 1075a3-5 (Bk. 12, Ch.9).
39
Metaphysics 1075a10 (Bk. 12, Ch. 9).
40
Ibid.
41
G. DE FILLIPPO, “The ‘Thinking of Thinking’ in Metaphysics Λ,” 558.

7
There is, then, no potentiality in the absolutely perfect divine Mind, which is essentially

actual: “for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God’s essential

actuality is life most good and eternal.”42 The consequence of his perpetual focus on his

own goodness is that he is supremely self-sufficient and happy.43

The self-sufficiency and simplicity of the divine thinking, despite indications to

the contrary, do not preclude knowledge of creatures. At first glance, it seems they do,

but there is a long tradition of interpreters antecedent to Aquinas who thought otherwise44

and there must be good reasons for that. One reason for agreeing with them is simply the

fact that Aristotle, who was not accustomed to flatly contradicting himself and is thus

worthy of a ‘hermeneutic of continuity,’ often says things which clearly imply God has

knowledge of creatures (as we will see). A second reason to agree with them is that

reason itself seems to suggest that if something is perfect, it is not ignorant of things –

especially things it is a cause of in some way.45 Actually, Aristotle himself only

considered something to be perfect if it is not lacking anything46 and ignorance is

certainly a lack. With this in mind, the argument made in the Summa Contra Gentiles

seems so convincing that it is hard to believe Aristotle himself would not have agreed:

Since then [God] knows Himself perfectly, He knows that He is a cause: and this
is impossible unless He knows His effect somewhat. Now this is something other
than Himself, for nothing is cause of itself. Therefore God knows things other
than Himself.47

42
ARISTOTLE, Metaphysics 1072b.25-30 (Bk. 12, Ch. 7)
43
Ibid., 1072b.20–39 (Bk. 12, Ch. 7); cf., ARISTOTLE, Politics 1323b24 (Bk. 7,Ch. 1).
44
See T. DE KONINCK, “Aristotle on God as Thought Thinking Itself,” 511 where he cites
Themistius, Avicenna and Maimonides.
45
At the very least, Aristotle’s God is undeniably a final cause. See the explanation of the first
mover (who is called God in 1072b24) found in Metaphysics 1072b10 (Bk. 12, Ch. 7).
46
See T. De Koninck’s explanation of the word τέλειος as found in Aristotle’s Physics 207a8-15
(Bk. 3, Ch. 6): T. DE KONINCK, “Aristotle on God as Thought Thinking Itself,” 495.
47
ScG, Bk. I, Ch. 49.

8
This argument is almost identical to that of the fourth century Aristotelian commentator

Themistius, who said: “God simultaneously understands himself as the first principle and

all of those things of which he is the principle.”48 The solution of both commentators

affirms not only God’s non-discursive, simple apprehension of himself but also affirms

his ability to know creatures through himself. In other words, it makes it possible to

maintain that God is both perfect in the sense of being completely self-sufficient and also

in the sense of being devoid of ignorance.

We turn now to the evidence that Aristotle believed God had knowledge of beings

other than himself. Beginning with the Eudemian Ethics, we find him speaking there

about “fortunate” men who are not good at reasoning but are, nevertheless, successful “in

whatever they start on” because they “have inspiration.”49 They possess, he says, a kind

of lack that is not natural but rather divine and, apparently, comes through the assistance

of God (διὸ καὶ δοκεῖ ὁ εὐτυχὴς διὰ θεὸν κατορθοῦν).50 If we are not talking about

something natural, it seems God must have to intervene and thus know creatures. This

conclusion also follows from the fact that “God is satisfied at getting sacrifices as good as

our power allows.”51 With this in mind, perhaps, Aristotle concluded the Eudemian

Ethics by suggesting man should direct all of his activities towards the “contemplation

48
THEMISTIUS, “Themistii in Libros Aristotelis De Anima Paraphrasis,” in Commentaria In
Aristotelem Graeca ed., R. Heinze (Berlin, 1899), Vol. V, part 4, 33.23-26, as cited by T. De
Koninck in “Aristotle on God as Thought Thinking Itself,” 514. This is my translation of
“… deum esse primum principium seque intellegere et omnia simul, quorum ipse principium est.”
49
ARISTOTLE, “Eudemian Ethics,” in The Complete Works of Aristotle, 1248a30 (Bk. 7, Ch.
14).
50
ARISTOTLE, Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics, ed., Susemihl (Medford, MA: Leipzig: Teubner,
1884), 1248b2; Bk. 7, Ch. 14. All subsequent references to the Greek of this work will be from
this edition.
51
ARISTOTLE, “Eudemian Ethics,” 1243b13 (Bk. 7, Ch. 10).

9
and service” of God.52 Although one could argue he was merely repeating popular

opinions without meaning to express his own adherence to them, De Koninck rightly

reminds us “Aristotle’s characteristic respect for common conceptions”53 makes it

unlikely he would repeat such common notions without believing there was truth to them.

In the beginning of the Metaphysics, moreover, Aristotle says metaphysics or

wisdom is the science that investigates “the first principles and causes … by reason of

[which], all other things are known.”54 A few lines later in the same chapter of the second

book, we learn “(1) God is thought to be among the causes of all things and to be a first

principle, and (2) such a science either God alone can have, or God above all others.”55

Now if God alone has the knowledge of the principles through which everything else is

known, he must somehow share that knowledge with creatures and thus have some

knowledge of them. On the other hand, if he has it above all others, then he knows the

first principles through which everything else is known and thus knows everything else.

In either case, it seems, he must have knowledge of creatures. This conclusion is

confirmed by Aristotle’s critique of Empedocles’ statements about God. He considers

them untenable precisely because it “follows on his theory that God most blessed … does

not know all the elements; for he has in him no strife, and knowledge is of the like by the

52
ARISTOTLE, “Eudemian Ethics,” 1249b20 (Bk. 7, Ch. 15).
53
T. DE KONINCK, “Aristotle on God as Thought Thinking Itself” in The Review of
Metaphysics Vol. 47, No. 3, (Mar., 1994), 476. See also, D. OBBINK, “What all men believe–
must be true: Common conceptions and consensio omnium in Aristotle and Hellenistic
philosophy” in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 10 (1992):193-231.
54
ARISTOTLE, “Metaphysics,” in The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. II (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1984), 982b3-9 (Bk. 1, Ch. 2).
55
ARISTOTLE, Metaphysics, 983a.9-10 (Bk. 1, Ch. 2).

10
like.”56 Because the elements are certain principles through which other things are

known, God must have knowledge of them.

Although Aristotle refrained from speculating how God could both be entirely

self-sufficient (and seemingly engrossed in a simple gaze of himself) and yet also be

cognizant of beings other than himself, the evidence certainly indicates he believed God

to be both of these things. With good reason, therefore, Aquinas believed Aristotle ought

to be interpreted accordingly. He thus held the reality of God’s perfect self-sufficiency

and his perfect knowledge in a healthy balance. He insisted that when Aristotle said God

does not have knowledge of other things, his intention was merely “to show that God

does not understand something other than himself inasmuch as what is understood is the

perfection of the one understanding.”57 Since nothing can be understood by God in such a

way as to be perfective of him, his perfection is not lessened by understanding other

things through his own perfect essence.58 This reading makes it possible to both uphold

God’s perfection and his omniscience. That Aquinas believed this the proper way to

understand Aristotle is confirmed by his comment in De Potentia:

When the Philosopher says that God understands nothing besides himself, this
should not be understood to mean that God does not understand those things
which are other than himself, but that even those things which are other he
understands not outside himself but in contemplating himself, since he knows all
others through his own essence.59

56
ARISTOTLE, Metaphysics, 1000b.4–5 (Bk. 3, Ch. 4). Cf., De Anima 410a5–9 (Bk. 1, Ch. 5).
57
In Metaph., Lib. XII Lect. I, 11 n. 15 (par. 2614; my translation, emphasis added).
58
See ibid., 2614. For a similar view, see J. LEAR, Aristotle, the Desire to Understand, 301:
“God’s activity is unmoved, unaffected, and separated from perceptible things: nevertheless, his
eternal activity is a higher level actuality whose corresponding lower level may yet be found in
enmattered essences.” He masterfully explains how this can be in light of Aristotle’s explanation
of potentially or actually indivisible lines (in On the Soul, 430b6; Bk. 3, Ch. 6.).
59
AQUINAS, On Creation [Quaestiones Disputatae de Potentia Dei, Q. 3], trans. S. C. Selner-
Wright, Thomas Aquinas in Translation (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America
Press, 2011), 153–154 (Q. 3, a. 16 ad 23).

11
Aquinas’s reading certainly goes beyond the explicit ideas of Aristotle on this point, but

given the latter’s statements pertaining to God’s knowledge, it is hardly an unwarranted

and non-organic reading based solely upon faith-based presuppositions. As we will see,

the evidence that the same thing can be said regarding God’s efficient causality is even

more abundant.

God’s Efficient Causality Itself

Aristotle said in the Metaphysics that “things can be causes of one another” in the sense

that one of the causes is an end and the other is a “source of movement” (ἀρχὴ

κινήσεως).60 In his commentary, Aquinas explains that efficient and final causes

correspond to each other (correspondent invicem) because the efficient cause is the

beginning of motion, whereas the final cause is its end.”61 That seems to be what

Aristotle was getting at when he pointed out that the final cause has a special relationship

to the efficient cause (as the ἀντικειµένην αἰτίαν).62 Clearly, there would be no end of

motion without a beginning of it, but similarly, if the end were not present and decided

upon as an object, there would be no beginning of motion towards it. For Aquinas, the

efficient cause actually has a kind of precedence because it is the cause of the final cause;

in virtue of its movement, it leads the end to be an end (movendo perducit efficiens ad

60
ARISTOTLE, Metaphysics, 1013b.9–12 (Bk. 5, Ch. 2).
61
“efficiens est principium motus, finis autem terminus.” In Metaph., Lib. V, Lectio II n.13
(paragraph 775 on 1013b10ff).
62
See Metaphysics, 983a30 (Bk. 1, Ch. 3). Treddenick translates “which is opposite to” which
seems to be an improvement upon Ross’s “opposed to;” ἀντὶ need not express ‘opposition’ in the
prevailing meaning of the term and can imply, as here, merely an ‘opposition’ of relation. See
Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. XVII, tr. Hugh Tredennick. (Medford, MA: Cambridge, MA,
Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd.,1989).

12
hoc, quod sit finis).63 Efficient causality, in other words, is essential and if there is a final

cause, there is necessarily an efficient cause.64 In light of this, God who is the first

efficient cause of being itself,65 is “the cause of every end being an end” (causa cuiuslibet

finis quod sit finis).66

Although these ideas are somewhat more refined than Aristotle’s, we can find

traces of them dispersed throughout the Aristotelian corpus. The most salient place is in

the second book of Eudemian Ethics, where he discusses the ways substances (αἱ οὐσίαι)

can be considered principles (ἀρχαί). He describes a principle as a “cause of all that exists

or arises”67 through it and gives as the first example of such causality the generation of

offspring. Something is a principle in the “strict sense," however, when it is “the source

of certain actions" (πράξεών τινών ἐστιν ἀρχὴ). “Such principles," he clarifies, are

“primary sources of movements” (ὅθεν πρῶτον αἱ κινήσεις).68 These must, therefore, be

efficient causes (an efficient cause is ὅθεν ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς µεταβολῆς69). When Aristotle

concludes that “God is doubtless a principle of this kind,"70 then, it is clear God can not

only be called, “the cause of all that exists or arises"71 through himself, but that he also

causes things to exist or arise through himself as an efficient cause. From what we know

63
Ibid.
64
Thomas goes on to even say “efficiens est causa finis quantum ad esse” (Lib. V, Lectio II n. 13;
par. 775).
65
See ScG, Bk. 1, Ch. 13, n. 33 where he comes to this conclusion by means of Aristotle’s proof
in Metaphysics 2 that there must be one first efficient cause.
66
ScG, Bk. 3, Ch. 17, n. 3.
67
ARISTOTLE, Eudemian Ethics, tr. J. Solomon in The Complete Works of Aristotle; The
Revised Oxford Translation, ed. Johathan Barnes, vol. II (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1984), 1222b30 (Bk. 2, Ch 6).
68
Ibid., 1222b22.
69
Metaphysics, 992a26 (Bk. 1, Ch. 9) and 1013a30 (Bk. 5, Ch. 2).
70
Eudemian Ethics, 1222b23 (Bk. 2, Ch 6).
71
Eudemian Ethics, 1222b30 (Bk. 2, Ch 6).

13
so far, it is at least possible Menn is correct to contend that Aristotle’s God is merely a

“very ‘refined’ efficient cause, presenting itself to the heavens and perhaps to other

rational beings as an object of knowledge and desire, and so causing them to move for its

sake,”72 but he is certainly an efficient cause of some sort.

Another important text from the Eudemian Ethics is found in the eighth book,

where Aristotle says human minds are “something divine” because God, “the starting-

point of reasoning,” moves them.73 If he were only to do so as a final cause, it would be

strange to speak of this movement in such a manner. It is certainly true God moves by

being known and loved, but what could possibly start that process if not an efficient

cause? The full quote is as follows:

Perhaps there is a starting-point with none other outside it, and this can act in this
sort of way by being such as it is. The object of our search is this—what is the
commencement of movement in the soul [τίς ἡ τῆς κινήσεως ἀρχὴ ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ]?74
The answer then is clear: as in the universe, so there [ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ], everything is
moved by God; for in a manner the divine element in us is the cause of all our
motions. And the starting-point of reason [λόγου δʼ ἀρχὴ] is not reason but
something superior to reason. What, then, could be superior even to knowledge and
intellect but God [τί οὖν ἂν κρεῖττον καὶ ἐπιστήµης εἴη καὶ νοῦ πλὴν θεός]?75

Aquinas’s explanation of this text and the surrounding ones is that Aristotle is simply

tracing all “understanding, taking counsel, choosing and willing” back to their first

cause.76 Their cause, he says, cannot be “another act of counsel and another act of will,

since in such things we cannot proceed to infinity.” We must, therefore, come to some

72
S. MENN, “Aristotle’s Theology.” Ch. 17 of The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle, ed.
Christopher Shields (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 447.
73
ARISTOTLE, Eudemian Ethics, 1248a.27-29 (Bk 7 Ch. 14).
74
ARISTOTLE, Eudemian Ethics, 1248a.23-27 (Bk. 8).
75
ARISTOTLE, “Eudemian Ethics,” in The Works of Aristotle, ed. W. D. Ross, trans. J.
Solomon, vol. 9 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1925); 1248a.27-29 (Bk. 7, Ch. 14). This
translation is nearly identical to that of the Revised Oxford Translation that is based on it, with the
exception that the latter does not capitalize “God.”
76
ScG, Bk 3, Ch. 89.

14
first thing, and this must be something greater than reason. Since nothing is greater than

reason and intellect besides God, he must be “the first principle of our counsels and

wills.”77 It would certainly seem that for him to be this, he would have to have knowledge

of beings other than himself and actually have the intention to act upon them.

That notion that he does exercise intentionality is certainly not entirely explicit in

Aristotle, but there are other places that point to the same conclusion. In On the Heavens,

for instance, he says, “God and nature create nothing that is pointless;”78 in other words,

there is a point and this point, presumably, is intentional. Now it might seem from this

mention of “God and nature” that they are equally causes without one of them taking

precedence over the other, but it is clear in Metaphysics 12.7 that nature itself relies upon

a principle such as God. After speaking about a simple79 unmoved mover of the “first

heavens”80 that is “eternal, substance and actuality”81 and which necessarily exists82 as a

good83 and “in itself desirable”84 principle, he says, “on such a principle… depend the

heavens and the world of nature.”85 In light of the context of the chapter and the fact that

he concludes the very same paragraph by speaking about “God” in much the same way, it

seems clear the reader is being led to understand that heaven and nature depend upon

77
Ibid.
78
ARISTOTLE: “On the Heavens” in The Complete Works of Aristotle; The Revised Oxford
Translation, ed. J. Barnes, trans. J.L. Stocks, Vol. I (Princeton: Princeton Press, 1984), 271a34
(Bk, 1, Ch. 4).
79
1072a31.
80
1072a23.
81
1072a25.
82
1072b10.
83
1072a34.
84
1072a34.
85
1072b14.

15
God, which is the way Thomas understands him.86 The conclusion that nature depends

upon God would also follow upon the principle that God’s essence is actuality.87 Because

“actuality is prior to potency” and nature “is in the same genus as potency,”88 God must

be prior to nature. Therefore, when we read in De Anima, “everything that Nature makes

is means to an end… just as human creations are the products of art,”89 we can deduce

that God, the principle of nature, also directs things to an end by means of nature.

Additionally, because “all things strive” to “partake in the eternal and divine” by their

very nature90 and do so in a way that precludes mere “chance and spontaneity,”91 they

must do so due to some intentional act – presumably, an act of the first mover that causes

them to tend towards “some final end” which they naturally desire as their “aim or

purpose.”92

Meehan argues that Aristotle “assigns to God a manner of action that – contrary to

general assumption – is providential” and points to an illuminating text in chapter ten of

Metaphysics 1293 to support this claim:

We must consider also in which of two ways the nature of the universe contains
the good or the highest good, whether as something separate and by itself, or as
the order of the parts. Probably in both ways, as an army does. For the good is

86
In Metaph., Lib. XII l. 11 n. 16. Interestingly, he uses this as an argument God must have
knowledge of creatures: “Cum igitur a primo principio, quod est Deus, dependeat caelum et tota
natura, ut dictum est, patet, quod Deus cognoscendo seipsum, omnia cognoscit.”
87
See Metaphysics, 1071b20 (Bk. 12, Ch. 6).
88
See Metaphysics, 1049b5-8 (Bk. 9, Ch. 8).
89
ARISTOTLE, Parts of Animals, 641b13-14 (Bk. 1, Ch. 1).
90
ARISTOTLE, On the Soul, 415b1 (Bk. 2, Ch. 4).
91
See ARISTOTLE, Parts of Animals, 641b23 and the whole of Bk. 1, Ch. 1, where he explains
that neither heaven nor nature “was constructed to be what it is by chance and spontaneity” and
further suggests nature must direct them internally.
92
ARISTOTLE, Parts of Animals, 641b25 (Bk. 1, Ch. 1).
93
F.X. MEEHAN, Efficient Causality in Aristotle and St. Thomas (Washington, D.C.: The
Catholic University of America Press, 1940), 89.

16
 found both in the order and in the leader, and more in the latter; for he does not
depend on the order but it depends on him.94

Meehan’s opinion that this text “justifies one in assuming that Aristotle believed in some

kind of a providence over the world”95 is certainly defensible. In his work, Parts of

Animals, Aristotle says one is not able to discern “the faintest sign of hap-hazard or of

disorder” in the heavens.96 Surely he would say the same about the universe.

Accordingly, the universe can be likened to a well-ordered army in which there must be

good order both among the soldiers of lesser rank and the commander of the army, in

whom order is preeminently found. The consequence of this analogy is that the first

principle, upon whom “the heavens and the world of nature” depend97 as upon a separate

good, must not only be ordered itself but also cause order in virtue of some kind of

command. Rightly, therefore, Aquinas comments by saying, “what is in the intellect and

will of the first mover is unfolded in the ordered universe.”98

Another place Aristotle implies God moves as a first principle of change (and, more

specifically, as an efficient cause) is in Metaphysics 2.1:

A thing has a quality in a higher degree than other things if in virtue of it the similar
quality belongs to the other things (e.g. fire is the hottest of things; for it is the cause
of the heat of all other things); so that that which causes derivative truths to be true
is most true. Therefore the principles of eternal things must be always most true; for
they are not merely sometimes true, nor is there any cause of their being, but they
themselves are the cause of the being (τοῦ εἶναι) of other things, so that as each

94
ARISTOTLE, Metaphysics, 1075a10-16 (Bk. 12, Ch. 10).
95
F.X. MEEHAN, Efficient Causality in Aristotle and St. Thomas, 89.
96
ARISTOTLE, Parts of Animals 641b24 (Bk. 1, Ch. 1).
97
ARISTOTLE, Metaphysics, 1072b14 (Bk. 12, Ch. 7).
98
AQUINAS, In Metaph., Lib. 12 l. 12 n. 5. My translation of “explicatur in universo ordinato id
quod est in intellectu et voluntate primi moventis.” Van Steenberghen says Thomas Aquinas
“goes beyond Aristotle’s thought in emphasizing the providential role the latter seems to attribute
to the First Mover” here, but in the context of the whole Aristotelian corpus, I maintain the
reading is a good one; see, VAN STEENBERGHEN, “The Problem of the Existence of God in
Saint Thomas’ Commentary,” 567.

17
 thing is in respect of being, so is it in respect of truth.99

The text is certainly somewhat cryptic, but the line that immediately follows adds some

degree of clarity: “evidently there is a first principle, and the causes of things are neither

an infinite series nor infinitely various in kind.”100 This being the case, there seems to be

a first cause that is most of all being and most of all true. Two further conclusions

emerge; namely, 1) whatever is most true is the cause of the truth of other things and 2)

that which is most existent is the cause of the being or existence (τοῦ εἶναι)101 of other

things. Even if there are many things that are necessarily true (such as the three angles of

a triangle equaling two right angles), there is, nevertheless, some one thing that is most

true and the cause of any kind of truth. The same could be said about existence; many

things necessarily exist, but there is one thing that exists in a supereminent way.

St. Thomas uses this text in many places in support of his teaching that God is the

one first efficient cause.102 He argues Aristotle proved in it that whatever is most of all

being and true is the “cause of every being and every true thing.”103 Alexander of

Aphrodisias, commenting around the end of the second century, understood this text in

the same way. For Alexander, the ‘first principle’ of Metaphysics 994a1 was the first,

uncaused cause of both the being and the truth of other things.104 Regardless, one would

99
ARISTOTLE, Metaphysics, 993b.20–39 (Bk. 2, Ch. 1).
100
ARISTOTLE, Met. 994a1 (Bk.2, Ch. 2).
101
Tredennick translates τοῦ εἶναι as ‘existence,’ which seems better given the context. See
Metaphysics, 993b.29-30 (Bk. 2, Ch. 1), trans. Hugh Tredennick. (Medford, MA: Cambridge,
MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd., 1989).
102
See also ST, I q. 46 a. 2 obj. 7; Sent., lib. 2 d. 1 q. 1 a. 5 s. c. 5 (proves one first efficient
cause)
103
“Causa omnis entis et omnis veri;” ST, I q.44 a.1 resp.; cf., ST, I q2a.3c.: Ergo est aliud, quod
omnibus entibus est causa esse, et bonitatis, et cujuslibet perfectionis, et hoc dicimus Deum.
104
ALEXANDER OF APHRODISIAS, On Aristotle Metaphysics 2&3, trans. E.W. Dooley and
A. Madigan (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 1992), 25-27. He summarizes his own
commentary on this passage as follows: “we posited that what is the cause of being (to einai) for
things is also the cause of their being true; further that this cause is most true because it exists

18
think it would have struck Aristotle (a philosopher who did not adhere to Plato’s theory

of the Forms) as odd if there were different first causes for each kind of perfection. That

would have to be the case, however, if some of these non-physical first causes were not,

in re, the same thing (e.g., substance, being, good, beauty, truth, life, intelligence, will,

etc.).105 The reasonable inference, then, is not only that “the causes of things” are “not

infinitely many,”106 but there is truly only one efficient “first cause of all.”107 Although

Aristotle refrained from explicitly stating that, it is at least compatible with his principles

and seemingly even required by them.

Conclusion

Aristotle’s statements certainly imply that the Mind that thinks itself is not only the being

he refers to as God, but is also the one who efficiently moves all things to their end.

Thomas rightly asserts, therefore, that Aristotle held a position about the prime mover

that “is in accord with the Catholic faith.”108 In view of both Aristotle’s explicit

statements and their necessary consequences, an honest and comprehensive reading leads

to the practically inevitable conclusion that all efficient causes must be reduced to one

first efficient cause. There “cannot,” moreover, “be anything prior to”109 this cause

eternally, and that nothing is cause of its being, but it [is cause of the being] of the other things.”
See p. 26.
105
In other words, they come together in the first cause, which is the cause of every being and
thus even the cause of the trancendentals, which are properties of being. For an explanation of
Thomas Aquinas’s views on this, see A. NICHOLS, Discovering Aquinas: An Introduction to
His Life, Work, and Influence (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 2002), 155–156.
106
Ibid.
107
“… in general the moving cause (except in the case of the first cause of all) does itself receive
some motion in return.” ARISTOTLE, “Generation of Animals,” translated by A. Platt in The
Complete Works of Aristotle; The Revised Oxford Translation, edited by Johathan Barnes, vol. I
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 768b18-20 (Bk. 4, ch. 3).
108
De Pot., a. 3 ad 5c.: “cui… catholica fides consentit.”
109
Metaphysics 14.1, 1087a.32. ARISTOTLE, The Works of Aristotle, ed. W. D. Rose and J. A.
Smith, Vol. VIII (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1908).

19
otherwise known as the “first principle of things that are moved”110 – or, simply, God. It

is in keeping with Aristotle’s thought, therefore, that Aquinas calls God “the first

efficient cause on whom all second causes depend.”111

We have seen, finally, that Aristotle’s God not only must have some knowledge

of creatures, but he must also be able to act efficiently upon them. Aquinas certainly

perfected some of the ideas of Aristotle, but he never violated his principles in arguing

that Aristotle believed in God’s efficient causality. Some may continue to claim

Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover could not possibly act in any other way than as a final

cause,112 but they can only do so by reading certain statements of Aristotle in isolation

from many others.

110
Physics, 261a26 (Bk. 8, Ch. 7).
111
AQUINAS, Commentary on the Book of Causes, tr. Vincent A. Guagliardo, Charles R. Hess,
and Richard C. Taylor (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press), 144.
112
See G. VLASTOS, Studies in Greek Philosophy: Vol. 2; Socrates, Plato, and their Tradition
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 283.

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