The Gods Essays - Conceptions Of God, Aristotle, Unmoved Mover

The Gods In today's times, religion is something that much of the world's population believes in. Gods, whether people believe in one or many, are seen as superior beings in which we can worship. However, I have recently learned a new way in seeing Gods from the viewpoint of Aristotle. "Whatever is in motion is moved by some cause. If the moving cause is itself in motion, then it must be moved by some other cause...the nature of every natural object is an unmoved mover...each eternal unmoved mover is a god" (Robinson, 52). As stated in the text, this is how Timothy Robinson sums up Aristotle's view of a god. In other words, he is saying that everything is in motion, and that motion is eternal. That eternal motion has a cause, and that cause has a cause, which is moved by an unmoved mover. This unmoved mover, or cause, is seen as a god. For Aristotle, Gods are not religious the way that we see them. For him, they are the most valuable things, next to metaphysics and The Soul. Aristotle feels that he needs the Gods to exist because the whole notion of them are a scientific problem, prior to the 1600's. The question always was, What keeps the universve running? He needs an answer to this so the Gods play that role, they function as an explanation. Before the 1600's, the earth was seen to be the center of the universe. All around the earth was spherical and stationary, in other words, nothing rotated. The planets and the moon are within the spherical shape, as well as the "sphere of the fixed stars." All of the items in the sky remain fixed with the exception of the five planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Each night the planets move slightly, which is the motion of the spheres that you want to know about. How the Gods move the spheres is the question. What exactly are the Gods? Aristotle explains them as being eternal but not a physical or material thing. The only type of thing that can be this is a pure form without matter. This is why the notion of the Gods is very non-Aristolian, because his whole concept is a combination of both form and matter. However, the Gods are seen as pure form without matter. The Gods do not chase motion in the way that we would think, a pushing motion. Instead, the planets move out of desire for the Gods. In other words, when I am hungry and I see food, I go to the food, I am driven to the food. So, the Gods are an object of desire for the platnest. The nature of the planets is to move out of desire to the Gods, they have a desired cause. The Gods are in a way perfect, however, not in the way that we see perfect. They are pure form, eternal, unchanging and the plantest move out of desire to imitate this perfection. Moving for the plantest is their way of expressing their desire to imitate this perfcetionl.