THE QUESTION OF GOD IN ARISTOTLE’S METAPHYSICS

THE THEORY OF THE FIRST UNMOVED MOVER

Abstract

The question about God in Aristotle appears in the theory about the first unmoved mover, demonstrated in book XII of Metaphysics. Everything that moves is moved by something. Aristotle understands that in the universe there is an indeterminate series of moved and movers. Every movement has a prior cause. But it is not possible the infinity regress, because each and every one would always depend on another. For this reason, the Stagirite concludes that there must be an immobile first mover that is not moved by any other. Now, if there were no absolute first mover, the movement generated in the other movers in the universe would be impossible. In this study on the Aristotelian theory, we present certain steps of Metaphysics with the help of some commentators, without going into important aporias, which the Aristotelian text has been raising among researchers.