1. Life’s Ultimate Questions “Aristotle”
Christopher Ullman, Professor
Christian Life College

2. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) Born not in Athens but in Macedonia
Connected to the court of King Philip
Studied in Plato’s Academy
Tutored Alexander the Great when Alexander was a teenager
Founded a rival school in Athens, the Lyceum
During his life, he left Athens three times
After Plato’s death
After Philip II’s assassination
After Alexander’s death
Aristotle was a student in Plato’s Academy for 20 years.
He was clearly the brightest student, but when Plato died, control of the Academy was given to Plato’s nephew, not Aristotle.
So he left Athens.
He went and married the daughter of a king, had kids, and raised them.
When news of Alexander’s death reached Athens, the chance of the Athenians killing Aristotle rose, and he didn’t want to risk it: “I leave Athens lest the Athenians sin twice.”
He died bravely of colon cancer.
He willed his library to Theophrastus: mostly his own lecture notes or his students’ lecture notes. (This is one reason why he is so boring to read.) Then he buried them in a cave, and forgot it. Someone found them about 100 years later.

3. Why Aristotle is Important
He’s one of the 4 or 5 greatest thinkers of all time
Plato helped influence Augustine, and Aristotle helped influence Thomas Aquinas
His teaching on properties can help us to understand the Incarnation

4. THINGS, WITH FORMS IN THEM
Aristotle vs. Plato
He rejected Metaphysical Dualism
The Forms were not separate from particular things
They were in the particular things
Reality was in the world of particular things
Things have substance
There is only one world
The one we inhabit through our bodies
FORMS
THINGS
THINGS, WITH FORMS IN THEM

5. Aristotle vs. Plato, continued
By rejecting Plato’s Two Worlds theory, he could reject Plato’s Two Kinds of Knowledge theory
Human knowledge can be grounded on
The Senses
Reason
EMPIRICAL
RATIONAL

6. Aristotle vs. Plato, concluded
By rejecting Plato’s Two Worlds theory, he could also reject Plato’s Body and Soul theory
Body and Soul are not two radically separate substances
Humans exist as a unified whole, a body-soul complex
The soul is something about the body

7. Aristotle and Ultimate Reality
Reality consists of Substances
Things that exist or have being
Crayons
Cars
Students
Every substance has two kinds of properties
Accidental (hule): nonessential attributes such as color or size
A knife could have a wooden handle or a metal handle, and still be a knife
Essential (morphe): attributes which are necessary conditions
A knife that has lost its ability to cut is no longer a knife
Essence and Form are synonymous
The Highly Morphic (Hule-Morphic) Composition of Substances

8. Four Causes (or Explanations)
The Material Cause: what a thing is made of
Baseball Bat: wood
The Formal Cause: the essential properties of a thing
Baseball Bat: tapered, round, knobbed, length of 27 – 36”
The Efficient Cause: the activity that brings a thing into existence
Baseball Bat: the sweat, skill and desire of the batmaker
The Final Cause: the purpose for which a thing exists
Baseball Bat: a tool to swing at and occasionally hit baseballs
Only two of the four causes were recognized by philosophers before Plato:
Material – Water (Thales), fire (Heraclitus), atoms (Democritus)
Efficient –
Plato came up with the third: The formal clause, but he didn’t recognize the efficient and final causes

9. Categories A category is a predicate (a way of
describing and classifying things)
S is P (Subject and Predicate)
“The student is a person:”
Person is the predicate or category that describes the student
A dog is a mammal.
Socrates was a philosopher.
Harry Schmidt is an Iowan.
The box is cardboard.
Think of categories as headings under which all things can be listed
Aristotle’s Categories are the ultimate headings
Take all the categories you could use to describe a subject, and you will find there are ten different kinds

10. (Several of A’s categories are notoriously ambiguous)
Kinds of Categories
Human (substance)
A human (quantity)
Balding (quality)
In prison (place)
Plato’s teacher (relation)
Alive in 400 B.C. (time)
Sitting (posture)
Dressed (state)
Drinking hemlock (action)
Being poisoned (passion)
There are 10 kinds of categories
“Socrates is _______”
Take all the categories you could use to describe a subject, and you will find there are ten different kinds
(Several of A’s categories are notoriously ambiguous)

11. The Most Important Category
Which category is essential?
SUBSTANCE
After Socrates died, was he still human?
If the bat is cut lengthwise four ways, it’s no longer a bat
If an eye can’t see, it is an eye in name only

12. Only God Never Changes You actually exist You potentially POTENTIALITY
ACTUALITY
You actually exist
You potentially
Are a graduate of CLC
This would be an alteration
Could move to Hawaii
This would be a locomotion
Could grow an inch
This would be an augmentation
Could get hit by a bus
This would be a corruption
Could be born again
This would be a generation
2 Corinthians 5:16-17
Your entelechy (final form) is
Ephesians 4:13
Romans 8:29
Romans 12:2
God is Pure Form
All actuality
No potentiality

13. You Change Because You’re Matter
You are a substance made of matter
A particular object
You can change
You cannot be in other objects
You have causal power
(Note: I am really not much of an Elton John fan)

14. You Remain the Same Because You’re Matter & Form
You are a substance made of matter & form
You have properties you share with other like substances. These are
Universal
Cannot change
In other objects, too
Not able to cause anything … they just are true

15. Intellect: Passive and Active
“A RED BALL!”
Passive intellect
Receives info from the senses
Of particular objects
Fulfills the function of the mind’s matter
Provides a viewing screen for an image (phantasm)
Active Intellect
Processes the info from the senses or from the reason
Fulfills the function of the mind’s form
Provides the caption
Provides the narrative
Links the particular to the universal
It won’t survive the death of the body
It will survive the death of the body

16. God, according to Aristotle
Necessary to reality
Unmoved Mover of the Universe
Pure Actuality
Can only think
About himself!
Radically transcendent & wholly “other”
And therefore, unknowable
“Falls short of being philosophically, morally or religiously satisfying” -Nash

17. Ethics, according to Aristotle (Part 1)
Observe humans, and ask, “What do they want?”
Wealth
Fame
Power
Health
Family
Love
Pleasure
Are any of these the final goal?
No, because you can have each one, and still not be happy
We seek each one of these in order to be happy
Only happiness is sought for itself
Happiness is the final, supreme goal

18. Ethics, according to Aristotle (Part 2)
If happiness is the destination, virtue is the road
How to be, not how to act
Character, not rules, is to be
Taught through the family and through the state
Formed by habit
The Golden Mean
Somewhere in between the extremes of excess and deficiency
The Paradox of Hedonism
Happiness is
Having lived a truly good life
Impossible for one to have happiness as a young person
Only possible by reflecting back on the life one has lived
Did I live well?
Did I live rightly?

19. Properties and the Incarnation, Part 1
According to the Bible,
What are God’s essential properties?
Omnipotence
Omnipresence
Omniscience
Eternality
Sinlessness __
If God lost even one of these, God wouldn’t be God
Do humans have these essential properties? NO
Then, how could Jesus Christ be both man and God?
Let’s think about this

20. Properties and the Incarnation, Part 2
What are a human’s essential properties?
Having a capacity to reason
Having a capacity to experience emotions
Having a capacity to choose
________
If a human lost even one of these, he wouldn’t be human
What are some common properties of humans?
Born on Earth
Having two legs
Lacking omniscience
Lacking omnipresence
Sinful
These aren’t essential, however
They are accidental and non-essential

21. Properties and the Incarnation, Part 3
A person can be fully human only if he possesses all the essential properties
A person is merely human only if he possesses all the essential properties …
PLUS some additional limiting properties
__________ is merely human.
Jesus is FULLY human …
Without being merely human
If we understand that a human’s essential properties exclude those which are limiting properties …
The Incarnation makes a lot more sense

22. PLATO and ARISTOTLE - I TRANSCENDENCE IMMANENCE
P: The Ideal is Reality
The Ideal exists apart from particular things
In a separate place: the Realm of the Forms
IMMANENCE
A: The Ideal is Reality
The Ideal exists in particular things
Hence, no need for a separate Realm of the Forms

23. PLATO and ARISTOTLE - II
P: Senses tell us only of particular things
Don’t rely on them
Rely solely on Reason & Intuition
A: Senses tell us something of the Ideal
Use them, along with Reason & Intuition

24. PLATO and ARISTOTLE - III
P & A: Reality is
Fully Knowable
Fully Good
P: Emphasizes Being, to explain Reality
A: Emphasizes Becoming, to explain Reality
Future philosophers will attempt to combine the best of Plato’s worldview with the best of Aristotle’s worldview
None of them will reject
Plato for Aristotle
Aristotle for Plato