Aristotle

Aristotle (384–322 BCE). Greek philosopher whose influence on W. theology and philosophy has been prodigious—though it was not so much by a strict exegesis of his ideas as by an eclectic adaptation combined particularly with Neoplatonism. But the influence and adaptation are not surprising. In his own thought, a theology or science of God is the primary form of knowledge, partly because God is the source (arche) of all things, and partly because God alone possesses knowledge in the highest degree. The human desire to know is thus the highest truth of our being, and is potentially a sharing in God's knowledge of himself. This aspiration may in the past have been handed down in myth, but through nous (intellect or intelligence which is the essence of God's nature) humans attain to God. The insistence on the rationality of God and of the human possibility of entering into union with God through nous laid foundations for a theological and rational spirituality which flourished especially in Islam—albeit by then in a form which was Platonic. The real influence of Aristotle on W. Christian theology came in the 13th cent., mediated by Jews and Muslims, becoming a source of controversy (Aristotelianism was condemned in Paris in 1277), but providing nevertheless the philosophical basis for scholasticism, especially in St Thomas Aquinas.