There is one important respect in which Aristotle is closer to biblical thought than Plato.
For Aristotle this man or this horse are what primarily exist. In the Categories Aristotle produces a list of ‘categories’ in which he distinguishes between the various kinds of things which can be said of or be inherent in such a subject, evidently having in mind such questions as ‘What is it?’, ‘Of what sort is it?’, ‘Where is it?’, etc. Aristotle identifies 10 such categories or ultimate genera or kinds of being (being itself not a genus), that is, ten ultimate ways in which a thing may said to be, e.g. as substance, as quantity, as relative, etc. Particular substances primarily exist and things “such as qualities and places exist only in a secondary way, in the sense that if there were not particular substances there would not be beings of those kinds” (40). In contrast to Plato’s ideal entities, the Forms, Aristotle treats such things as goodness and beauty as not self-subsistent but as having only a secondary existence, in dependence on particular substances which are their instances.
This is consistent with the reality that God is the primarily existing Being, with goodness and beauty being dependent on him and, indeed, only being truly definable with reference to God as he has revealed himself to be. Of course, care is needed here to appreciate that not every quality owes its secondary way of existence to God. So, for example, in the Bible God himself reveals that evil and ugliness are results of the Fall with evil now inhering in such beings as people and demonic angels.
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Posted October 6, 2011
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