God in Aristotle’s Ethics

Abstract

In the last few years, a new paradigm of the knowledge of the divinity in Aristotle has emerged, affording the possibility of understanding it as efficient cause. In that case, if God is efficient cause and gives rise to teleology, this must have some existential significance for man. We can ask ourselves therefore whether the knowledge of metaphysics can offer some orientation also for ethics. Yet if this were true, the need would arise to deepen the question of how much the gods love men and what would the nature of their relationship be to natural justice. Given that man is born and lives thanks to the divinity, the conclusionis that two consequences follow: a response of religious thanks giving is needed but also, that since the will of the divinity desires the good for man, the human search for happiness is the same as the fulfillment of the divine law. All this is explained, to a certain extent, in the context of the friendship between man andthe divine.