Aristotle's view of religion presents a puzzle. Aristotle is dismissive of traditional belief in the gods, remarking (in a famous passage of Metaphysics 12.8) that everything beyond his own austere belief in the planetary movers was added to the myths ‘with a view to persuading the masses and for its usefulness in supporting the laws and bringing about the general advantage’. His critique extends beyond that of Xenophanes and Plato, for he rejects not only anthropomorphic depictions of the gods and the attribution to them of immoral acts, but the attribution of any kind of intentional action at all. At least, that would seem to be the implication of his argument that it is absurd to suppose that the gods engage in virtuous acts, since ‘a concern with actions is petty and unworthy of the gods’ (Eth. Nic. 10.8 1178b17–18).
Yet Aristotle also insists that the gods must be honoured. In the Topics he groups those who ask whether the gods should be honoured with those who question whether parents should be loved as groups needing not refutation, but punishment (1.11 105a5–7). The Nicomachean Ethics regards it as unproblematically true that ‘we assign the highest honours’ to the gods, adding that devotion (ϕιλία) is due to them, as to parents, because of the benefits they bestow (4.3 1123b18, 8.12 1162a4–7). The Eudemian Ethics states that honour (τιμή) is their due by nature (7.10 1242b19–20). The Politics lists provisions for temples and priests as among the essential features of a polis, including the ideal polis of Books 7–8 (6.8 1322b18–29, 7.9 1329a26–34). In all these passages there is no hint that the gods at issue are anything other than the traditional gods of Athens.
We are faced, then, with a puzzling juxtaposition. If belief in the traditional gods is false, how can it be right, and indeed morally obligatory, to worship them? This is the question that S. seeks to address in this volume.
S.’s approach gives full weight to the more sceptical side of Aristotle's position. He takes Aristotle to hold that there are no gods who engage in any kind of deliberation or intentional action, as opposed to the pure intellection of the planetary movers and Prime Mover. His view is thus the opposite to that of R. Bodéüs, who argues in Aristotle and the Theology of the Living Mortals (2000) that Aristotle's endorsements of religion imply that, despite appearances, he actually did believe in a suitably purified version of the traditional gods.
The obvious challenge facing S. is how to deny this apparent implication. The strategy he adopts is twofold. First, he argues that statements such as that ‘we’ honour the gods are merely about the behaviour of the Greeks or people in general, and so imply no commitment to the gods’ existence. That seems reasonable enough.
The real problem is that Aristotle says that we ought to honour the gods, and indeed that honour is due to them by nature. Here S. offers a new and intriguing idea. Taking his cue from Aristotle's well-known statement that philosophy begins with a sense of wonder, he argues that in order to attain knowledge of ‘first philosophy’, which is concerned with the gods, one must first have a sense of wonder at the gods. Such wonder can be reliably provoked on a wide scale only through traditional myth and religion. Accordingly, since Aristotle believes that attaining knowledge of first philosophy is an essential component of the human good, he includes observing the traditional rites as essential to the polis. Presumably (although S. is less explicit about this), he would even say that each of us individually has a duty to observe those rites, since otherwise we cannot launch upon inquiry into first philosophy.
Obviously, this is a highly speculative reading. It seems to me to go wrong by misconstruing what Aristotle means when he says that philosophy begins with a sense of wonder. S. takes this to mean that ‘Aristotle takes philosophical inquiry about X to commence from “wondering” at X’ (p. 52). Compare this with the relevant passage in Aristotle:
It is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize; they wondered originally at the obvious difficulties (τὰ πρόχειρα τῶν ἀτόπων), then advanced little by little and stated difficulties about the greater matters, e.g., about the phenomena of the moon and those of the sun and the stars, and about the genesis of the universe. And a man who is puzzled and wonders thinks himself ignorant (whence even the lover of myth is in a sense a lover of wisdom, for myth is composed of wonders). (Met. 1.2 982b11–19) (trans. W.D. Ross & J. Barnes, 1984)
Despite the favourable reference here to myth, it is plain that the ‘obvious difficulties’ Aristotle has in mind are not difficulties within myth, but difficulties that arise when one thinks critically about sense observation. (No doubt he has in mind particularly the sorts of difficulties addressed by the Milesians.) Nor does the passage say anything about each branch of philosophy needing to begin with wonder about the objects of that particular branch. It is perfectly compatible with what seems to have been the actual sequence of events, i.e. that philosophy began in the way described and then took on a life of its own as the systematic inquiry into all of reality. Once that inquiry had been launched, what Aristotle calls ‘first philosophy’ was bound to arise simply in the course of systematic inquiry, even if people had lost interest in the ancient myths or had forgotten them altogether. Aristotle's own first philosophy illustrates this well enough, for both of his major expositions (in Physics 8 and Metaphysics 12) begin from the plain facts of motion, not wonder about the traditional gods.
Fortunately a simpler way of reconciling the two sides of Aristotle's thought on religion is available, one that avoids the extremes of both S. and Bodéüs. The key is to recognise that the attribution of a duty is often made in view of the beliefs held by the subject of the duty, regardless of whether those beliefs are true. If I believe that the child in front of me is lost, I have a duty to offer her my help, even if she is in fact not lost at all. Likewise, it would be true to say that ‘Bradshaw has a duty to help lost children’ even if I have completely misidentified all the lost children around me. The point is simply that I should recognise ‘lost children’ as a category of moral concern and be diligent in identifying such children and responding appropriately.
I believe that Aristotle has something like this in mind when he says that we have a duty to worship the gods. His point is that we ought to recognise the category of the gods as one of central moral concern and do our best to identify them and respond accordingly. The reason he makes provision for traditional worship in the polis is simply that he assumes that most people are unlikely to adopt his own more austere conception of the gods. It is still better for them to worship the gods under some form (even a mistaken one) than not to worship them at all. This is a matter of executing a natural duty and has nothing to do with attaining knowledge of first philosophy.
Despite these criticisms, S.’s book is a pleasure to read and includes many valuable discussions that I have not touched upon here. It should be consulted by anyone with an interest in the topic.
