Background to the Five Ways:

Aristotle on Form, Matter, Potentiality and Actuality

PHIL 101B

David M. DiQuattro

October 5, 2016

1 Form, Matter, and Aquinas’s Five Ways: Background

Aquinas’s five ways of demonstrating God’s existence rely on some concepts from Aristotle’s (384-322 BCE)
philosophy. Aristotle developed Plato’s concept of form to understand the nature of physical objects and
to help understand changes in physical objects. Aristotle conceived as all physical object as “form-matter”
composites. Each physical thing has a nature, it belongs to a species, and so has the form of that kind of
thing. But the form is “manifested” in matter, and “shapes” or “structures” that matter.
Form has to do with the kind of thing something is, and with the fixed nature that it has. Matter has to do
with it being a particular instance of that kind of thing that can change and develop (or decay). Particular
things are not perfect instances of their form. In the case of living things, they come into existence as
undeveloped instances of the form, but can develop to more fully exemplify the characteristics and capacities
associated of the form (children grow to developed adults, acorns grow into oak trees, etc.).

2 Form, Matter, Potentiality, Actuality

Everything physical thing that we encounter is matter with a certain form that makes it the thing that it
is. Aristotle uses the term “prime matter” to identify the underlying matter that has been formed. Clay
statues serve as a helpful example here. Think of prime matter like the unshaped clay that then gets formed
into a statue. The clay you began with is still there, but it has been formed into something. The shape or
structure of the statue is the form. You could make a replica of that statue with the same form, but using
different clay. It would be a different statue with the same form as the first. Form is universal - it can be
manifested in many different instances of matter (remember the Meno - many bees, but one form).
Prime Matter is “pure potentiality” - it has the potential to receive a form (again, think of the clay). Without
form it is not a “this” - it is not a particular kind of thing. So we never encounter prime matter. Although
we never see prime matter we know that individual things are more than form, because form is universal.
How then do we encounter particular things with form -i.e. things that are a certain kindof thing? Well
there must be an “empty” substrate (that which stands beneath) that can receive the form. So we think of
the clay that can receive the form of a statue.
For Aristotle, unlike Plato, the form cannot exist without some substrate to exist in. It can either exist in
matter or in a mind. (Aristotle thinks of the mind as mental clay or wax that gets the form “imprinted” on
it when it understands the form of something). You can’t have the form of Michaelangelo’s David floating
around all by itself -it has to be in something - either the mind of Michaelangelo or in the marble. Matter is
like the marble. So again, a physical object is formed matter. The matter particularizes the form. But the

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form gives capacities and powers to the thing that are proper to that form. These powers and capacities are
different than the “potentiality” of prime matter to receive form. These powers come from the form - they
are due to what the thing is.
To understand the above, we have to think of a progression. Consider a newborn. It is a human being.
It has that form. That means right now it can do some of the things that humans can do - cry, coo, eat,
etc. So those are actual or realized powers it has that are proper to its nature (although most of what it
can do at this point are proper to other natures as well - most mammals, for instance). It has also already
developed a human form - it looks like a mini adult human not a mini adult orangutan. It is a human and
it is developing along a decidedly human trajectory. The newborn also has the potentiality to realize other
powers, abilities, etc. proper to its form. It can learn to talk. That this drooling, crying thing is the kind of
thing that can learn to talk is due to the form. The fact that it can’t yet talk is due to the matter. It is only
a potential talker because that aspect of the form is not yet realized in this particular finite matter. So each
individual thing is a certain kind of thing, but the properties proper to that form are only partially realized.
Each further realization of the form brings more “actuality” to the thing. It has turned a potentiality into
an actuality. So consider the young human who can speak, and read and write. Those abilities are actual in
him in a way they are not actual (but only potential) in the child. Now when he is not using those abilities
there is a way in which they are potential in which they could be actual -i.e. he can start talking. He can
activate his developed power. This activation of a developed power is activity. And in some sense you are
“being more human” when you are doing human things than when you are so to speak “sitting on” your
developed capacity to do those things.
Now of course this adult human can further develop the capacities and powers that he has developed. He
can improve his language skills. He can gain in understanding. He can grow in virtue, etc. So you can see
the close relation of form and telos (the end or goal of a thing). Form makes the thing what it is. But it
also specifies and provides the potential for the thing to develop into a more fully realized version of that
kind of thing. So it is the form or structure the "actuality" the thing already possesses, it is the “engine”
that allows it to more fully develop, and it is the goal of the thing’s development. What is it? A human.
How can it develop? Along a human trajectory. What can it develop into? A more fully realized human.
We invoke the form to answer all three questions.

2.1 Change, Development and Decay

Not all changes realize a thing’s form. So there is another potentiality a finite thing has. It can lose some of
the actualities it has realized to this point. Change can be toward being or actuality, or away from it toward
nonbeing (the losing of form). Changes are understood as either realizing an actuality of the form that to
this point was only potential (in one of the senses above - a child learns to speak, a speaker goes from not
speaking to speaking). Or it is some kind of decay - some kind of loss of actuality, structure, form. One loses
knowledge, one becomes vicious, one’s body becomes diseased and starts to decay. These are movements
toward non-being, away from actuality. You are “losing” realized powers and capacities and moving closer
to not having being at all - you will no longer be and the matter will be able to take on new form.

2.2 Change, Potentiality and Actuality

Form is necessary to explain change. Anytime a change happens that realizes the capacity of the form, and
thus brings more actuality to a thing, that change must be explained in terms of a prior actuality. Acorns

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can grow into oak trees because acorns come from oak trees. Procreation involves the “transmitting” of
the form of a developed thing into matter. The newly created thing now possesses the undeveloped (lots of
potentiality, little actuality) form of its parents. So to the age old question: “Which came first, the chicken
or the egg” Aristotle’s answer is: the chicken (or something with more actuality than a chicken that can
directly create the egg - a being like God, for example).

2.3 God and Pure Actuality

In Aristotle’s philosophy as he reflects on the ideas above, he came to the idea that there must be a being
that is pure mind that understands all form. Now, for Aristotle, for a mind to understand form is for it to
“take on” that form. So in some sense this great mind since it is “nothing but” a mind that understands
form is identical to pure Form. (That’s maybe not the most accurate way to put it, but it will serve for
our purposes). Such a being must be “pure actuality.” It wouldn’t have matter that makes it an imperfect
instance of its form and subject to change. Such a being would be eternal and unchanging. Even though in
some sense it is identical to pure form it would also be an individual thing because there could be no other
being with its form (I may go into the reasons for this claim more in class. At this point, suffice to say that
there can only be two instances of a certain kind of thing if each has matter that particularizes the form. But
such beings couldn’t be pure actuality since matter introduces potentiality to a thing. But this being is pure
actuality, so there can’t be two of it). It is the existence of such a being - a being that is “pure actuality”
that Aquinas says all call “God” and that he seeks to demonstrate the existence of in the five ways.

3 Aquinas’ Arguments for God’s existence

Aquinas denies that the existence of God is self-evident - evident upon understanding the terms in the
proposition. An example of such a self-evident proposition is that nothing can be both round and square
at the same time. However God’s existence can be demonstrated. The argument is a posteriori - it reasons
from experience back to the first cause of that experience (God).
Demonstrations for Aquinas must be

• Deductively valid: the conclusion “follows” from the premises in the way we discussed in the logic
tutorial - that is, it’s not possible for all the premises to be true and the conclusion false.
• such that the premises must have a high degree of plausibility or "warrant"

Recall that the premises are reasons stated in support of a conclusion. The conclusion is the proposition in
favor of which one is arguing in. The conclusion of a theistic argument is that “God exists.”
The five “ways” are sort of thumbnail sketches of demonstrations. As is typical of the Summa Aquinas is
giving a summary of the basic argument without fully developing it.
The arguments work thus:

• Premise 1 asserts that there is a certain natural phenomenon (motion, coming to be, levels of perfection,
design, contingency). (Note, each "way" gets its name from the natural phenomenon it cites -argument
from motion, argument from efficient cause, etc.)

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 • At its most basic, Premise 2 asserts that this phenomenon could not exist unless God exists.
• The reasoning for the premises (particularly premise 2) in each case is as follows: The natural phe-
nomenon is a caused, that is to say derived phenomenon. In order for this phenomenon to exist, there
must be something that is not derived in that way (e.g., in order for there to be motion there must be
something unmoved), otherwise the derived phenomenon remains unexplained.

Let’s look at specific arguments to see how this works:

Argument from motion
Premise 1: Motion exists.
Premise 2: There can’t be motion unless there is an unmoved mover. (Which we call God)
Therefore, there is an unmoved mover.

Sub-argument for premise 2: (I’ll call the premises "Sub 1" "Sub 2" etc.)
Sub 1: Whatever is moved is moved by another
Sub 2: This cannot go to infinity, so there must be an unmoved mover at the back of this chain.
• Reasoning for Sub 1 comes from Aristotle’s doctrine of motion - the thing that is moved goes from
potentiality to actuality. So there must be something else with that realized actuality (or greater
actuality than the actuality that is realized in the moved thing by the motion). At the most basic
level, something stationary can only be set in motion by something actually in motion (or something
with greater actuality, like God).
• Reasoning for Sub 2: If there is motion without an unmoved mover, then the whole series remained
unexplained. To invoke a moved mover to explain a things motion, is to invoke something else that
requires explanation, if you do this indefinitely (as you must if you won’t grant an unmoved mover)
then explanation will never reach a resolution, and motion will be unexplained.

Consider the argument and reasoning in the "argument from efficient causation" (i.e., coming to be)
Premise 1: Things come to be.
Premise 2: Things could not come to be, unless there is something that does not come to be (an
"uncaused cause" of existence)
• The reasoning for premise 2 is similar to the reasoning in the argument from motion. Whatever comes
to be is brought into existence by another - again from reasoning about potentiality and actuality.
Suppose there is no uncaused cause of existence. Then everything that exists is caused to exist by
another. Everything that ever existed was brought into existence by another. This seems impossible.
Once again, to keep invoking derived things to explain other derivedthings, you leave the derived
phenomenon (in this case, coming to be) ultimately unexplained.

The other five ways use similar reasoning.

Argument from contingency: There are contingent things, and contingent things could not exist without
a necessary being.

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Argument from design: Things without intelligence act for an end. This cannot be unless there is
something with intelligence to design it. (We’ll discuss whether this requires an ultimate designer, but we
can make sense of the idea that there is ultimately an underived intelligence responsible for the design of
nature).
Argument from levels of perfection: There are levels of perfection, and there can’t be unless there
is something most perfect. (Again this comes from Aristotelian understanding of form, potentiality and
actuality).
Aquinas provides subarguments for the second premises of each of these other five ways trying to show that
each phenomenon mentioned in the respective second premises is unexplained unless there is a non-finite
being that is not contingent (the third way), an undesigned designer (the fourth way), or perfect (the fifth
way) in order to explain contingency, design of things without intelligence, and varying levels of perfection.