“Pine Kernels” | Anthony Satori

“And life also belongs to God, for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God’s self-dependent actuality is life most good and eternal. We say therefore that God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belong to God; for this is God.”

– Aristotle

The more I ponder it, the more it seems that the essence of all life is inextricably linked to the phenomenon of consciousness. It is entirely possible, then, that consciousness may even be the very substance of life itself. This seems to be what Aristotle is suggesting, when he says, “The actuality of thought is life.” And therefore, it would follow that the ultimate form of life would be an eternal, ultimate, omniscient consciousness, i.e., God. We often think of the ancient Greek philosophers as ultra-secular, but here we have Aristotle rather comfortably admitting that not only must there be a God, but that God must be a singular living being, and that this God must be an ultimate, eternal, self-dependent manifestation of creative consciousness. And therefore, under Aristotle’s view of the world, God must also be the ultimate and most perfect manifestation of everything that is good. So, basically, Aristotle is saying, “God is good.” This is just one step away from what Jesus taught, that God is love, (love being the highest, most pure manifestation of good.) Therefore, it seems clear to me that the closer we get to attaining our highest consciousness – and manifesting our highest love – the closer we get to a more perfect connection and communion with God.