The Divine Principle of Aristotelian Politics

Leisure and Self-Sufficiency as the Final Cause of Political Activity

Abstract

This essay considers the relation between Aristotle’s theology and political philosophy. I argue through a reading of Aristotle’s Politics that the divine, under its description as the one completely free, inwardly determined and leisurely activity, lies behind the natural human impulse to come together into communities, and that the goodness of these political communities can be to some extent measured by how successfully they approximate this divinity.