"More than finalism (which in Aristotle concerns only internal finality), Christian theology owes to Aristotle the concept of a transcendent and personal Principle, which in Aristotle is the first among the immobile motors of the heavens, and therefore the first of beings and the motor of everything, while for Christians (as for Muslims) it is God. However, we must bear in mind the different meaning that the word “god” had for the ancients and has for believers in monotheistic religions. For the ancients (Greeks and Romans), ‘god’ is a common noun, the name of a species of living beings, like ‘man’, and is therefore written with an article and a lowercase initial letter (the god). For monotheists (Jews, Christians, Muslims), however, ‘God’ is the name of a single person, so it is written without an article and with a capital letter. These are grammatical rules, not ideological choices."
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Enrico Berti
1935 – 2022
Enrico Berti (1935-2022) was an Italian philosopher and university professor.
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