Aztec philosophers started to develop their fundamental ideas of metaphysics in the early 14th century, without much of a basis in ancient western or eastern philosophy. Although there was not much contact with other metaphysical views, the metaphysical works of Francisco Suárez offer interesting and fundamentally different views of the nature of reality. Aztec metaphysics and Francisco Suárez think similar in some ways, but stand as two attempts to understand and explain metaphysics. Suárez, working within the Christian-Aristotelian tradition, provides one of the most systematic explanations of being and reality. Aztec metaphysics, on the other hand, expresses a radically different worldview: a dynamic and non-dualistic monism built on teotl. Although historically there was no dialogue between Suárez and Aztec philosophers, and despite the imbalance of colonial power that largely erased the indigenous intellectual tradition, there are productive comparisons to make between these two metaphysical frameworks. Let’s explore whether the two systems can be seen as alternative responses to some of the same metaphysical questions and discover the points of similarity between them.
Suárez’s Metaphysics: A Brief Overview
Suárez’s metaphysics already has vastly different beginnings, since he sought to unify and systematize earlier scholastic metaphysics. For Suárez, reality consists of substances and their accidents, unified by essences that determine what a thing is and distinguish it from all others. A brief overview of some of the views that Suárez holds include his commitment to substantial form: each entity is constituted by some underlying metaphysical principle. He also explained change through an Aristotelian framework consisting of form and matter. More importantly, he viewed that objects endure through change because their identity persists while accidents vary.
On a different but equally important note, Suárez had a huge impact on theological metaphysics. He viewed God is the necessary, uncaused cause and the inherent grounds of all finite substances. Suárez holds that God’s influence is exhibitied in all creatures: the created world depends at every moment on divine concurrence. Creation is a contingent act of a transcendent being. Here, we already see one of the main similarities in Aztec and Suárez metaphysics: they both believe some form of dualistic substances in reality.
Analogical vs. Monistic Ontologies
One of the most striking differences between Suárez and Aztec metaphysics concerns the unity of being. For Suárez, being in reality is divided, since he believed that finite beings are metaphysically distinct from one another, and all are distinct from God. The Aztecs take the opposite stance. They believed being is literally one. All distinctions are ontological expressions of a single metaphysical power, teotl. Despite this stark difference, a surprising connection emerges here. Suárez holds that God’s sustaining power pervades all finite entities. Although not identical with creation, the divine is inherently present to every created thing as its ongoing cause. Meanwhile, the Aztec view is that all things are expressions of the sacred force, teotl. We can see that both frameworks affirm a metaphysical dependence upon a single ultimate source.
Substance and God
Recall that Suárez has a completely different philosophical background, one that is based on Aristotle and higher education at that time. He belongs to a classical metaphysical tradition that prioritizes identity, stability, and essence. He believes change is real, but requires that any type of change presupposes a stable, initially unchanging subject with properties. In Aztec metaphysics, the order is reversed: change is metaphysically fundamental, and stability comes secondary. They believed the world is not composed of individual substances but of patterns of transformation. The metaphysical subject underlying change is teotl itself, but teotl is not a stable, unchanging substance. Suárez would likely disagree with this view, especially considering his ultimate source of metaphysical dependence is God, not teotl.
There are also major differences between the two fundamental metaphysical sources: God and teotl. Suárez’s God is omniscient, omnipotent, and intentional. He creates freely, conserves continuously, and orders the world according to divine wisdom (which he claims no one will ever understand). On the other hand, teotl is impersonal. It does not choose or intervene. It is sacred in the sense of being metaphysically ultimate, but not in the sense of being an agent with desires or commands. Although both systems affirm a single ultimate principle, their metaphysical natures could not differ more. One of them is theological and intentional, the other is inherent and rhythmic.
Divergence
Many scholastic thoughts of metaphysics don’t differ as much as this. Metaphysics requires a lot of discussion, so many contemporary views have mountains of papers and argumentation discussion them. The significant difference between Aztec Metaphysics and of Francisco Suárez can be traced to radically different cultural worlds, education, and historical timelines. Aztec metaphysics developed over centuries within a Mesoamerican worldview that included many cultural traditions and practices. By contrast, Suárez stands at the apex of late scholasticism, inheriting nearly two millennia of Greco-Roman philosophy, Christian theology, and Aristotelian logic. His metaphysics is shaped by the intellectual demands of a European scholastic institution.
The timeline also deepens this divide. Aztec Metaphysics were largely developed before European contact, and never got to have any scholastic influence that could have significantly changed certain worldviews. The Aztec traditions and beliefs were partially erased by the very colonial structures within which Suárez’s own tradition thrived. Their cultures were two different worlds, one that focused more on performance, myths, and rituals, while the other was more analytic, based on ancient texts, and shaped by Christian doctrine. The fundamental differences in thought and culture, such as cyclical vs. linear time, teotl vs. God, processual becoming vs. substantial being, ensured that Aztec Metaphysics and the ideas of Francisco Suárez would differ pretty much at the most conceptual level.
Conclusion
Although Suárez’s metaphysics and Aztec Metaphysics arise from utterly distinct intellectual traditions, comparing them offers quite a sophisticaed view of two different and incompatiable visions of reality. Suárez offers a metaphysics of substances, essences, and God, while Aztec philosophers describe a cosmos of self-transformative processes, dynamic unity, and teotl. The similarities are very few, but one of the most significant ones is the belief in one continuous, ultimate principle with a structured reality.
In the absence of historical dialogue, it is our own imagination that brings these two traditions into conversation. And that conversation reveals the extraordinary diversity of metaphysical views and possibilities. We would get two answers to the same question, “What is the fundamental nature of reality?”, leading to universes that could not be more different.