Divine Substance What
Longtime reader Stephen J asks what is the proper philosophical term for the Substance of God?
The short answer is that I do not know what the schoolmen call this: my reading in philosophy is weak when it comes to Aquinas, despite that, now that I am a Christian, he has more clarity and truth than that I find in any other philosopher.
Answering, then, only for myself, let me offer that God is pure being and perfect being, which means He has no accidental nor contingent properties, nor any potential to degrade nor change. His other aspects, such as His eternity, omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience are deduced from his essential being.
God’s substance is Being itself. He is the Unmoved Mover, the Uncaused First Cause.
When He tells Moses His name is “I am who am” He is speaking literally.
He is the Supreme Being, that is, He is the necessary being on whom all entities that have the property “being” — that is, all objects of which it can be said “it is” — depend for their being. If He did not exist, they would not exist.
He is existence. He is what is.
Hence, God is truth, since truth is what is. Falsehood is a corruption, a void or vacuum of truth.
Hence, God is love, since all existence was created in love and for the sake of love, and hate is a corruption, a void or a vacuum in existence.
Hence, God is life, since life is existence and death is non-existence.
Likewise, God is the source of virtue, truth and beauty, since virtue is the power by which living things propose to stay alive, as vice is self-destruction, either direct or indirect; truth is thought and word that conforms to being, as falsehood is nonconformity with being; beauty is nonliteral expressions of being, as when one sees the Hand of the Creator in the sublime symmetries and perfections reflected in creation.
Is this clear?