Form
Form
The first occurrence of this word in the Epistles is in Rom 2:20, where St. Paul speaks of the Jew as having in the law the form of knowledge and of the truth. The word he uses is , which is found again only in 2Ti 3:5 (having the form of godliness), where it clearly has a disparaging sense and may be taken to mean an affectation of or an aiming at the of godliness. itself is that which manifests the essence or inward nature of a thing, outward form as determined by inward substance, in contrast with which means outward form as opposed to inward substance. occupies an intermediate position between these words; the Apostle hesitates to use , yet he will not use . The term happily expresses his meaning in Rom 2:20 -the Law, so far as it went, was an expression, one might even say an embodiment, of Divine truth. It did not go far enough to be called , yet it was more than more outward fashion (). There is not the same note of disparagement about the word here as in 2Ti 3:5; it is rather one of incompleteness.
We may turn now to the well-known use of the word itself in Php 2:6 f., where Christ is said to have been in the form of God and to have taken the form of a slave. The first thing to bear in mind is that St. Paul used the common speech of his day, and this word, like many others, had wandered far from the accurate metaphysical sense in which it was used by Plato and Aristotle. The lengthy and thorough discussions of the word and its relation to , , , and similar terms by Lightfoot (philippians4, 1878, p. 127ff.) and E. H. Gifford (The Incarnation, 1897, p. 22ff.) remain as examples of fine scholarship, but it is now generally recognized that St. Paul uses here in an easy, popular sense, much as we use the word nature. Several passages in the Septuagint (e.g. Job 4:16, Dan 5:6, Wis 18:1-4, 4Ma 15:4) witness to the same tendency- is the appearance or look of some one, that by which onlookers judge. But, while St. Paul avoids metaphysical speculations on the relation of the Son to the Father, he implies here, as elsewhere, that Christ has, as it were, the same kind of existence as God. The closest parallels are (Col 1:15) and (2Co 8:9), the latter passage reminding us of the great antithesis in Php 2:6-7 between the and the . stands for man in opposition to God and must not be pressed literally. It is worth noting that St. Paul insists on Christs direct exchange of the one form for the other, in contrast to Gnostic views which represented Him as passing through a series of transformations. To return to , which here denotes, as it usually does, an adequate and accurate expression of the underlying being, and so points to the Divinity of the pre-existing Christ, one may, without any detraction from this honour, point out that St. Paul always regards the Death and Resurrection of Christ as adding something to it. It is after the return to glory that Christ is declared the Son of God with power (Rom 1:3-4), and becomes Lord (Php 2:9-11). It only remains to point out that Christs assumption of the form or nature of a servant does not imply that His Ego, the basis of His personality, was changed. (See further article Christ, Christology, p. 193f.)
Before leaving this word, we may notice the use of the verb in a beautifully expressive passage, Gal 4:19, where the Apostle adopts the figure of a child-bearing mother; he is in travail for the spiritual birth of Christ within his Galatian friends, straining every power to shape their inner man afresh into the image of Christ. The use of the word form in Rev 9:20 and 1Ti 2:13 (in each case translating ) calls for no remark.
Two other passages in the Epistles demand consideration. In Rom 6:17 St. Paul is glad that the Romans have become sincerely obedient to that form of teaching to which they were delivered; and in 2Ti 1:13 there is an exhortation to hold the form (Revised Version pattern) of sound words which thou hast heard from me. The word used in Rom. is , which must be taken in its usual Pauline sense of pattern, standard. No special type of doctrine is meant (see F. J. A. Hort, Prolegomena to Romans and Ephesians, 1895, p. 32); the reference is to a course of simple instruction, like that in the first part of the Didache (The Two Ways), which preceded baptism. In 2 Tim. we have the compound , lit. [Note: literally, literature.] an outline sketch, and so a pattern or example. It is the emphatic word in the sentence, and the meaning is best brought out by the translation, Hold as a pattern of healthy teaching, in faith and love, what you heard from me.
A. J. Grieve.
Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church
Form
(Lat. forma; Gr. eidos, morphe, he kata ton logon ousia, to ti en einai: Aristotle)
The original meaning of the term form, both in Greek and Latin, was and is that in common use — eidos (derived from eido, root rid, an obsolete form from which comes the second aorist eidon, I see, akin to Latin video), being translated, that which is seen, shape, etc., with secondary meanings derived from this, as form, sort, particular, kind, nature. It is also used by Plato to express kind, both as genus and species. From the primary and common signification given above, an easy transition is made to that in which it comes to signify the intrinsic determinant of quantity, from which figure or shape results, and thence to the further peripatetic and scholastic usage as the intrinsic determinant of anything that is determinable. Thus the term is employed even in such expressions as “form of contract”, “form of worship”, and as theological form, “form of words” (the theological statement of dogmatic truth); sacramental form (see below). In its more strict philosophical usage, however, it is limited to its signification of the intrinsic principle of existence in any determinate essence. This covers form, whether accidental or substantial. But there is a further extended use of the term form, derived from the fact that in all its previous significations it stands for the intrinsic constitutive element of the species, accidental or substantial, in sensible entities. Hence, all species or nature, whether in itself material or existent as immaterial, is called a form, though not, in the strict meaning of the term, a formal principle. In this manner, it is not unusual to speak of the angelic form, or even of the form of God, as signifying the nature, or essence, of the angel or of God. Hence, form is sometimes also used as a synonym of essence and nature. Thus also the form, or formal cause of Aristotle’s theory of causality, is identified with the essence (to ti en einai), as the form is that in virtue of which the essence, even of material and composite entities, is precisely what it is. This point will be further considered in the paragraph treating of the development of the idea of form.
The various kinds of form recognized in philosophy include the following, of which brief definitions are given. Substantial form, in material entities, is that which determines or actuates materia prima (see MATTER) to a specific substantial nature or essence, as the form of hydrogen, a rose, horse, or man. It is defined by Aristotle as the first entelechy of a physical body (De Anima, II, i), and may be of such a nature that it is merely the determinant of matter (corporeal substantial form), or it may exceed, as it were, the potentiality of the determined matter (spiritual or subsistent form). Accidental form is that which determines a substance to one or other of the accidental modes as quantified, qualified, relationed, etc. (see CATEGORY). As the existence of an “accident” is a secondary one, consisting in an inexistence of inherence, an existent substance, as subject of inherence, is always connoted. A separated form is one which exists apart from the matter it actuates. No accidental form can thus exist, nor can corporeal substantial forms. The separated form is that of man — the human soul. Inherent form is an accidental form modifying or determining substance. The term is employed to emphasize the distinction of accidental from substantial forms. These latter do not inhere in matter, but are co-principles with it in the constitution of material substances. Forms of knowledge, according to Kant, are forms of; (1) intuition (space and time), and (2) thought (the twelve categories in which all judgments are conditioned: unity, plurality, totality; reality, negation, limitation; substantiality, causality, relation; possibility, existence, necessity).
They are all a priori and under them, as content, fall all our intuitions and judgments. The logical system of Kant is generally known as “formal” logic, from this connexion. So also that of Herbart, whose logical treatment of thought consists in the isolation of the content from its psychological and metaphysical implications. The point is related to the whole subject of epistemology (q. v.). The attempt to ascertain the nature, extent, and validity of knowledge was made by Kant through a criticism, not of the content of thought, but of its essence. It is an endeavour to examine not the “facta of reason, but reason itself. . . .”.
The development of the philosophical doctrine of form may be said to have begun with Aristotle. It provided a something fixed and immutable amidst what appears to be involved in a series of perpetual changes, thus obviating the difficulty of the Heraclitean position as to the validity of knowledge. The panta chorei destroys the possibility of a true knowledge of things as they are. Thus Aristotle may be looked upon as the one above all others who laid a solid base for any true system of epistemology. Like Plato, he saw the radical scepticism implied in an assertion of unending change. But unlike the doctrine of the former, providing unalterable but separated ideas as the ideal counterpart of sensible things, that of Aristotle, by its distinction of matter and form, makes it possible to abstract the unalterable and eternal from its concrete and mutable manifestation in individuals. Aristotle, however, identifies the form with the essence; and this because the substance is what it is (essentially) by reason of the substantial form. It would be a mistake, none the less, to suppose that his doctrine leaves no room for a distinction between the two. Indeed Grote clearly shows that “the Aristotelean analysis thus brings out, in regard to each individual substance (or hoc aliquid, to use his phrase), a triple point of view:
the form; the matter; the compound or aggregate of the two;
In other words the inseparable Ens which carries us out of the domain of logic or abstraction into that of the concrete or reality” (Grote, “Aristotle”, ed Bain and Robertson, II, 182). The theory is a fundamental one in Aristotle’s “Phiosophia Prima”, presenting, as it does, a phase, and that perhaps the most important, of the distinction between the potential and the actual. It is no less fundamental to the philosophical and theological system of St. Thomas Aquinas which is representative of the Christian School. Substantial form is an act, the principle of activity, and by it things actually exist (Summa I, Q. lxvi) as they are. Moreover it is one. Thus man exists as man in virtue of his substantial form, the soul.
That the rational soul is the unique form of the body is of faith (Council of Vienne; V Lateran; Brief of Pius IX, 15 June, 1857). Man is learned or healthy in virtue of the accidental (qualifying) forms of learning or health that “inhere” in him. These, without detriment to his humanity, may be present or absent. Both kinds of form, it may be noted, though they specify their resultant essences, or quasi-essences, are individuated by the quantified matter in the one case, and the subject of inhesion in the other. Thus, while the accidental or substantial corporeal form falls back into mere potentiality when it does not actuate its subject, the incorporeal subsistent form of man, though continuing to exist when separated from the body, retains its habitude, or relationship, to the matter by which it was individuated. This doctrine is usual in the School, but it is interesting to observe that Scotus taught, in distinction to St. Thomas’s doctrine of one substantial form, a plurality of form in individuals. Thus, e. g while according to Aquinas man is all that he is substantially (corporeal, animal, rational, Socrates) in virtue of his one soul, according to Scotus each determination (generic or specific) superadds a form. In this way, man would be corporeal in virtue of a corporeal form, animal in virtue of a superadded animal form, etc., until he became Socrates, in virtue of the ultimate personal form (socrateitas). Occam also distinguished between a rational and a sensitive soul in man, and taught that the latter was corruptible. The terminology of the Scholastic doctrine of form is employed by the Church in dogmatic definitions, such as that of the Council of Vienne cited above, and in her teaching with regard to the sacraments. Thus, while the matter of the sacrament of baptism, for example, is water; the sacramental form consists of the words ego te baptizo, etc., pronounced by the minister as he baptizes. The same terminology is adopted in the exposition of moral theology, as in the distinction of formal and material sin.
The principal alternative systems professing to give an account of corporeal substances are those of Descartes, Locke, Mill and Bain, the scientists (Atomists, etc.). Descartes places the essence of bodies in extension three dimensions, thus identifying quantified substance with quantity and in no way accounting for substantial differences. Each substance possesses a “pre-eminent attribute, which constitutes its nature and essence and to which all others relate; thus extension”, etc. To this Locke adds the qualities of the substance, making its essence consist of its primary qualities, or properties (extension, figure and mobility, divisibility and activity). Locke’s doctrine, which seems to be the opinion of many contemporary men of science, labours under the same grave inconvenience as that of Descartes, as, by a hysteron-proteron, it accounts for the nature of a given substance by its accidents. Mill and Bain, considering substance from a psychological rather than an ontological viewpoint, define it by its relation to sense perception as an external and permanent possibility of our sensations. This view is not unlike that just alluded to, inasmuch as it expresses not the essence of bodies but at most their activity as permanently capable of evoking sensations in us. Akin to this is the doctrine of positivism, explaining the nature of “matter” as a series of sensations.
The topic of form is, as has been seen, closely connected with epistemology. As was said, a weapon for the defeat of scepticism and Heracliteanism was provided by Aristotle in his doctrine of forms and essences; Aquinas, also, would have our knowledge to be of the eternal essences, though derived by way of contemplation of contingent individuals. Kant, on the other hand, denies the possibility of such knowledge of the Thing-in-itself, and, establishing a set of mental forms (see above) into which our experience of concrete beings may be fitted, inaugurates an epistemology of the phenomenal. Hegel begins with the idea of pure being, identical, because of its entire lack of content, with nothing; and thence evolves, on idealistic lines, his theory of knowledge. The “realism” of Herbart is an attempt to reconcile the contradictions that arise in the formal conceptions presented in experience. His epistemological principle is, therefore, a critical and methodical transformation of such conceptions, issuing in the position that a multiplicity of simple, real essences exists, each possessing a single simple quality. Several of the modern systems (Pragmatism, Modernism, etc.), based directly and indirectly upon the teaching of Kant, assert a life-value or work-value to truth, inculcating an extreme relativity of knowledge and tending to pure subjectivism and solipsism. The scholastic theory of form is not that generally adopted by modern scientists, though it may noticed that it is not directly impugned by any scientific system. From Bacon on, empirical science has been progressive; and there is reason to believe that the theoretic science of to-day is in a state of transition in its attitude with regard to the constitution of “matter” (substance). The atomic and molecular theories, principally on account of the discovery of the radio-active substances and their properties, are being modified or abandoned (at any rate in so far as they were held to represent the real constitution of matter) in favour of the electronic, a theory not unlike that of the Jesuit Boscovich. In any case the former did not go farther than to provide a theoretic account of the construction of “matter”, leaving the ultimate constitution of substance unexplained. At this point the theory of hylomorphism and the doctrine of substantial form would apply. For a critical examination of the Mechanicist position in this connexion the reader is referred to Nys’s “Cosmologie”. Furthermore, there is a noticeable reaction towards the scholastic position in recent biology, in which a growing school of neovitalism is making itself felt.
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ARISTOTLE, Opera (Paris, 1629); ST. THOMAS, Opera (Parma, 1852-72); DUNS SCOTUS, Opera (Lyons, 1639); LORENZELLI, Institutiones Philosophiœ Theoreticœ (Rome, 1896); HARPER, Metaphysics of the School (London, 1879); MERCIER, Ontologie (Louvain, 1902); NYS, Cosmologie (Louvain, 1906); DE VORGES, La Perception et la Psychologie Thomiste (Paris, 1892); DE WULF, Scholastic Philosophy, tr. COFFEY (London, 1907); DALGAIRNS, The Holy Communion (Dublin, 1861); SHARPE AND AVELING, The Spectrum of Truth (London, 1908); WINDLE, What is Life? (London, 1908); GURY, Theologia Moralis (Prato, 1894); KANT, Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Riga, 1781); HEGEL, Werke (Berlin, 1832); HERBART, Werke (Leipzig, 1850-2); HOBBES, Leviathan (London, 1651); IDEM, Elementorum Philosophiœ sectio prima. De Corpore (London, 1655); LOCKE, An Essay concerning Humane Understanding (London, 1714); CUDWORTH, A Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality (London, 1731); HUME, Works, ed. GREEN AND GROSE (London, 1878); HAMILTON, Lectures on Metophysic and Logic, ed. MANSEL AND VEITCH (Edinburgh, 1859-60); MANSEL, Prolegomena Logica, “An Inquiry into the Psychological Character of Logical Processes” (Oxford, 1851); MILL, An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy (London, 1865); GROTE, Aristotle, ed. BAIN AND ROBERTSON (London, 1872); UEBERWEG, System der Logik (Bonn, 1857); IDEM, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie (Berlin, 1863-8).
FRANCIS AVELING Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VICopyright © 1909 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, September 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Form
(Lat. forma, by transpose from ) is defined by Aristotle as , the doctrine of the substance or essence of a thing. A trumpet may be said to consist of two parts, the matter or brass of which it is made, and the form which the maker gives to it. The latter is essential, but not the former; since, although the matter were silver, it would still be a trumpet, but, without the farm it would not. Now, although there can be no form without matter, yet as it is the form which makes the thing what it is, the word form came to signify essence or nature (Fleming, s.v.). The Scholastics distinguished form substantial from form accidental. Substantial form they defined as actus primaries una cum materia constituens unum per se; accidental forms as actus secondarius constituting a unit per accidens. The unit of being composed of soul and body was defined to be of the former sort. Form, according to the ancient definitions, is therefore necessary to matter; absolutely formless matter is inconceivable. Lord Bacon (Nov. Organ. 2:17, says: When we speak of forms, we understand nothing more than the laws and modes of action which regulate and constitute any simple nature, such as heat, light, weight, in all kinds of matter susceptible of them; so that the form of heat, or the form of light, and the law of heat, and the law of light, are the same thing. Also (Nov. Organ. 2:13), The form of a thing is the very thing itself, and the thing no otherwise differs from the form thane as the apparent differs from the existent, the outward from the inward, or that which is considered in relation to man from that which is considered in relation to the universe.
The sense attached at the present day to the words form and matter. is somewhat different from, though closely related to, these. The form is what the mind impresses upon its perceptions of objects, which are the matter; form therefore means mode of viewing objects that are presented to the mind. When the attention is directed to any object, we do not see the object itself, but contemplate it in the light of our own prior conceptions. A rich man, for example, is regarded by the poor and ignorant under the form of a very fortunate person, able to purchase luxuries which are above their own reach; by the religious mind under the form of a person with: more than ordinary temptations to contend with; by the political economist under that of an example of the unequal distribution of wealth; by the tradesman under that of one whose patronage is valuable. Now the object is really the. same to all these observers; the sauce rich man has been represented under all these different forms. And the reason that the observers are able to find many in one is that they connect him severally with their own prior conceptions. The form, then, in this view, is mode of knowing, and the matter is the perception or object we have to know (Thomson, Outline of Laws of Thought, page 34). Sir W. Hamilton calls the theory of substantial forms the theory of qualities viewed as entities conjoined with, and not as mere dispositions or modifications of matter (Hamilton’s edition of Reid’s Works, page 827).
Dr. M’Cosh remarks, on the distinction between form and matter, that this phraseology was introduced by Aristotle, who represented everything as having in itself both matter () and form (v). It had a new signification given to, it by Kant, who supposes that the mind supplies from its own furniture a form to impose on the matter presented from without. The form thus corresponds to the a priori element, and the matter to the a posteriori. But the view thus given of the relation in which the knowing mind stands to the known object is altogether a mistaken one. It supposes. that the mind in cognition adds an element from its own resources, whereas it is simply so constituted as to know what is in the object. This doctrine needs only to be carried out consequentially to sap the foundations of all knowledge; for if thee mind may contribute from its own stores one element, why not another? whey not all the elements? In fact, Kant did, by this distinction, open the way to all those later speculations which represent the whole universe of being as an ideal construction. There can, I think, be no impropriety in speaking of the original principles of the mind as forms or rules, but they are forms merely, as are the rules of grammar, which do not add anything to correct speaking and writing, but are merely the expression of the laws which they follow. As to the word matter,’ it has either no meaning in such an application, or a meaning of a misleading character (Intuitions of the Mind, N.Y. 1866, page 308). Formal, in philosophy, is that which relates to the form, as opposed to material, or that which relates to the matter. So formal logic gives the theory of reasoning as grounded in the laws. of thought, without reference to the subject-matter to which reasoning may be applied. Fleming, Vocabulary of Philosophy, s.v.; Krug, Handwort. der philosoph. Wissenschaften, 2:56.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Form
(Phi 2:6-8.) “Who (Christ Jesus) subsisting (huparchoon) in the form (the self manifesting characteristics shining forth from the essence) of God esteemed His being on an equality with God (to einai isa THeoo) no robbery (harpagmon, not harpagma, which Ellicott’s translated, ‘a thing to be grasped at,’ would require), but took upon Him the form of a servant.” He never emptied Himself of His being on an equality with God in essence, but only of the form of God for the time of His humiliation. The antithesis is between His being in the form of God and His assuming the form of a servant.
“Image” implies His being the exact essential inner likeness and perfect Representative of God. “Image” (eikoon) supposes a prototype of which it is the exact counterpart, as the child is the living image of the parent. “Likeness” (homoiosis), mere resemblance, is nowhere applied to the Son, as “image” is (1Co 11:7; Joh 1:18; Joh 14:9; 2Co 4:4; Heb 1:3; 1Ti 3:16; 1Ti 6:16; Col 1:15), “the Image of the invisible God.” “Found (by His fellow men’s outward cognizance) in fashion, (scheema) as a man” signifies His outward presentation, habit, style, manner, dress, action (Phi 2:8).
Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary
Form
form (, yacar, , to’ar; , morphe):
(1) To form is to fashion, create, produce. In the Old Testament it is for the most part the translation of yacar, to form, to fashion (Gen 2:7, etc., Yahweh God formed man of the dust of the ground, etc.); also of hul and hl, to be twisted turned round to bring forth (in pain) (compare Isa 13:8; Mic 4:10; Deu 32:18 the King James Version, God that formed thee; Job 26:13 the King James Version; Psa 90:2, or ever thou hadst formed the earth etc.; Pro 26:10 the King James Version). In the New Testament we have morphoo, to form (Gal 4:19, until Christ be formed in you); plasso, to form, to mold (Rom 9:20, him that formed it; 1Ti 2:13, Adam was first formed; 2 Macc 7:23, the Creator … who formed the generation of man, the Revised Version (British and American) fashioned; 7:22, that formed the members (diarrhuthmzo), the Revised Version (British and American) brought into order).
(2) Form (noun) is used for (a) appearance, mar’eh, sight, appearance (Job 4:16, I could not discern the form thereof the Revised Version (British and American) appearance with form for image (temunah) in next sentence); celem, Aramaic image (Dan 3:19, The form of his visage was changed); rew, form, likeness (Dan 2:31; Dan 3:25, the Revised Version (British and American) aspect); to’ar, visage, form (1Sa 28:14, What form is he of?); (b) The fixed or characteristic form of anything, tabhnth, model, form (Eze 8:3; Eze 10:8, the form of a hand; Eze 8:10, every form of creeping things); morphe, characteristic form as distinguished from schema, changing fashion (Phi 2:6, in the form of God; Phi 2:7, the form of a servant; less distinctly Mar 16:12, in another form); (c) shape, model, pattern, mold, curah, shape, from cur, to cut or carve (Eze 43:11, ter, the form of the house, etc.); mishpat, rule (2Ch 4:7 the King James Version); tupos, type, impress (Rom 6:17, the Revised Version, margin pattern); hupotuposis, outline, pattern (2Ti 1:13, the Revised Version (British and American) pattern); morphosis, form, appearance (Rom 2:20, the form of knowledge); (d) orderly arrangement, giving shape or form (Gen 1:2; Jer 4:23, the earth was without form, tohu, the Revised Version (British and American) waste; The Wisdom of Solomon 11:17, amorphos); form of speech (2Sa 14:20, aspect, panm, face, the Revised Version (British and American) to change the face of the matter); as giving comeliness or beauty, to’ar (Isa 52:14; Isa 53:2, He hath no form nor comeliness; compare Gen 29:17; Gen 39:6, etc.; The Wisdom of Solomon 15:5, desiring the form (edos) of a dead image, the Revised Version (British and American) the breathless form); (e) Show, without substance, morphosis, form (2Ti 3:5, holding a form of godliness).
ARV has didst form for hast possessed (Psa 139:13, so the English Revised Version, margin; both have formed for made (Psa 104:26), the American Standard Revised Version for framed twice (Isa 29:16); both for formed thee, gave birth (Deu 32:18); pierced (Job 26:13); woundeth (Pro 26:10); fastened (Isa 44:10); for are formed from (Job 26:5), tremble; for their form (2Ch 4:7), the ordinance concerning them; form for similitude (Num 12:8; Deu 4:12, Deu 4:15); for size (1Ki 6:25; 1Ki 7:37); for shape (Luk 3:22; Joh 5:37); in the form for similitude (Deu 4:16); for or the like (Deu 4:23, Deu 4:15); the American Standard Revised Version (beholding) thy form for thy likeness (Psa 17:15, the English Revised Version, margin); every form for all appearance (1Th 5:22; so the English Revised Version, margin appearance).
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Form
In religious service
1Ch 15:13-14; 2Ch 29:34
Irregularity in
2Ch 30:2-5; 2Ch 30:17-20; Mat 12:3-4 Church, The Collective Body of Believers, Church and State
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
Form
(Gr. eidos) The intelligible structure, characters constituting a substance or species of substances, as distinguished from the matter in which these characters are embodied; essence; formal cause. See Aristotelianism. — G.RM.
In Arta. Opposite of content. The conclusive aspect of art, the surpassing of emotions, taste, matter, the final imprint of the personality of the artist, b. Opposite of color. The plastic form achieved by drawing and chiaroscuro- — L.V.
Fuente: The Dictionary of Philosophy
Form
(in Kant) That a priori element in experience in virtue of which the manifold of sense is synthcsized and unified into meaningful perceptions and judgments. Kant attributed the form of experience to mind and reason, the matter to sensuous intuition. See Kantianism. — O.F.K.
In Scholasticism. Accidental; That which comes to a subject already substantially complete, e.g. roundness or whiteness.
Substantial formSubstance distinct from matter ordered in itself in such a way that with prime matter it constitutes a natural body; for — since matter is indifferent to any composite, it is determined by the form united to itself, so that it may be, e.g., a stone, or a dog. or wood. There are as many substantial forms as there are different bodies.
MetaphysicalIs the substantial essence of the whole thing — as rational animal is said to bt the metaphysical form of man. — H.G.
Fuente: The Dictionary of Philosophy
Form
morphe (G3444) Form
schema (G4976) Fashion
idea (G2397) Appearance, Countenance
Morphe, schema, and idea are not used frequently in the New Testament. Morphe occurs only twice (Mar 16:12; Php 2:6), as does schema (1Co 7:31; Php 2:8), and idea appears only once (Mat 28:3). Morphe means “form,” schema means “fashion,” and idea means “appearance.” The first two words frequently are used together and are objective. The “form” and the “fashion” of something would exist even if it were alone in the universe, whether anyone were there to behold it or not. Idea is subjective, in that the “appearance” of a thing implies someone to whom this appearance is made; there must be a “seer” before there can be a “seen.”
The best way to study the distinction between morphe and schema and to estimate its importance is to study the use of these words in Php 2:6-8. In this great doctrinal passage Paul says that the eternal Word sisted “in the form of God” before his incarnation, assumed “the form of a servant” at his incarnation, and was “found in appearance as a man” after his incarnation and during his walk on earth. The fathers were inclined to use the first phrase (en morphe theou hyparchon) against the Arians, as did the Lutherans against the Socinians. The fathers understood this phrase as a statement that proved the absolute divinity of the Son of God, because they understood morphe as equivalent to ousia (G3776) or to physis (G5449). But it is now generally acknowledged that this cannot be maintained. Doubtless Paul’s words in Php 2:6-8 contain a proof of the divinity of Christ, though this is present implicitly, not explicitly. Although morphe is not equivalent to ousia, no one who is not God could be en morphe theou. Thus Bengel correctly noted: “The form of God is not his divine nature, although he who exists in the form of God is God.” This is true because morphe signifies the form as it expresses the inner lifenot “being” but “mode of being,” or better “mode of existence,” and only God could have the mode of existence of God. But Jesus, who had thus been from eternity en morphe theou (Joh 17:5), took at his incarnation morphen doulou. The veracity of his incarnation is implied here; there was nothing docetic or fantastic about it. His manner of existence was now that of a doulos, that is, of a doulos tou theo, for in the midst of all our Lord’s humiliations he was never a doulos anthropon. From time to time he was man’s diakonos; this was part of his tapeinosis (G5014), which is mentioned in the next verse. But he was never man’s doulos. On the contrary, they were his. With respect to God, he emptied himself of his glory, so that from that manner of existence in which he thought it not robbery to be equal with God, he became God’s servant.
The next clause, “and being found in appearance (schemati) as a man,” helps us distinguish schema and morphe. The truth of the Son’s incarnation was expressed by morphen doulou labon. The words that follow declare the outward facts that were known by his fellow men, with an emphasis on heuretheis. By men, Christ was found in fashion as a manthe schema signifying his whole outward presentation. Bengel correctly stated: “schema is his character, manner of life, dress, food, posture, speech, and actions.” In these there was no difference between Jesus and other men. The superficial character of schema appears in its association with words such as chroma and hypographs.Plutarch defined schema this way: “It is an appearance and outline and boundary of a body.”
The distinction between schema and morphe is clearly expressed in the compound verbs metaschematizein (G3345) and metamorphoun (G3339). If a Dutch garden were changed into an Italian one, this would be metaschematismos; but if I were to transform a garden into something wholly different, such as a city, this would be metamorphosis. It is possible for Satan metaschematizein himself into an angel of light (2Co 11:14); he can assume this outer appearance. But it would be impossible to apply the metamorphousthai to any of his changes, for this would imply not an external but an internal changea change of essence that is quite beyond his power. The variation of words in Rom 12:2 is fine and subtle, though “conformed” and “transformed” inadequately represent it. “Do not fall in,” says the apostle, “with the fleeting fashions of this world, nor be yourselves fashioned to them (me syschematizesthe [G4964]), but undergo a deep abiding change (alla metamorphousthe) by the renewing of your mind, such as the Spirit of God alone can work in you” (cf. 2Co 3:18). In commenting on this verse, Theodoret called particular attention to this variation of the worda variation that would take the highest skill of the English scholar to reproduce in his own language. “He was teaching how much present circumstances differ from virtue, for the former he was calling schema but virtue he terms morphe;morphe is indicative of genuinely important values, while schema is a thing easy to undo.” Meyer perversely rejected this and noted: “Both words are contrasted only by the prepositions without any difference in the root words.” One can understand a commentator overlooking but not denying the significance of this change of roots.
At the resurrection of the dead, Christ will transfigure (metaschematisei) the bodies of his saints (Php 3:21; cf. 1Co 15:53). On this Calov remarked:
That transformation [metaschematismos] brings about not a change of substance but a change of accidence, not in regard to the essence of our body but in respect to its qualities, with its essence being preserved.
The changes of heathen deities into wholly different shapes were metamorphoseis. Metaschematismos refers to a transition but not to an absolute disruption of continuity. The butterfly, a prophetic type of man’s resurrection, is immeasurably more beautiful than the grub from which it unfolds. But when Proteus successively transformed himself first into a flame, then into a wild beast, and finally into a running stream, this was not merely a change of schema but of morphe. When Mark recorded that after his resurrection Christ appeared to the disciples en hetera (G2087) morphe (Mar 16:12), the words indicate the vast mysterious change that his body had undergone. The transformation on the mount was a prophetic anticipation of this change.
Morphe refers to something’s essence. An object cannot be conceived of apart from its “formality,” using this word in its old logical sense. Schema refers to something’s accidental propertiesnot to its essence but to its qualities and whatever changes it may undergo. Schema leaves the essence untouched and the thing itself essentially or “formally” the same as it was before. Thus we may speak of “an essence [morphe] of nature” and of “a quality [schema] of habit.” Thus the schema basilikon is the whole outward adornment of a monarchdiadem, tiara, scepter, and robeall of which he might lay aside and still remain king. It does not belong to the man as a part of himself. Thus Menander wrote: “An evil man assuming a meek posture [schema] lies as a concealed trap for his neighbors.” The schema tou kosmou (G2889) passes away (1Co 7:31); here the image is probably drawn from the shifting scenes of a theater. The kosmos itself abides; there is no telos tou kosmou (G5056) but only tou aionos (G165) or ton aionon.
The use of forma and figura in Latin corresponds respectively with morphe and schema. Although figura formae occurs frequently, forma figurae never occurs. The contrast in English between “deformed” and “disfigured” functions in a similar manner. A hunchback is “deformed,” but a man that has been beaten on the face may be “disfigured”; the deformity is bound up in the very existence of the one; the disfigurement of the other may disappear in a few days. “Transformed” and “transfigured” display the same distinction.
The only New Testament use of idea (Mat 28:3) is poorly translated as “countenance.” “Appearance” would be better. Idea refers to “a sight occurring to the eyes”not to the thing itself but to the thing as it is seen. Plato wrote: platte idean theriou poikilou (fashion to thyself the image of a manifold beast); idea tou prosopou (the look of the countenance); idea kalos (fair to look on); chionos idea (the appearance of snow). In the last clause of his definition, Plutarch said: “Idea is a property without a bodynot that it subsists by itself, but it molds shapeless matter into a form and is the cause of its display.” This is consistently the meaning of idea. The following quotation from Philo concerning his doctrine of the Logos (which was fundamentally different from John’s and which actually was a denial of the most important element of John’s doctrine) shows that this clearly is the case: “The divine Logos above the cherubims has not come into visible appearance [idean].”