Substance
Substance
(Gr. , Lat. substantia)
It is only in the Epistle to the Hebrews that the term substance is used with anything approaching a philosophical connotation. The meaning of the word in this Epistle is of unusual interest owing to the crucial place which it came to occupy in the Trinitarian controversies of later times. The history of its use as a theological term is given by T. B. Strong in Journal of Theological Studies iii. [1901-02] 22 ff.
In Authorized Version the word substance is used to translate both and . The former is better rendered possession (Revised Version ), as in the passage, Ye have in heaven a better possession () and an abiding (Heb 10:34; cf. Act 2:45). Interest centres then in the word , which occurs only five times in the NT. In two passages it means confidence (2Co 9:4; 2Co 11:17). But in the remaining three, all of which are in Hebrews, a philosophical conception is probably involved. (1) Heb 3:14 : We are become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence ( ) firm unto the end. Both Authorized Version and Revised Version render as confidence. Most modern commentators concur in this subjective reference. The Vulgate renders it objectively (substantiae ejus), and many Patristic commentators take this view-e.g. it is the faith, (Chrysostom, Theodoret) or fidem Christi (Primasius). This rendering is improbable. There is yet a third possible explanation in view of what is said under (2) and (3). If in Heb 11:1 is the giving substance (Revised Version margin) to unseen realities, the beginning of our may well be the beginning of that progressive spiritual state of realizing, or giving substance to, in actual Christian experience, those eternal verities which Judaism only dimly adumbrated. As Christ (Heb 1:3) is the (perfect expression) of the Divine (or essence), Christians, as partakers of Christ, may in some measure embody (hypostasize, substantiate) the Divine reality eternally existing in Christ. The word of exhortation in this verse is then to hold fast the beginning of that process of actualizing in Christian experience eternal spiritual realities. That such experience should lead to confidence is inevitable. (2) In Heb 11:1 faith is described as the substance () of things hoped for. In Revised Version is rendered assurance or confidence (as in 2Co 9:4; 2Co 11:17, Heb 3:14). But in the margin Revised Version suggests the giving substance to (favoured by Westcott, Davidson, Peake, Wickham). Both meanings may well have been in the mind of the writer; for, if faith enables the believer to give substance to spiritual experience and embody the objective realities of his religious hopes, it naturally affords him a ground of assured confidence in them. The use of the antithesis substance and shadow (see article Shadow) found in this Epistle (Heb 8:5, Heb 10:1) shows that the writer is familiar with the Platonic and Philonic conception that the things seen are but shadows cast in time and space by eternal archetypal realities. The latter are the truly substantial, and be asserts that faith is that state of mind, or experience, which actualizes the things as yet unseen and which proves that they alone have substance or reality. (3) In Heb 1:3 there is contained the metaphysical embryo of later theological speculation. Christ is spoken of in relation to God as the very image of his substance ( ). In Authorized Version is translated person, but the rendering is inappropriate and misleading. The philosophical conception of personality did not emerge until long after the Apostolic Age, and then largely through the contentions of the Greek and Latin Fathers over the question as to whether there was one hypostasis in the Godhead or whether there were three hypostaseis (or persons). The writer of Hebrews does not say that Christ is the express image of the Person of God. The substance () of the Godhead, of which Christ is the express image (), is the Divine essence or nature. Substance (Lat. substantia) etymologically is that which stands under (as a foundation or pedestal). Then it came to mean that in a thing which makes it what it is (its essence), the substratum beneath all its qualities. In its more modern philosophical meaning substance is the reality which exists behind all phenomena. The theological and metaphysical associations of the word, as a technical term, cause most recent commentators to prefer the translation essence or nature in this passage as best interpreting the view of the writer as to Christ and His relation to the Godhead. He is the perfect expression in human life and history of the essential nature of God. In harmony with the teaching of the Fourth Gospel Christ is the Divine Logos, and He alone can assert, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father (Joh 14:19).
M. Scott Fletcher.
Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church
Substance
(Lat. sub-stare, substantia)
Substance, the first of Aristotle’s categories, signifies being as existing in and by itself, and serving as a subject or basis for accidents and accidental changes.
I. THE FUNDAMENTALS OF SUBSTANCE
Substance being a genus supremum, cannot strictly be defined by an analysis into genus and specific difference; yet a survey of the universe at large will enable us to form without difficulty an accurate idea of substance. Nothing is more evident than that things change. It is impossible for anything to be twice in absolutely the same state; on the other hand all the changes are not equally profound. Some appear to be purely external: a piece of wood may be hot or cold, lying flat or upright, yet it is still wood; but if it be completely burnt so as to be transformed into ashes and gases, it is no longer wood; the specific, radical characteristics by which we describe wood have totally disappeared. Thus there are two kinds of changes: one affects the radical characteristics of things, and consequently determines the existence or non-existence of these things; the other in no way destroys these characteristics, and so, while modifying the thing, does not affect it fundamentally. It is necessary, therefore, to recognize in each thing certain secondary realities (see ACCIDENT) and also a permanent fundamentum which continues to exist notwithstanding the superficial changes, which serves as a basis or support for the secondary realities — what, in a word, we term the substance. Its fundamental characteristic is to be in itself and by itself, and not in another subject as accidents are.
The Scholastics, who accepted Aristotle’s definition, also distinguished primary substance (substantia prima) from secondary substance (substantia secunda): the former is the individual thing — substance properly so called; the latter designates the universal essence or nature as contained in genus and species. And, again, substance is either complete, e. g. man, or incomplete, e. g. the soul; which, though possessing existence in itself, is united with the body to form the specifically complete human being. The principal division; however, is that between material substance (all corporeal things) and spiritual substance, i. e. the soul and the angelic spirits. The latter are often called substantiœ separatœ, to signify that they are separate from matter, i. e. neither actually conjoined with a material organism nor requiring such union as the natural complement of their being (St. Thomas, “Contra Gentes”, II, 91 sqq.). St. Thomas further teaches that the name substance cannot properly be applied to God, not only because He is not the subject of any accidents, but also because in Him essence and existence are identical, and consequently He is not included in any genus whatever. For the same reason, it is impossible that God should be the formal being of all things (esse formale omnium), or, in other words, that one and the same existence should be common to Him and them (op. cit., I, 25, 26).
In the visible world there is a multitude of substances numerically distinct. Each, moreover, has a specific nature which determines the mode of its activity and at the same time, through its activity, becomes, in some degree, manifest to us. Our thinking does not constitute the substance; this exists independently of us, and our thought at most acquires a knowledge of each substance by considering its manifestations. In this way we come to know both the nature of material things and the nature of the spiritual substance within us, i. e. the soul. In both cases our knowledge may be imperfect, but we are not thereby justified in concluding that only the superficial appearances or phenomena are accessible to us, and that the inner substantial being, of matter or of mind, is unknowable.
Since the close of the Scholastic period, the idea of substance and the doctrines centring about it have undergone profound modifications which in turn have led to a complete reversal of the Scholastic teaching on vital questions in philosophy. Apart from the traditional concept formulated above, we must note especially Descartes’ definition that substance is “a being that so exists as to require nothing else for its existence”. This formula is unfortunate: it is false, for the idea of substance determines an essence which, if it exists, has its own existence not borrowed from an ulterior basis, and which is not a modification of some being that supports it. But this idea in no way determines either the manner in which actual existence has been given to this essence or the way in which it is preserved. The Cartesian definition, moreover, is dangerous; for it suggests that substance admits of no efficient cause, but exists in virtue of its own essence. Thus Spinoza, following in the footsteps of Descartes declared that “substance is that which is conceived in itself and by itself”, and thence deduced his pantheistic system according to which there is but one substance — i. e. God — all things else being only the modes or attributes of the Divine substance (see PANTHEISM). Leibniz’s definition is also worthy of note. He considers substance as “a being gifted with the power of action”. Substance certainly can act, since action follows being, and substance is being par excellence. But this property does not go to the basis of reality. In every finite substance the power to act is distinct from the substantial essence; it is but a property of substance which can be defined only by its mode of existence.
II. THE REALITY OF SUBSTANCE
The most important question concerning substance is that of its reality. In ancient days Heraclitus, in modern times Hume, Locke, Mill, and Taine, and in our day Wundt, Mach, Paulsen, Ostwald, Ribot, Jodi, Höffding, Eisler, and several others deny the reality of substance and consider the existence of substance as an illusory postulate of naive minds. The basis of this radical negation is an erroneous idea of substance and accident. They hold that, apart from the accidents, substance is nothing, a being without qualities, operations, or end. This is quite erroneous. The accidents cannot be separated thus from the substance; they have their being only in the substance; they are not the substance, but are by their very nature modifications of the substance. The operations which these writers would thus attribute to the accidents are really the operations of the substance, which exercises them through the accidents. Finally, in attributing an independent existence to the accidents they simply transform them into substance, thus establishing just what they intend to deny. It can be said that whatever exists is either a substance or in a substance.
The tendency of modern philosophy has been to regard substance simply as an idea which the mind indeed is constrained to form, but which either does not exist objectively or, if it does so exist, cannot be known. According to Locke (Essay ii, 23), “Not imagining how simple ideas can subsist by themselves, we accustom ourselves to suppose some substratum wherein they do subsist and from which they do result; which therefore we call substance; so that if any one will examine himself concerning his notion of pure substance in general, he will find he has no other idea. of it at all, but only a supposition of he knows not what support of such qualities, which are capable of producing simple ideas in us; which qualities are commonly called accidents.” He protests, however, that this statement refers only to the idea of substance, not to its being; and he claims that “we have as clear a notion of the substance of spirit as we have of body” (ibid.). Hume held that the idea of substance “is nothing but a collection of simple ideas that are united by the imagination and have a particular name assigned to them, by which we are able to recall, either to ourselves or others, that collection” (Treatise, bk. I, pt. IV); and that the soul is “a bundle of conceptions in a perpetual flux and movement”.
For Kant substance is a category of thought which applies only to phenomena, i. e. it is the idea of something that persists amid all changes. The substantiality and immortality of the soul cannot be proved by the pure reason, but are postulated by the moral law which pertains to the practical reason. J. S. Mill, after stating that “we may make propositions also respecting those hidden causes of phenomena which are named substances and attributes”, goes on to say: “No assertion can be made, at least with a meaning, concerning those unknown and unknowable entities, except in virtue of the phenomena by which alone they manifest themselves to our faculties” (Logic, bk. i, I, c. v): in other words, substance manifests itself through phenomena and yet is unknowable. Mill defines matter as “a permanent possibility of sensation”, so that no substantial bond is required for material objects; but for conscious states a tie is needed in which there is something “real as the sensations themselves and not a mere product of the laws of thought” (“Examination”, c. xi; cf. Appendix). Wundt, on the contrary, declares that the idea (hypothetical) of substance is necessary to connect the phenomena presented in outer experience, but that it is not applicable to our inner experience except for the psycho-physical processes (Logik, I, 484 sqq.). This is the basis of Actualism, which reduces the soul to a series of conscious states. Herbert Spencer’s view is thus expressed: “Existence means nothing more than persistence; and hence, in mind, that which persists in spite of all changes, and maintains the unity of the aggregate in defiance of all attempts to divide it, is that of which existence in the full sense of the word must be predicated — that which we must postulate as the substance of mind in contradistinction to the varying forms it assumes. But, if so, the impossibility of knowing the substance of mind is manifest” (Princ. of Psychol., Pt. II, c. i). ElseWhere he declares that it is the same Unknowable Power which manifests itself alike in the physical world and in consciousness — a statement wherein modern Agnosticism returns to the Pantheism of Spinoza.
This development of the concept of substance is instructive; it shows to what extremes subjectivism leads, and what inconsistencies it brings into the investigation of the most important problems of philosophy. While the inquiry has been pursued in the name of criticism, its results, so far as the soul is concerned, are distinctly in favour of Materialism; and while the aim was supposed to be a surer knowledge on a firmer basis, the outcome is Agnosticism either open or disguised. It is perhaps as a reaction against such confusion in the field of metaphysics that an attempt has recently been made by representatives of physical science to reconstruct the idea of substance by making it equivalent to “energy”. The attempt so far has led to the conclusion that energy is the most universal substance and the most universal accident (Ostwald, “Vorlesungen über Naturphilosophie”, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1902, p. 146).
For the theological significance of substance see EUCHARIST. See also ACCIDENT; SOUL; SPIRITUALISM.
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BALMES, Fundamental Philosophy, II (new ed., New York, 1903); JOHN RICKABY. General Metaphysics (3rd ed., New York, 1898); WALKER, Theories of Knowledge (New York, 1910); HARPER, The Metaphysics of the School (London, 1879-84); MERCIER, Ontologie (Louvain, 1903); LORENZELLI, Philosophiœ theoreticœ institutiones (Rome, 1896); WILLEMS, Institutiones philosophicœ, I (Trier, 1906); KLEUTGEN, Philosophie d. Vorzeit, II; PRAT, De la notion de substance (Paris, 1903). — See also the bibliographical references in EISLER, Wörterbuch der philosophischen Begriffe, III (Berlin, 1910).
M. P. DE MUNNYNCK. Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIVCopyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, July 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Substance
(Lat. sub, under, sto or stans, to stand) is literally that which subsists by itself. In Greek. substance is denoted by ; hence, that which truly is, or essence, seems to be the proper meaning of substance. It is opposed to accident; of which Aristotle has said that you can scarcely predicate of it that it is anything. Our first idea of substance is probably derived from the consciousness of self-the conviction that, while our sensations, thoughts, and purposes are changing, we continue the same. We see bodies, also, remaining the same as to quantity or extension, while their color and figure, their state of motion or of rest may be changed. Substances are either primary, that is, singular, individual substances; or secondary, that is, genera and species of substane.
Substances have also been divided into complete and incomplete, finite and infinite. But these are rather divisions of being. Substance may, however, be properly divided into matter and spirit, or that which is extended and that which thinks. Substance is given by Aristotle as one of the four principles common to all spheres of reality; the other three being form or essence, moving or efficient cause, and end. He says, further, that the individual alone has substantial existence, and defines , in the sense of the individual substance, as that which cannot be predicated of anything else, but of which anything else may be predicated. Johannes Philoponus of Alexandria, by extending the Aristotelian doctrine, that substantial existence is to be predicated in the fullest sense only of individuals, to the dogma of the Trinity, thereby incurred the accusation of tritheism. John Scotus regarded the Deity as the substance of all things, and could not, therefore, regard individual, concrete things as substances, of which the general may be predicated and in which the accidental is contained. He views all things, rather, as contained in the divine substance.
Berengarius of Tours (De Sacra Cenan) disputes the theory of a change of substance, claimed by the advocates of transubstantiation, without a corresponding change in the accidents, i.e. a change in the bread and wine apparent to the senses. Roscelinus teaches that whatever is a substance is, as such, not a part; and the part is, as such, not a substance, but the result of that subjective separation of the substance into parts which we make in [thought and in] discourse. Gilbertus thus speaks: The intellect collects the universal, which exists, but not as a substance (est, sed non substat), from the particular things which not merely are (sunt), but also (as subjects of accidents) have substantial existence, by considering only their substantial similarity or conformity. Descartes defines substance as follows: By substance we can only understand that which so exists that it needs nothing else in order to its existence, and adds that, indeed, only one substance can be conceived as plainly needing nothing else in order to its existence, namely, God; for we plainly perceive that all others cannot exist without God’s assistance. Spinoza understands substance to be that which is in itself, and is to be conceived by itself. There is only one substance, and that is God. This substance has two fundamental qualities or attributes cognizable by us, namely, thought and extension; there is no extended substance as distinct from thinking substance. There are not two substances equal to each other, since such substances would limit each other. One substance cannot produce or be produced by another substance. Every substance, which is in God’s infinite understanding, is also really in nature.
In nature there are not different substances; nature is one in essence, and identical with God. Locke says, The mind, being furnished with a great number of simple ideas, conveyed to it by sensation and reflection, remarks that a certain number of them always go together; and since we cannot imagine that which is represented by them as subsisting by itself, we accustom ourselves to suppose a substratum in which it subsists, and from which it arises; this substratum we call a substance. The idea of substance contains nothing but the supposition of an unknown something serving as a support for qualities. Leibnitz gives the name monad to simple, unextended substance; that is, a substance which has the power of action; active force (like the force of the strained bow) is the essence of substance. He held that the divisibility of matter proved that it was an aggregate of substances; there can be no smallest indivisible bodies or atoms, because these must still be extended, and would therefore be aggregates of substances; that the real substances of which bodies consist are indivisible, cannot be generated, and are indestructible, and in a certain sense similar to souls, which he likewise considers as individual substances. The individual, unextended substances were termed by Leibnitz monads. Hume remarks, We have no clear ideas of anything but perceptions; a substance is something quite different from perceptions; hence we have no knowledge of a substance. The question whether perceptions inhere in a material or immaterial substance cannot be answered, because it has no intelligible sense. John Stuart Mill distinguishes substances as bodily and mental, and says, Of the first, all we know is, the sensations which they give us, and the order of the occurrence of these sensations; i.e. the hidden cause of our sensations. Of the second, that it is the unknown recipient of them. See Fleming, Vocab. of Philosoph. Sciences, s.v.; Ueberweg, History of Philosophy (see Index).
Substance, a term used in technical divinity to describe nearly the same idea as essence or nature. Thus the Son is said to be the same substance with the Father , that is, truly and essentially God, as the Father is. SEE CHRISTOLOGY.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Substance
substans (, rekhush; , hupostasis): Lit. that which stands under, is in the Bible used chiefly of material goods and possessions. In the Old Testament it is the translation of numerous Hebrew words, of which rekhush, that which is gathered together, is one of the earliest and most significant (Gen 12:5; Gen 13:6; Gen 15:14; 1Ch 27:31; Ezr 8:21, etc.). In the New Testament substance appears in a few passages as the translation of ousa, being, subsistence (Luk 15:13), huparxis, goods, property (Heb 10:34), huparchonta, things at hand (Luk 8:3). Special interest attaches to Heb 11:1, the King James Version Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, etc., where the word is used in its proper etymological sense as the translation of hupostasis, that which stands under. the Revised Version (British and American) changes to assurance, margin the giving substance to, which last seems best to bring out the idea of faith as that which makes the things hoped for real to the soul. The same Greek word hupostasis is rendered substance in Heb 1:3 the Revised Version (British and American), instead of the King James Version person, with reference to Christ, the very image (margin impress) of his substance, i.e. of God’s invisible essence or being, the manifestation of God Himself.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Substance
(Lat. sub + stare = Gr. hypo + stasis, to stand under. Also from Lat. quod quid est, or quod quid erat esse = Gr. to ti en einai, i.e., that by virtue of which a thing has its determinate nature, which makes it what it is, as distinguished from something else. See ousia, natura, subsistentia, essentia. Thus Augustine writes (De Trin. VII, ch. 4, #7) “essence (ousia) usually means nothing else than substance in our language, i.e., in Latin”).
Substance is the term used to signify thit which is sought when philosophers investigate the primary being of things. Thus Plato was primarily concerned with investigating the being of things from the standpoint of their intelligibility. Hence the Platonic dialectic was aimed at a knowledge of the essential nature (ousia) of things. But science is knowledge of universals. so the essence of things considered as intelligible is the universal common to many; i.e., the universal Form or Idea, and this was for Plato the substance of things, or what they are primarily.
Besides the universal intelligible being of things, Aristotle was also primarily concerned with an investigation of the being of things from the standpoint of their generation and existence. But only individual things are generated and exist. Hence, for him, substance was primarily the individuala “this” which, in contrast with the universal or secondary substance, is not communicable to many. The Aristotelian meaning of substance may be developed from four points of view
Grammar- The nature of substance as the ultimate subject of predication is expressed by common usage in its employment of the noun (or substantive) as the subject of a sentence to signify an individual thing which “is neither present in nor predicable of a subject.” Thus substance is grammatically distinguished from its (adjectival) properties and modifications which “are present in and predicable of a subject.”
Secondary substance is expressed by the universal term, and by its definition which are “not present in a subject but predicable of it.” See Categoriae,) ch. 5.
PhysicsIndependence of being emerges as a fundamental characteristic of substance in the analysis of change. Thus we have
Substantial change- Socrates comes to be. (Change simply).
Accidental change; in a certain respect onlySocrates comes to be 6 feet tall. (Quantitative). Socrates comes to be musical (Qualitative). Socrates comes to be in Corinth (Local).
As substantial change is prior to the others and may occur independently of them, so the individual substance is prior in being to the accidents; i.e., the accidents cannot exist independently of their subject (Socrates), but can be only in him or in another primary substance, while the reverse is not necessarily the case.
Logic- Out of this analysis of change there also emerges a division of being into the schema of categories, with the distinction between the category of substance and the several accidental categories, such as quantity, quality, place, relation, etc. In a corresponding manner, the category of substance is first; i.e., prior to the others in being, and independent of them.
Metaphysics- The character of substance as that which is present in an individual as the cause of its being and unity is developed in Aristotle’s metaphysical writings, see especiallv Bk. Z, ch. 17, 1041b. Primary substnnce is not the matter alone, nor the universal form common to many, but the individual unity of matter and form. For example, each thing is composed of parts or elements, as an organism is composed of cells, yet it is not merely its elements, but has a being and unity over and above the sum of its parts. This something more which causes the cells to be this organism rather than a malignant growth, is an example of what is meant by substance in its proper sense of first substance (substantia prima).
Substance in its secondary sense (substantia secunda) is the universal form (idea or species) which is individuated in each thing.
For the later development of the conception of substance, see Thomas Aquinas, especially De Ente et Essentia, ch. 2.
Note that according to Aristotle, the substance of a thing is always intelligible. Thus there are sensible substances, but the substance of these things is itself neither sensible nor capable of being apprehended by the senses alone, but only when the activity of the intellect is added. In later scholastic philosophy this point was missed, so the Aristotelian doctrine of substance quite naturally ceased to be any longer intelligible.
In modern thought, two general types of usage are discernible. In the empirical tradition. the notion of thing and properties continues the meaning of independence as expressed in first substance. Under the impact of physical science, the notion of thing and its properties tends to dissolve. Substance becomes substratum as that in which properties and qualities inhere. The critique of Berkeley expressed the resultant dilemmaeither sub-stratum is property-less and quality-less, and so is nothing at all, or else it signifies the systematic and specific coherence of properties and qualities, and so substance or sub-stratum is merely the thing of common sense. Within science ‘first substance’ persists as the ultimate discrete particle with respect to which spatial and temporal coordinates are assigned. Within empirical philosophical thought the element of meaning described as ‘independence’ tends to be resolved into the order and coherence of experience.
In the rationalistic tradition, Descartes introduces a distinction between finite and infinite substance. To conceive of substance is to conceive an existing thing which requires nothing but itself in order to exist. Strictly speaking, God alone is substance. Created or finite substances are independent in the sense that they need only the concurrence of God in order to exist. ‘Everything in which there resides immediately, as in a subject, or by means of which there exists anything that we perceive, i.e., any property, quality, or attribute, of which we have a real idea, is called a Substance.” (Reply to Obj. II, Phil. Works, trans, by Haldane and Ross, vol. II, p. 53, see Prin. of Phil. Pt. I, 51, 52). Substance is that which can exist by itself without the aid of any other substance. Reciprocal exclusion of one another belongs to the nature of substance. (Reply to Obj. IV). Spinoza brings together medieval Aristotelian meanings and the Cartesian usage, but rejects utterly the notion of finite substance, leaving only the infinite. The former is, in effect, a contradiction in terms, according to him. Spinoza further replaces the Aristotelian distinction between substance and accident with that between substance and mode. (See Wolfson, The Phil. of Spinoza, vol. I, ch. 3). “By substance, I understand that which is in itself and is conceived through itself; in other words that, the conception of which does not need the conception of another thing from which it must be formed.” (Ethics, I, Def. III). Substance is thus ultimate being, self-caused or from itself (a se), and so absolutely independent being, owing its being to itself, and eternally self-sustaining. It is in itself (in se), and all things are within it. Substance is one and there can be but one substance; God is this substance. For Descartes, every substance has a principal attribute, an unchangeable essential nature, without which it can neither be nor be understood. The attribute is thus constitutive of substance, and the latter is accessible to mind only through the former. By virtue of having different constitutive essences or attributes, substances are opposed to one another. Spinoza, rejecting the idea of finite substance, necessarily rejects the possibility of a plurality of substances. The attributes of the one substance are plural and are constitutive. But the plurality of attributes implies that substance as such cannot be understood by way of any one attribute or by way of several. Accordingly, Spinoza declares that substance is also per se, i.e., conceived through itself. The infinite mode of an attribute, the all pervasive inner character which defines an attribute in distinction from another, is Spinoza’s adaptation of the Cartesian constitutive essence.
The critique of Kant resolves substance into the a priori category of Inherence-and-subsistence, and so to a necessary synthetic activity of mind upon the data of experience. In the dialectic of Hegel, the effort is made to unify the logical meanings of substance as subject and the meaning of absolute independent being as defined in Spinoza. — L.M.H. & A.G.A.B.
In Scholasticism- The nature of substance is that it exists in itself, independently from another being. While accidents are in another, substance is in itself. It is what underlies the accidents, persists even if these are changing, insofar as its being in itself is considered, it is spoken of as subsistence (subststentia). Substances are either material, and as such dependent on matter informed by a substantial form, or spiritual, free of any kind of matter (even a spiritual one, as Aquinas points out in i against Avencebron, i.e., Ibn Gebirol), and as such is called forma subsistens. Substantial forms are not substances, with the one exception of the human soul (q.v.) which, however, is when separated from the body only an incomplete substance. See Form, Matter. — R.A.
Fuente: The Dictionary of Philosophy
Substance
derived from a present participial form of eimi, “to be,” denotes “substance, property,” Luk 15:12-13, RV, “substance,” AV, “goods” and “substance.”
the neuter plural of the present participle of huparcho, “to be in existence,” is used as a noun with the article, signifying one’s “goods,” and translated “substance” in Luk 8:3. See GOODS, POSSESS, A, No. 3.
existence (akin to No. 2), possession: see POSSESS, B, No. 4.
for which see CONFIDENCE, A No. 2, is translated “substance” (a) in Heb 1:3, of Christ as “the very image” of God’s “substance;” here the word has the meaning of the real nature of that to which reference is made in contrast to the outward manifestation (see the preceding clause); it speaks of the Divine essence of God existent and expressed in the revelation of His Son. The AV, “person” is an anachronism; the word was not so rendered till the 4th cent. Most of the earlier Eng. versions have “substance;” (b) in Heb 11:1 it has the meaning of “confidence, assurance” (RV), marg., “the giving substance to,” AV, “substance,” something that could not equally be expressed by elpis, “hope.”