Subsistence
| Controlling authority | Catechism 249–256 and 464–483; Chalcedon; Thomistic synthesis |
|---|---|
| Status | Personal subsistence in Trinity and Incarnation is dogma; the general metaphysical account is scholastic theology |
| School | Thomism |
| Branch | Metaphysics |
Subsistence is the mode of existence proper to a complete individual substance, existing in itself and not in another, which in a rational nature constitutes a person.
Existing in itself
Subsistence names the independent existence of a complete individual, a suppositum, as opposed to the existence of an accident in a subject or of a nature considered abstractly. A substance exists. Subsistence is that existence taken as incommunicable and not attributed to another subject. Thomas Aquinas uses the term to keep nature and the concrete subject from being confused. A nature is that by which something is what it is; a suppositum is that which is and acts.
This article is not Subsistence and Ecclesial Presence of the Church of Christ. Lumen gentium's subsistit in concerns where the Church of Christ is found. Metaphysical subsistence concerns how an individual substance exists. The words are cousins in Latin and must not steal each other's articles. For the Christological vocabulary of the concrete subject, see Suppositum, Person, and Nature.[1][2]
Person as rational subsistence
A person is an individual substance of a rational nature, or a rational suppositum. Boethius's definition, received by Aquinas, is not a modern theory of self-awareness, memory, or public competence. Infants, the sleeping, the unborn, and the severely impaired are persons because they subsist in a rational nature, not because they presently exercise a set of functions. Dignity follows subsistence in a spiritual nature, not performance. The definition therefore belongs to metaphysics and doctrine before it belongs to psychology.
Trinity and Incarnation
In God there are three really distinct Persons, each of whom is the one divine substance. Their distinction is by relations of origin, not by three subsistences that would divide the essence. The Church's dogma here governs every scholastic refinement. Aquinas's language of subsistence and relation is an attempt to serve that dogma, not a second revelation.[3]
In the Incarnation, one divine Person subsists in two natures. The assumed human nature does not subsist as a human person. That is the denial of Nestorianism. The human nature is complete, with intellect and will, which is the denial of Apollinarianism and Monothelitism. Subsistence language is the technical way of saying that Jesus Christ is one who, not two, without confusing the natures.
Created substances
A stone subsists as a substance but is not a person. An animal subsists and acts, still without personality in the theological sense. A man subsists as a person. The human soul, as a subsisting form, can exist separated from the body, yet the person is naturally a composite. Resurrection restores the connatural integrity of that subsistence. Substance and Accident then describe what inheres in the subsisting subject.
Angels subsist as complete intellectual substances without matter. Their individuation is not by designated matter. The Principle of Individuation therefore differs along the scale of being. None of this is defined particle by particle. It is Thomism's map of created subjects under the dogma that God created both the visible and the invisible.[4]
Status
Dogma: three Persons, one God; one Christ in two natures; human persons with spiritual souls. Thomistic synthesis: subsistence as the incommunicable existence of a suppositum, the precise relation of subsistence to essence and existence, and the details of angelic individuation. Inventing a magisterial definition of subsistence as a free-standing metaphysical canon would be a false precision.[5][6]
The term remains necessary. Without it, natures act instead of persons, accidents become subjects, and either Nestorian doubling or Monophysite fusion returns under new names. Thomism's service is to keep the subject, the nature, and the act of existing in their right places, so that worship, sacraments, and moral responsibility still have a who.
References
- Back to citation Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, questions 2–4 — Primary Christological use of nature, suppositum, person, and subsistence in explaining the hypostatic union without a second created person in Christ.
- Back to citation John Paul II, Fides et Ratio — Encyclical on the harmony of faith and reason, the enduring value of Aquinas, metaphysical realism, and legitimate philosophical plurality within Catholic faith.
- Back to citation Fourth Lateran Council, Firmiter credimus — Conciliar confession of the one Creator, the Creator-creature distinction, the greater unlikeness in every likeness, and transubstantiation of the Eucharistic gifts.
- Back to citation Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, question 29, article 1, and question 50, article 4 — Primary discussion of individual substance, person, and the individuation of corporeal things by matter, with angels distinguished by form rather than by designated matter.
- Back to citation Catechism of the Catholic Church, 199–221 — Authoritative confession of the one God, his simplicity, fullness of being, and the identity of his essence with his existence.
- Back to citation Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, question 3, article 4 — Primary Thomistic treatment of divine simplicity, including the identity of essence and existence in God and the received existence of creatures.