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Part One, Section Fifty-one: What substance is, and that the term is not applicable to God and the creatures in the same sense

24 September, 2015 - 16:32

…By ‘substance’ we can conceive nothing else than a thing which exists in such a way as to stand in need of nothing beyond itself in order to its existence. And, in truth, there can be conceived but one substance which is absolutely independent, and that is God. We perceive that all other things can exist only by help of the concourse of God. And, accordingly, the term substance does not apply to God and the creatures univocally, to adopt a term familiar in the schools; that is, no signification of this word can be distinctly understood which is common to God and them.