TheInquirer
Puritan Board Junior
I'm trying to get my head around the language of essence, substance, and subsistence when theologians talk about God. For instance, when refuting that God is a composite (based on the objection of God as three persons), Van Mastricht says the following:
"(a) His essence does not differ from his personality except in our reason or conception, which can think of one thing only while it is not thinking of another thing. For God's personality is nothing other than the subsistence of his essence, and his subsistence is nothing other than the actual existence of his substance, which without doubt does not differ from the God who himself exists. And (b) the persons in the abstract differ among themselves, not as three subsistences, but as three modes of one subsistence, which because they are not beings, do not compose, but only distinguish and limit, as we will teach more distinctly in its own place." (Van Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, Vol. 2, 146.)
After reading Muller's entries on these terms in his Dictionary, I think I understand the difference when speaking of humans or other created things but my question is this - when referring to God, is there any actual difference in terms of his essence, substance, and subsistence? Is that Van Mastricht's point in the quote above, that there is no real difference?
"(a) His essence does not differ from his personality except in our reason or conception, which can think of one thing only while it is not thinking of another thing. For God's personality is nothing other than the subsistence of his essence, and his subsistence is nothing other than the actual existence of his substance, which without doubt does not differ from the God who himself exists. And (b) the persons in the abstract differ among themselves, not as three subsistences, but as three modes of one subsistence, which because they are not beings, do not compose, but only distinguish and limit, as we will teach more distinctly in its own place." (Van Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, Vol. 2, 146.)
After reading Muller's entries on these terms in his Dictionary, I think I understand the difference when speaking of humans or other created things but my question is this - when referring to God, is there any actual difference in terms of his essence, substance, and subsistence? Is that Van Mastricht's point in the quote above, that there is no real difference?