Logos subsistent

Use in the book

The argument begins before the Greek terminology appears. Nature is defined as the substance and essence of each visible creature (p. 59, II.059.1), but that definition does not make created nature an autonomous mover. Pauline passages are invoked to say that Christ fills all in all and that one God works all things (pp. 62-63, II.062.2). From them the author concludes that nature possesses capacity and is the subject in which God works through his Word (p. 63, II.063.1).

John’s opening supplies the decisive formulation. All things are made through the Word, and nothing that is made exists apart from it (pp. 63-64, II.063.2). The author then names the subsistent Logos God’s universal Word. Through this Word both universal and particular natures are created primarily; through the uttered Logos particular natures are created secondarily. Universality therefore concerns the scope of causal dependence, not simply the greater size of one created material.

The following paragraph defines the relation through first and second cause (pp. 64-65, II.064.1). There is no first cause other than the subsistent Logos. The particular utterance is the true subordinate second cause. The author nevertheless says that the two are one in this respect, with the stated distinction. He reinforces the point at p. 65 by expressly forbidding their separation (II.065.1). The hierarchy must be read together with that warning.

A hypothetical example teaches the difference. Heaven made through the Lord’s Word is referred to the subsistent Logos. Heaven made through the particular command Let there be a firmament would be referred to the uttered Logos (II.064.1). The contrast concerns how the agency is specified in an explanation. It does not imply that a particular command can operate after the universal Word has withdrawn, nor that the first cause acts only at an earlier moment.⁸

The universal waters are assigned a distinctive relation to this Word. Because the author finds no particular Fiat in the initial creation statement, he says that the waters and universal natures were created immediately through the universal Word (pp. 66-67, II.066.1). Immediate means without the intervening particular command being identified there. This relation helps explain why their powers are not restricted to one animal, plant or mineral kind.

At p. 74 the causal distinction supports a medicinal conclusion (II.074.1). Waters created through God’s universal and substantial Word possess the powers of the whole of nature; the author therefore reaffirms that a universal medicine can be prepared from rainwater. The conclusion is his historical claim, but its logical route is important: the scope of a material’s power is inferred from the scope of its creative cause.

The opposite route excludes remedies assembled from particular natures (pp. 75-76, II.075.1-II.076.1). Each particular has its own created power, so neither one nor all together can supply the universal effect. This makes the Logos distinction consequential for the selection of matter. It is not a theological appendix whose removal would leave the same practical argument intact.

Later the carnation example repeats the ascent to this first cause (pp. 137-139, II.137.1, II.139.1). Flower leads to plant, seed, earth and water; seed also leads to its particular creative command, while water and that command lead to the universal substantial Word. The true principle that communicates being to another is then identified with Christ. Physical and theosophical inquiry converge at the same causal source without making their intermediate questions identical.

Places to read

1. Part II · II.063.1; II.063.2; II.064.1; II.065.1234Capacity, universal Word and inseparable causal hierarchy.
2. Part II · II.066.1; II.074.1; II.075.123The argument from creative scope to universal and particular power.
3. Part II · II.137.1; II.139.12The ascent from a plant’s material history to its first cause.

Translation

The Greek ὑποστατικός is explained here through subsistence. Substantial Logos preserves the edition’s existing rendering and the author’s accompanying language of the substantial Word. The two English expressions should be linked, rather than treated as two different terms for two different agents.

Primarily and secondarily concern causal order. Reading them solely as first in time and later in time would make the author’s insistence on continued inseparability difficult to understand. His recurring claims that all things subsist and are nourished in the Word show that causal dependence continues.

Connections

The distinction is continuous with the Part I interpretation of the Son as the Father’s eternal subsistent Word in the discussion of Psalm 33 (p. 43, I.043.1). It should nevertheless be explained from the author’s own development, rather than assigned without evidence to a particular philosophical school or chain of influence.

Efficient cause describes the broader causal question; Logos uttered explains the subordinate command; Capacity and potency, when consulted with these entries, prevents created receptivity from being mistaken for self-sufficient agency. The practical effect is visible in Universal and particular and Universal medicine.

Cautions

The universal Word is not the world-spirit separated from a material subject. The former is the divine source of agency; the latter is expressly a creature in the dispute at the end of Part I.

Nor does the lexical explanation validate the universal medicine inferred from this theology. The entry distinguishes the reasoning’s premise and conclusion so that neither is smuggled into a modern physical description.

λόγος ὑποστατικὸς

λόγος ὑποστατικὸς — Attested wording in the cited original passage. II.063.2; II.064.1.

verbum Dei universale

verbum Dei universale — Attested wording in the cited original passage. II.063.2.

causa prima

causa prima — Attested wording in the cited original passage. II.064.1; II.065.1.