look at this fag

(just wanted an excuse to say that cus if I said it on twitter I’d get banned)

pure potency (prime matter) and pure actuality (God) are strikingly similar

both are devoid of all ontological determination, including restrictive natures. the only difference is that prime matter *lacks* ontological determination, whereas God surpasses it

there’s this tendency to use Neoplatonic influence as a measure of theological corruption. you see this in debates between palamites and certain catholics where each race to accuse the other of Neoplatonism as if this association is supposed to delegitimize the other side. it’s very gay. there’s nothing wrong with taking in insights from Neoplatonism and integrating them within a Christian, patristic picture of the world. in fact the influence I’d argue is quite enriching

when aquinas says essence & existence are distinct he isn’t meaning to portray the relationship as between two conjoining atoms in a chemical formula but as between an otherwise unlimited reality (existence) and the principle whereby it becomes limited (essence)

while nature, form, and essence can legitimately be used interchangeable it’s an error to conflate them. each refer to substance but under different aspects of intelligibility. nature is substance as the principle or source of a thing’s operations, teleological inclinations, or perfective activity. form is that whereby a substance receives its substantiality. and essence is substance insofar as it presents as intelligible, under the principles of form and matter

it’s amusing that the ones who say VII is heretical in saying the true Church “subsists in” the Catholic Church claim to be rigid thomists when a real thomist would interpret “subsists in” as “existing wholly and by itself within”, which is radically exclusionary