hypostasis

In my gift-ontology, hypostasis means a concrete who, a personal subsistence, not a generic what. It answers the question of personal reality, not the question of essence. In the divine case, “hypostasis” must be handled analogically. It does not mean an individual instance of a nature the way three humans are three instances of humanity. That creaturely template yields either three gods or a composite whole made of three parts. Instead, hypostasis names the irreducible personal subsistence of the one simple divine reality, distinguished only by relations of origin. The Father, Son, and Spirit are not parts of God and not three substances. They are three hypostases of the one undivided divine life, each wholly the one divine act, each incommunicable in personal fromness. Hypostasis therefore protects two truths at once: personal distinction is real, and simplicity is maximal.