La materia en Enrique de Gante

Abstract

For Henry of Ghent, prime matter, against Thomas Aquinas and Aegidius Romanus opinion, is something substantial owning an essence and an essential being coming directly from God. Matter receives being in act from form in the compound. In fact, matter in any composed substance owns a triple three being: the simple being as creature, the being capable of receiving forms that comes from its essence and the being in act coming from form. God, by means of a miraculous action giving an special subsistence to the essential being, could make prime matter to exist without any form. Matter, though simple, encloses in its essence a double reason: the reason of substance (esse per se) and the reason of reference (ad aliud). Matter in itself does not own any active power or seminal reason capable of becoming substantial forms; seminal reasons are in the form of the agent that prepares the previous informed matter and introduces in it a new substantial form.