Deity, Substance, Principle

From the outset of the Ethics, Spinoza makes it clear that his concept of Deity is equivalent to a concept of Substance.  However, given some traditional connotations of 'substance'  either as static or as Teleological, he thereby runs the risk of undermining his concept of God as an Efficient Self-Cause.  Now, one less encumbered alternative to 'Substance' is 'Principle'.  That replacement has the advantage of suggesting the association of his 'natural naturans' with other Principles, e. g. Schopenhauer's Will, Nietzsche's Dionysus, and Bergson's Elan Vital.  As result, Spinoza's system can be appreciated as having more in common with Vitalism than with the Rationalist Theisms, i. e. Descartes', Leibniz's, and Kant's, with which it is more usually classified, plus, the God of each of those can be better recognized as a Principle.