no disparate effects proceed from the One. The same applies to the individual members of a species, such as “human”; a single species never gives rise to numerically distinct individuals at all—indeed, nothing determinate issues from it. A particular human being, by contrast, produces only one particular effect. Thus, from that which is one in species no determinate effects proceed, whether singular or multiple, similar or dissimilar.

On this basis, if one were to say that the determinate existence of each of them is the cause of certain determinate attributes that belong to it, nothing impossible would follow—provided those attributes merely supervene upon the essence. Indeed, were someone to maintain that its determinate existence is the cause of its determinate quiddity, on the assumption that existence and quiddity are identical, that too would not be impossible from this angle. And if, on the same premise, one were to say that its determinate existence is an accident that attaches to its determinate quiddity, that would not be ruled out on the ground that the One cannot yield diverse effects, for whatever proceeds from something determinate is itself determinate.

The difficulty arises only when necessary existence is treated as an accident of the quiddity; for then the quiddity could sometimes exist and at other times not exist, thereby becoming contingent. That is impossible for this reason—not for the reason they propose—because the quiddity of the Necessary Existent cannot be contingent; to claim otherwise would be to combine two contradictories.

Fourth rejoinder: He says, “Nor is it permissible that the cause of the adventitious attribute be something other than the two, for that would entail that the Necessary Existent depends on something else.”

We reply: that is impossible, for necessary existence is dependent on nothing else. Yet we say to you: if the cause of the adventitious attribute is something other than necessary existence, and the two agree only in necessary existence, then it is evident that they agree in the absolute, not in the determinate. The adventitious attribute is determinate, not absolute, and therefore its cause must likewise be determinate.

Should it be objected, “If necessary existence is contingent upon quiddity, it then needs something other than itself and thus becomes an effect,” we answer: this objection can be met in several ways: