while the attribute subsists uniquely within His very essence. Let the term “Necessary Being” therefore be put aside, for it is prone to ambiguity. The proof shows nothing beyond the need to halt an infinite regress; it establishes absolutely nothing more, so any additional claim is mere assertion.

If it is said, “Just as the regress must be cut off with respect to efficient causality, it must likewise be cut off with respect to receptivity; for were every existent to require a substratum in which it inheres, and that substratum in turn required another, an endless regress would follow—exactly as would occur were every existent to need a cause and every cause to need a further cause,”

we reply, “You are correct.” Accordingly, we also terminate that regress and affirm that the attribute is in His essence and that His essence does not subsist in anything else—just as our knowledge is in us, our essence being its locus, while our essence itself is in no locus. Thus the attribute’s chain of efficient causes, together with that of the essence, is severed, for there is no agent for it, just as there is none for the essence. The essence has always existed with this attribute: neither it nor the attribute has a cause.

As for the series of receptive causes, it ends only with the essence itself; and why should the disappearance of the cause entail the disappearance of the locus? The demonstration obliges us solely to arrest the infinite regress wherever it can be arrested, and that suffices for the proof that leads to a being whose existence is necessary. If, however, by “Necessary Being” you mean anything other than an existent that lacks an efficient cause and thereby terminates the regress, we do not concede that such a thing is necessary at all.

Whenever the intellect can embrace the notion of an eternal, qualified being whose existence is uncaused, it can just as readily embrace an eternal, qualified being whose existence is uncaused both in its essence and in all of its attributes.

He then said: The second approach states: “Knowledge and power in us are not part of our very quiddity; rather, they are accidents with respect to it—even if they remain perpetually. An accident may never depart from its subject, or it may become inseparable from its quiddity, yet that does not thereby strengthen the essence. And since it is accidental…"