—it is therefore subordinate to the essence, brought about by it, and an effect; so how could this “Necessary Existent” still be the First simply because we have altered the wording?

We reply: If by calling it “subordinate to the essence” and the essence “its cause” you mean that the essence is an efficient cause that produces the attribute, then that is not the case, for nothing of the sort follows with respect to the knowledge found in ourselves—our essences are certainly not efficient causes of our knowledge. If, however, you mean only that the essence is a locus and that the attribute cannot subsist on its own apart from such a locus, that is granted; nothing prevents it. Whether one expresses this by saying “subordinate,” “accident,” “effect,” or whatever other term he prefers, the meaning does not change, for all that can be meant is that the attribute inheres in the essence just as a property inheres in its subject. There is no absurdity in its subsisting in an essence while still being eternal and uncaused.

All of their arguments amount to nothing more than scare tactics that disparage the terminology: they label it “possible,” “contingent,” “derivative,” “necessary concomitant,” or “effect,” and then deem that reprehensible. One therefore says: if by these labels you intend that the attribute has an agent, then that is false; but if all that is meant is that it has no agent even though it has a locus in which it inheres, then express that meaning however you wish—there is nothing impossible about it. Indeed, the difficulty might disappear altogether were the phrasing refined from yet another angle.

They go on to say, “This entails that the First is in need of these attributes and therefore is not absolutely self-sufficient, for absolute independence belongs only to one who needs nothing outside His own essence.” This is homiletic talk of the flimsiest sort, for the attributes of perfection do not conflict with the essence of the Perfect One such that one could claim He needs something other than Himself. If He has never ceased—and will never cease—to be perfect in knowledge, power, and life, how could He be in need? How could one possibly suggest that He has shifted from inseparable perfection to dependency? It is like saying, “The perfect being is the one who has no need for perfection; whoever requires the existence of attributes of perfection for his own essence is deficient.” The answer is: there is no meaning to His being perfect except that the perfections exist inherently within Him; in exactly the same way, there is no meaning to His being self-sufficient except the existence of