are accidents, thereby nullifying their claim,

“He is a substance in which no accidents inhere.”

Should they say instead, “He is a single substance in which no attributes reside,” their further statement—

“He possesses life and speech”

—collapses as well. For once they deny the attributes, they have demolished the Trinity, the hypostatic union, and the very Creed itself, all while contradicting the books of the Prophets—which explicitly affirm the divine attributes—and flouting the plain dictates of reason.

The point is that their position is patently self-contradictory. They posit a substance devoid of accidents while simultaneously declaring,

“Every existent is either substance or accident,”

and also affirming,

“He is the substance of three hypostases.”

If no accidents attach to Him, then He can have no attributes, for an attribute subsists in something other than itself and is not a substance. Indeed, if everything that exists is confined to substance or accident, the attribute must fall under the category of accidents, not substances. Their discourse, therefore, amounts to an outright denial that any attributes belong to Him at all.

Yet they continue to speak of hypostases—an expression that necessarily entails either affirming attributes or positing three self-subsisting substances; and anything that subsists by itself must in turn be characterized by attributes. There is no doubt that these people combine in their doctrine two mutually exclusive propositions: both the affirmation and the negation of the attributes, the affirmation of three substances—three gods—and the proclamation of one God.

The reason for this is that they have cobbled together a creed composed partly of the unequivocal texts of the Prophets—such as the declaration,

“One God”—

and partly of the Prophets’ ambiguous statements, for example, the term