[The second response]

Secondly, one may say: Why did you say that, if temporal occurrences cannot inhere in some substances—some—and in some self-subsisting entities but not others, and in some subjects possessing attributes but not others? If someone were to say to you, “The fact that both things are self-subsisting entities possessing attributes entails that both admit of the inherence of temporal occurrences,” this claim would either bind you or not. If it binds you, it binds both you and your opponent, so you cannot deny it. If it does not bind you, whatever answer you give to someone seeking to bind you by it is also your opponent’s answer.

If you say, “Their common substantiality means that they share the feature by virtue of which temporal occurrences can subsist in them,” each of the two disputants will reply to you: “Likewise, their common status as entities possessing attributes and subsisting independently means that they share the feature by virtue of which temporal occurrences can subsist in them.” If you are fair, you will recognize that the two cases are alike.

[The third argument]

Thirdly, one may say: What do you mean by “successive accidents”? Do you mean His states which the scriptural texts indicate subsist in Him, or something else?

The first is conceded, but we do not concede that created things are equal to Him in His distinctive characteristics. The second is denied.