and all its other aspects, as having the most perfect mode of existence possible for anything,” is true. Yet you are among those furthest from this, for you have assigned the First Cause one of the most deficient modes of existence possible for anything. Indeed, you have made it more deficient than every existing thing, resembling what is nonexistent.

Existing things fall into several categories. The highest is that which acts upon other things without being acted upon by anything else. This is how the First Principle must be. The second category is that which both acts and is acted upon, such as a human being. The third is that which is acted upon but does not act, such as inanimate matter. As for that which neither acts nor is acted upon, it can only be nonexistent.

Yet you have made the First Cause something that neither acts nor is acted upon. You have said that it produces no effect and performs no act, whether voluntarily or otherwise. You have also said that it is not acted upon by anything else. This is the condition of what is nonexistent.

Their description of it as an object of love is of no avail, for any existing thing that is loved and adored must either act or be acted upon. As for that which neither acts nor is acted upon, it neither loves nor is loved and has no reality.

Thus, you have described the Necessarily Existent, the Originator of everything besides Himself, in terms more deficient than the attributes of all other existing things—terms applicable only to nonexistent things.

[Eleventh Argument]

You said that the First Mover moves the celestial sphere only because the celestial sphere longs for it—that is, longs to resemble it.

You also said that the object of longing moves only in a natural, non-voluntary manner, because the beloved for whom one longs may be asleep or devoid of will, yet still move the one who longs for it