offered any proof for this.

You may also be asked:

Why could it not itself be the object of will and love, loving itself, so that it is both lover and beloved? Or could it not will and need what it itself produces, making this the object of its will, without thereby needing anything other than itself?

You yourselves say, as recorded in your books, that the First is lover, beloved, and love; that it gives pleasure and takes pleasure, rejoices and is the object of rejoicing. If you allow it to be both lover and beloved, both willing and willed, why could it not, when acting through love and will, itself be the object of that love and will?

In your terminology, it would be both lover and beloved. On this supposition, your argument collapses at its very foundation. It becomes possible to describe it as possessing attributes of perfection and performing perfect voluntary acts in which it depends on nothing other than itself, without having any deficiency requiring completion from outside.

[Twentieth Argument]

You say that what is higher does not act for the sake of what is lower, and that the voluntary motion of the celestial sphere cannot be for the sake of things in the lower realm. Rather, whatever results from its voluntary motion follows necessarily as a secondary aim. Its sole aim in its voluntary motion is to resemble its higher beloved.

If that is so, why could the First not be both willing and willed, both beloved and lover? It wills nothing for the sake of anything other than itself; rather, its love for itself and its willing of itself entail the existence of the things it produces, just as you have said concerning what proceeds from the celestial spheres.

If it is said that it acts by its own choice and will, performing an act that entails the existence of its effects, this would parallel what you have said concerning the motion of the celestial sphere. Thus, this view is admissible according to