In their view, the celestial sphere is living and rational, yet it is not like the human body, which is also living and rational.

As for his statement:

“This is necessarily composed of an essence and attributes.”

If he means that an essence possesses attributes inseparable from it, this is true. They do not, however, call this composition. If he calls it composition, that designation does not establish what he seeks to deny. For what he ruled out by proof was something composite: something assembled by another, or something that came together by itself—that is, something whose parts were separate and then came together, becoming composite after not having been so.

It is well known that something whose parts come together after being separate does not assemble itself, just as he mentioned concerning what comes into being: something that comes into being after not existing does not bring itself into being.

Likewise, he said:

“Just as everything acted upon involves an act, every composite has an assembler.”

This is intelligible only in the case of something assembled by another, or something that was separate and then assembled. Similarly, something acted upon can only be understood to have an agent if another acts upon it, or if it has come into existence; whatever comes into existence must have an originator.

But something that is necessary in itself, beginningless and eternal, and necessarily possesses attributes inseparable from it, has neither been assembled by anyone nor been separate and then assembled.

Why, then, must it need an assembler? How can it validly be compared to what comes into being and what is acted upon, each of which needs something other than itself—indeed, each comes into existence and requires an originator?

What he calls composite means nothing more than something possessing an attribute inseparable from it. Thus, if he were to say:

“Everything possessing an attribute must have someone who endows it with that attribute”—meaning someone who makes the attribute subsist