in its subject—he would not thereby have refuted anything. For if that which possesses the attribute is beginningless, eternal, and necessary in itself, why must this apply to it?

Moreover, these philosophers say:

“The celestial spheres are beginningless and eternal.”

This man does not call them composite. He rejects both the claim that they are composed of prime matter and form and the claim that they are contingent. Yet they are corporeal, possessing attributes and motions.

If, in his view, these spheres do not require what something that comes into being requires, how could that which is necessary in itself require it?

His statement, “Because composition is a condition of the composite’s existence,” means that an attribute’s inseparability from its subject—or the mutual dependence of the multiple aspects of the Necessary Being—is a condition of their existence. This is correct.

But a condition need not precede that which depends upon it; it may coexist with it. If the Necessary Being is necessary by virtue of its own essence, which includes its attributes, and each of its attributes exists only with the others, while neither the essence exists without the attributes nor the attributes without the essence, then this is precisely what conditional dependence means. It does not follow that the possessor of these attributes is an efficient cause of what is inseparable from its existence, exists only alongside it, and is a condition of its existence.

If, however, he uses “cause” more broadly, so that he counts a condition as a cause, his statement really amounts to this:

“A thing cannot be a condition for that which is a condition of its own existence.”

This is incorrect. Rather, each of two things may be a condition of the other’s existence,