their occurrence, He must depend upon an external cause, which entails His contingency; the Necessary Being would thus be contingent,” can be countered by rejecting its first premise of entailment, which is an implicative conditional proposition. For if the essence is not sufficient for their occurrence, this entails only that the newly occurring thing depends upon an external cause; it does not entail that the essence itself depends upon an external cause.

The proponent of this argument says:

“For any attribute one may suppose, His essence is sufficient for its occurrence or non-occurrence, because otherwise He would necessarily depend upon an external cause.”

He may be answered as follows:

“Supposing that the essence is not sufficient for the negation or affirmation of that attribute, it follows that its negation or affirmation depends upon something other than the essence. But that the essence itself depends upon that other thing does not follow from this supposition—unless it is shown that, whenever any negation or affirmation predicated of Him depends upon something else, He Himself must depend upon something else. This he has not shown.”

It is well known that those who hold this view say:

“Whatever occurs anew of the things that subsist in Him depends upon His will and power, whereas His essence does not depend upon His will and power.”

They also say:

“It is possible for that to depend upon events that He Himself brings about through His will and power, while He Himself does not depend upon the events He brings about that are connected to His will and power. Nothing exists besides Him and His creatures such that these things could be said to depend upon it. The most that can be said is that they depend upon His will and power, or upon what follows from His will and power.”

Those who hold this view affirm precisely that. The dependence of those things upon that does not entail that He Himself depends upon it. But unless this proponent