It is well known that every perfection attributed to a created being, involving no deficiency whatsoever, is more fittingly attributed to the Creator. Likewise, every deficiency from which a created being is free is something from which the Creator—glorified be He—is even more deserving of being free.

Some of the heretics who deny the divine attributes raised the objection that the absence of these attributes constitutes a deficiency only when the subject is capable of possessing them. The absence of sight constitutes blindness, the absence of speech muteness, and the absence of hearing deafness only when the subject is capable of possessing these faculties, as an animal is. Something incapable of possessing them, such as an inanimate object, is described neither by these faculties nor by their corresponding deficiencies.

They were answered that something incapable of possessing either is more deficient than something capable of both and possessing one, even if what it possesses is the deficiency. Thus, an inanimate object incapable of life, hearing, sight, and speech is more deficient than an animal capable of possessing them, even if that animal is blind, deaf, and mute.

Whoever denies the attributes makes Him like one who is blind, deaf, and mute. Whoever says that He is capable of neither makes Him like an inanimate object, which is inferior to an animal that is blind, deaf, and mute.

Precisely the same applies to acts. Intrinsic motion entails life and is, in turn, entailed by it, unlike accidental motion, such as forced motion resulting from the force that imposes it, or natural motion whereby an entity seeks to return to its center after having departed from it. Such motion is accidental.

Rational people agree that any of