is necessary in Himself. How, then, can it be impossible for His attributes to be inseparable from Him when He is necessary in Himself? If “necessary in Himself” is taken to mean a being that has absolutely no concomitant at all, then—on their view—nothing that exists would be necessary in itself. But if His entailment of something does not negate His self-necessity, then His attributes are the things most deserving of that entailment; their being entailed by Him in no way diminishes His being necessary in Himself. And if they intend by it that He possesses no substrate in which He inheres and no receptive cause, then in that sense the attributes are not necessary in themselves; rather, they are necessary by virtue of the Essence that needs no substrate—while the very argument proving that contingent beings require one who is necessary in Himself also proves that there must be an existent in and of Himself who has neither agent nor efficient cause.

There is no doubt that He must be independent of all contingents, for any dependence upon them would contradict His self-subsistence. Thus it is impossible for Him to need any contingent, whether as a substrate or in any other respect. Yet this does not prevent His attributes from likewise being necessary and included in the very concept of the One who is necessary in Himself. The fact that they subsist only through Him does not oblige them to have an agent or an efficient cause distinct from the effect.

When the Essence is termed a “cause,” as mentioned earlier—meaning only that it necessitates and entails the attributes—this usage is sound. But the efficient cause they posit as the cause of the world is not of this kind, so the intended meaning of such expressions must be carefully clarified.