necessitate dependence on the Creator, if it is established that these things necessarily make Him temporally originated and contingent. Yet he did not establish this—indeed, he did not even say it. Rather, he made this negation contingent on His resembling contingent beings in this respect.

Twentieth point:

Had he shown that these things entail temporal origination and contingency, that alone would have sufficed to establish the Lord’s freedom from them, since He is known to be eternal and necessarily existent. As for the fact that whatever is contingent and temporally originated must have a creator, and that temporal origination and contingency necessitate dependence on the Creator, this is mentioned to establish the existence of the eternal, necessarily existent Creator, not to establish His freedom from whatever would entail His nonexistence. Discussion of His freedom from such things comes only after knowledge of the existence of the eternal, necessarily existent Creator has been established. Once that is established, it is explained that nothing incompatible with it can be possible for Him, because this would entail affirming two contradictories simultaneously—not because admitting such a possibility would, in the first instance, imply that He depends on a creator, for the discussion concerns the Creator Himself.

It should therefore be said: “If this were possible for Him, He could not be the eternal Creator.” This would indicate the intended conclusion more clearly than what he mentioned in initially establishing the Necessary Existent.

Twenty-first point:

Likeness must be denied with regard to