are inseparable and enduring. He may be answered: Yet this does not preclude its being, in itself, something that occupies space and in which attributes of the same kind as accidents subsist. Similarly, the philosopher’s belief that man is a rational animal, and that these are essential attributes that cannot be separated from his essence either in the mind or in external reality, did not prevent him from regarding these attributes as accidents.

Likewise, if someone says, “To affirm that He is knowing, powerful, and living is to affirm these attributes”—indeed, if someone says, “To affirm that He is the Necessary Existent, that He is the maker of the world, that He is the subject of intellection, its object, and intellect itself, and that He exercises providence, and so forth, is to affirm accidents, attributes, and composition”—then the most one can say is that these attributes and parts are essential to their subject and inseparable from it. This is further clarified by the fact that these thinkers call essential attributes “parts”