the attributes of perfection, such as knowledge, power, and life—indeed, existence itself.

It may therefore be said:

If He resembled another in these attributes, such that the other were described by the same existence and the same attributes of existential perfection as He is, this would entail their likeness. If they were alike, whatever was possible for one would be possible for the other. It would then follow that the eternal could be temporally originated, the temporally originated eternal, the necessarily existent contingent, and the contingent necessarily existent, and so forth. This and similar arguments demonstrate that nothing is like Him in His existence and its negation, or in the attributes of perfection established for His existence and His very Self. Once it is denied that anything resembles Him in existence or in the attributes of existential perfection, this establishes that there is nothing like Him, that none is equal to Him, and that none is comparable to Him.

But to leave all this aside and mention only His freedom from attributes of imperfection—and even then only deny His resemblance to created beings in those attributes—without presenting the clear and well-known proof that this would entail His being temporally originated and contingent, or entail the simultaneous affirmation of two contradictories, which demonstrates the impossibility of this, and instead mention only what proves that there must be a Necessary Existent—you can see what this amounts to. Were this put to him, it would be a well-founded objection.

Twenty-second point:

We do not concede that, if He were equal to another in these respects, it would follow that He depends on another creator, or that contingency