when He is conceived as existing alone, then it is clear that they are mistaken in treating the two situations as equivalent. All rational people agree that new relations and relational attributes may arise, such as being with another. The dispute concerns only whether new matters subject to His will may arise and subsist in His essence. It has been explained elsewhere that relations and relational attributes necessarily entail positive realities, and that their existence without such realities is impossible.

If a man is seated and someone moves to his right after having been to his left, one says of the seated man, “He is to his left.” An action has thus occurred on the part of the one who moved, changing the relation and relational attribute. Likewise, when someone who was beneath a roof comes to be above it, the relations of being below and above arise anew through that person’s new action.

If it is said, “The roof itself has not changed,” the reply is: This may be disputed. What is true of it when nothing is above it is not the same as when something is above it. Likewise, if it is said of the seated man, “He has not changed,” the reply is: This may be disputed. What is true of him when the other person is to his left is not the same as when that person is to his right. For the other person blocks that side, prompting the seated man to turn and producing other effects that were not there before.

Likewise, when someone acquires a brother or nephew through his father or brother begetting a child, positive realities have come into existence. This person develops affection and tenderness toward the newborn child that were not there before. These are the ties of kinship and family.