Section:

As for the argument advanced by the heretical philosophers and others: “If His being characterized by these attributes entails perfection for Him, then He has attained perfection through something other than Himself and is therefore imperfect in Himself. If it entails imperfection for Him, then He may not be characterized by them.”

The reply is as follows:

The perfection in question is one whose existence is possible and which contains no imperfection.

Accordingly, if by saying, “He would be imperfect in Himself,” the speaker means that He would be imperfect without these attributes, then this is true. But it is precisely to avoid this that we affirmed that attributes of perfection are indispensable; otherwise, He would be imperfect.

But if he means that He became perfect only through the attributes by which He is characterized, and thus would not be perfect in His essence considered apart from these attributes, the reply is:

First:

This objection would be pertinent only if it were possible for an essence stripped of these attributes to exist, or for a perfect essence stripped of them to exist. If either of these two possibilities is impossible, then His being perfect without these attributes is impossible; how much more so when both are impossible. Indeed, the existence of a perfect essence without these attributes is impossible.

For we know by necessity that an essence which is not actually a cause and requires some further cause in order to become an actual cause—if that which brings it from potentiality into actuality is the essence itself—