Chapter

As for the denial of the specific revealed attributes by those who deny them, on the grounds that affirming them entails composition, which in turn entails need and dependence, the answer to an analogous argument has already been given. If by “composition” they mean what the term signifies in ordinary language, general usage, or the convention of certain people—namely, something composed by another, something formerly dispersed and then assembled, something made up of indivisible atoms or of matter and form, or something whose parts can separate from one another—then we do not concede the first premise. Nor do we concede that affirming the Face and Hand entails composition in any of these senses.

If, however, they mean the inseparable concurrence of distinct things—that one thing is intrinsically distinct from another and that this is not that—then the same necessarily applies to the attributes of meaning that are known through reason, such as knowledge, power, hearing, and sight. None of these attributes is identical to another; rather, each is intrinsically distinct from the others, even though they are inseparably conjoined as attributes of a single subject. We also apprehend this in the attributes of created beings, such as the parts and accidents of the sun.

Furthermore, if what is meant is that there must exist something that needs and depends upon something distinct from itself, this is denied. But if what is meant is that there must exist something included in the referent of His name, and that the Necessary Being cannot exist without those things included in that referent, then it is evident that He cannot be without His own self; all the more, then, can He not be without whatever is included in the designation of that self.