unless there is something that necessitates it. The essence itself would then be the necessitating cause, yet one and the same thing cannot be both agent and recipient.

You are told:

The expressions “necessary in itself” and “possible in itself” have become equivocal in your discourse. “Necessary in itself” may mean that which has no originator or efficient cause; “necessary in itself” (1) may mean that which has neither an originator nor a substrate; and “necessary in itself” may mean that which has no inseparable attribute belonging to it (2) and [is] not a characterized subject inseparably accompanied by one (3).

If by “necessary in itself” you mean that which has no originator or efficient cause, then the attribute is necessary in itself. If you mean that which has no substrate in which it subsists, then the attribute is not necessary in itself; rather, the entity characterized by it is necessary in itself. But if by “necessary” you mean that which is neither inseparably accompanied by an attribute nor itself an inseparable concomitant, then no such thing has any reality. It exists only in the mind, not in external reality. You have conceived something in your minds and described it with attributes that preclude its existence (4). You have thereby rendered that which is necessarily existent in itself impossible to exist. These matters have been treated at length elsewhere.

The purpose here (5) is merely to draw attention to this, since the intended point in this discussion is established on either supposition.

Thus we say:

The Necessary Existent in itself—whether attributes are affirmed of Him and this is called composition or not, or whether attributes are denied of Him—cannot