CHAPTER 55

It has already been said before in a number of passages of this Treatise that [67a] anything that entails corporeality ought of necessity to be negated in reference to Him and that all affections likewise should be negated in reference to Him. For all affections entail change, and moreover the agent who effects those affections is undoubtedly not identical with him who is acted upon [or affected]. Accordingly if He, may He be exalted, were subject to affection in any respect whatever, someone other than He would act upon Him and effect change in Him. Likewise all privation ought of necessity to be negated in reference to Him; it should be negated that He sometimes lacks a certain perfection, while that at other times it exists in Him. For if this should be supposed, He would be only potentially perfect. Now privation is necessarily attached to all potentiality, and everything that passes from potentiality to actuality cannot but require some other thing existing in actuality that causes the former to pass to actuality. For this reason, all His perfections must exist in actuality, and nothing may belong to Him that exists potentially in any respect whatever. One must likewise of necessity deny, with reference to Him, His being similar to any existing thing. Everyone has already been aware of this; clear statements are made in the books of the prophets negating the conception that He is like any thing. He says: To whom then will ye liken Me, that I should be equal?1 He says: To whom then will ye liken God? Or what likeness will ye compare unto Him?² He says: There is none like unto Thee, O Lord.³ This occurs frequently. The basis of the matter is that anything that leads to one of these four kinds of attributions ought of necessity to be negated in reference to Him by means of a clear demonstration; namely, anything that leads to attributing to Him corporeality, or that leads to attributing to Him affection and change, or that leads to attributing to Him, for example, a statement that He has not something in actuality and thereafter this occurs to Him in actuality, or that leads to attributing to Him a likeness to a thing among His creatures.

These are some of the useful teachings of natural science with regard to the knowledge of the deity. For he who has no knowledge of these sciences is not aware of the deficiency inherent in affections, and does not understand the meaning [67b] of what is potential and of what is in actuality, and does not know that privation attaches necessarily to everything potential and that what is potential is more deficient than that which is in motion—because in the latter case potentiality is passing into actuality—while that which is in motion is in its turn deficient in comparison4 to that for the sake of which it moves until it achieves actuality. And even if such a one⁵ knows these things, he does not know them through their demonstrations. Accordingly he does not know the particular corollaries following necessarily from these universal primary propositions. For this reason he does not have at his disposal a demonstration of the existence of God or one of the necessity⁶ of negating these kinds of attributions in reference to Him.

Having made this introduction, I will start upon another chapter in which I will make clear the absurdity of what is thought by those who believe that He has essential attributes. But that can be understood only by someone who already possesses knowledge of the art of logic and of the nature of being.