LessonsDivine Attributes: Neither Identical to nor Separate from the EssenceQuiz

Knowledge, power, will, life, hearing, and sight are divine perfections. Predicating a perfection of an essence does not require each perfection to be an independent agent.

Knowledge concerns what is known; power concerns what can be brought about; will concerns specification. Their intelligible meanings differ, yet the one God is their subject.

If one asks what status attributes have when they are “neither identical nor other,” the first answer is that they are real perfections subsisting with the essence. Their lack of independent existence does not reduce them to mental fictions or empty names.

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Attributes and divine perfection

Divine Attributes: Neither Identical to nor Separate from the Essence

Knowledge, power, will, life, hearing, and sight are divine perfections. Predicating a perfection of an essence does not require each perfection to be an independent agent.

Knowledge concerns what is known; power concerns what can be brought about; will concerns specification. Their intelligible meanings differ, yet the one God is their subject.

If one asks what status attributes have when they are “neither identical nor other,” the first answer is that they are real perfections subsisting with the essence. Their lack of independent existence does not reduce them to mental fictions or empty names.