This absence of all potentiality in God obliges Him to be immutable . He is actuality, through and through. Were there anything potential about Him, He would either lose or gain by its actualization, and either loss or gain would contradict his perfection. He cannot, therefore, change. Furthermore, He is immense , boundless ; for could He be outlined in space, He would be composite, and this would contradict his indivisibility. He is therefore omnipresent , indivisibly there, at every point of space. He is similarly wholly present at every point of time—in other words eternal . For if He began in time, He would need a prior cause, and that would contradict his aseity. If He ended, it would contradict his necessity. If He went through any succession, it would contradict his immutability.
He has intelligence and will and every other creature-perfection, for we have them, and effectus nequit superare causam . In Him, however, they are absolutely and eternally in act, and their object , since God can be bounded by naught that is external, can primarily be nothing else than God himself. He knows himself, then, in one eternal indivisible act, and wills himself with an infinite self-pleasure. Since He must of logical necessity thus love and will himself, He cannot be called “free” ad intra , with the freedom of contrarieties that characterizes finite creatures. Ad extra , however, or with respect to his creation, God is free. He cannot need to create, being perfect in being and in happiness already. He wills to create, then, by an absolute freedom.
Being thus a substance endowed with intellect and will and freedom, God is a person ; and a living person also, for He is both object and subject of his own activity, and to be this distinguishes the living from the lifeless. He is thus absolutely self-sufficient : his self-knowledge and self-love are both of them infinite and adequate, and need no extraneous conditions to perfect them.