Chapter 23 — That no accident is found in God

It is also clear that there can be no accident in God. For if all perfections are one in him, and if existence, power, action, and all such attributes pertain to perfection, they are necessarily all identical with his essence. Therefore, none of these perfections is an accident in God.

Furthermore, a being to whose perfection something can be added cannot be infinite in perfection. But if a being has some perfection that is an accident, a perfection can be added to its essence, since every accident is added to an essence. Hence infinite perfection will not be found in its essence. But, as we have shown, God is of infinite perfection according to essence. Consequently, there can be in him no accidental perfection; but whatever is in him is his substance.

The same truth can be easily inferred from God’s supreme simplicity, from the fact that he is pure act, and from the fact that he is the first among beings. For some sort of composition obtains between an accident and its subject. Likewise, that which is a subject of this kind cannot be pure act, since an accident is a kind of form of the subject. Similarly, what is essential is always prior to what is accidental. From all this we can infer, in keeping with what was said above, that nothing can be predicated of God as an accident.