CHAPTER VIII—That God’s Power is His Substance

ACTIVE power belongs to the perfection of a thing. But every divine perfection is contained in God’s own being (B. I, Chap. XXVIII). God’s power therefore is not different from his being. But God is His own being (B. I, Chap. XXII); He is therefore His own power.

4. In things the powers of which are not their substance, the said powers are accidents.²⁰²²⁰²Without discussing this statement, it is at least safe to say that, for their working to any orderly purpose, these powers depend upon a concatenation of conditions accidental to the powers themselves, — conditions, that is to say, which may or may not be present where the agents are present. But there can be no accident in God (B. I, Chap. XXIII), who is therefore his own power.