Summum; vivens; integrity; independens; nature as Deity

But since being is divided into substance and accident: God is so being that He is substance as much as possible, because He most of all subsists through Himself and depends on nothing at all, but from Himself, in Himself, and through nothing other than through Himself is whatever He is. But every accident presupposes another being by which it is sustained: yet God, since He exists from Himself, is necessarily the first being, and therefore cannot be sustained by another prior being.

NEXT, God is here called the highest being, that is, leaving all the rest behind Himself in perfection, as being their cause. For every principal cause of which we treat here, if it produce an effect of a diverse ratio from itself (which here must necessarily happen), is nobler than that effect; which is demonstrated in the Metaphysics. And hence it is that Dionysius said things are like God, but not God like things, since He exceeds above, and they have from God that they imitate Him, not the reverse (Isaiah 40:17-18; Romans 1:23).

THIRD, since two things chiefly contain the essential perfection of substances, namely essence and life — that of all, this of some, beyond which the human mind can comprehend nothing in them — therefore, as essence, so also life is most deservedly attributed to God, by which namely He is active in Himself and outside Himself; and without which He cannot be the cause of the other things, as will be demonstrated below. For this reason God in the Scriptures is everywhere called being and living (Revelation 1:8 and 4:8; Deuteronomy; Psalm 18:46; 84:3; Jeremiah 10:10; Ezekiel 33:11; Daniel 4:34; Matthew 16:16; John 5:26 and 6:57; Acts 14:15; Romans 9:26). FOURTH, since life belongs to God as first and highest being in the most perfect manner, and therefore spiritual, we deservedly consider integrity in it, which is contained in virtue and beatitude (Psalm 25; 1 Timothy 6:15). LASTLY, the word independent is added in the description, which here stands in place of a difference, and discriminates God from created things, and signifies that both essence and life are so in God that He has each not from elsewhere but from Himself (Exodus 3:14; Psalm 36:9). From all which it is firmly gathered that nature is rightly attributed to God, that word taken in a looser significate, so that it notes the same as Deity itself (Colossians 2:9) — namely that through which God is God and differs from all other things. Hence Paul (Galatians 4:8): Not knowing God, he says, you served those who by nature are not gods — indicating that He alone is the true God who is God by nature, that is, who has a truly divine essence and persons.