Chapter 8: On God's absolute necessity of existing; definition
CHAPTER EIGHT. On God's absolute necessity of existing.
Thus far concerning the attributes of God which stand in place of properties consequent upon His essence in general: now, about to speak of the several ones separately and distinctly, there occurs before the rest I. Absolute necessity of existing, which is that perfection of God by which He so is or exists that He cannot not be.
The sacred letters point out this attribute by the names of immortality and incorruptibility (1 Timothy 6:16-17; Romans 1:23). It is called a perfection of God for the foundation of that negation by which we declare this necessity, which is a positive perfection that truly exists in God, which materially, as they commonly speak, is signified by this attribute. But its formal ratio is placed in the negation of some imperfection which commonly inheres in all creatures and is called contingency.
Latin
CAPUT OCTAVUM, De Dei absoluta exsistendi necessitate. Hactenus de attributis Dei, quae sunt loco proprietatum, essentiam ipsius consequentium in genere: nunc de singulis seorsim ac discretim dicturis occurrit prae caeteris I. Absoluta exsistendi necessitas, quae est ea Dei perfectio, per quam is ita est seu exsistit, ut non possit non esse. Sacrae literae hoc attributum immortalitatis & incorruptibilitatis nominibus indigitant, 1 Tim. 6.16.17; Rom. 1.23. Dicitur perfectio Dei pro negationis istius, qua necessitatem hanc declaramus, fundamento, quod est positiva perfectio, in Deo revera exsistens, quae materialiter, ut vulgo loquuntur, per hoc attributum significatur. Formalis autem ratio illius posita est in negatione alicujus imperfectionis, quae communiter omnibus creaturis inest, & contingentiae vocatur.