If in God substance and attributes be identical, then this identity is either real or apparent — either what we call substance and what we call attribute are truly existent yet identical in God or it is only to us that they are existent as separate.

According to these philosophers, God is not Good, beautiful, just, but he is goodness, beauty, justice, [...] Now God really is these things, or he is them only to us. If he be these things, he is not pure Being any more, but Being with something else.

If God be so only to us, it is clear that in himself he is not so, that in himself he is not possessed of any quality, of any attribute whatsoever. Our conception of him is but a symbol, an anthropomorphic thing.

But, it may be objected, God is neither of a composed nature nor of a nature conceivably simple. Both simplicity and composition are human ways of seeing. If this be so, then the final argument is very simple: God is either both of these or neither.