We must, however, analyze the matter of divine attributes more closely. When we say God is living, we may mean he is living with life as his attribute, i. e., that there is an attribute life which makes him living, or we may deny that there is any such attribute in him as life, but that he is living through himself and not through life as an attribute. To make this subtle distinction clear we will investigate further what is involved in the first statement that God is living with life. It may mean that there was a time when God was not living and then he acquired life and became living. This is clearly a wrong and unworthy conception. We must therefore adopt the other alternative, that the life which makes him living is eternal like him, and hence he was always living from eternity and will continue to be living to eternity. But the matter is not yet settled. The question still remains, Is this life through which he lives identical with his being, or is it distinct from his being, or is it a part of it? If we say it is distinct from his being, we are guilty of introducing other eternal beings beside God, which destroys his unity. The Christians are guilty of this very thing when they say that God's eternal life is the Holy Ghost, and his eternal Wisdom is the Son. If we say that his life is a part of his being, we do injury to the other aspect of his unity, namely, his simplicity. For to have parts in one's being implies composition. We are forced therefore to conclude that God's life is identical with his being. But this is really tantamount to saying that there is no attribute life which makes him living, or that he is living not through life. The difference is only in expression. We may make this conception clearer by illustrations from other spheres, inadequate though they be. The soul is the cause of life to the body, i. e., the body lives through the soul, and when the latter leaves it, the body loses its life and dies. But the soul itself does not live through anything else, say through another soul. For if this were the case this other soul would need again another soul to make it live and this again another, and so on _ad infinitum_, which is absurd. The soul lives through itself. The same thing applies to angels. They live through their own being; and that is why souls and angels are called in the Sacred Scriptures spirits. A spirit is something that is fine and light and incomposite. Hence their life cannot be due to anything distinct from their being, for this would make them composite.