  Although medieval philosophers did not have direct access to Aristotle’s Metaphysics until the mid-twelfth century, they did feel pressure from other, largely theological sources to admit something like his non-paradigmatic relational situations. The standard medieval conception of deity, for example, requires that God is an absolutely perfect being, possessing no accidents whatsoever. But this conception makes it difficult to explain how God can enter into relational situations. Indeed, as Augustine points out in book V of his De Trinitate, there is a special difficulty for those want to combine this conception with the Christian doctrine of creation. For this doctrine would seem to require that God first lacks, and then acquires a contingent or accidental relation—namely, that of being creator. But then does it not also require that in creating the universe God underwent a real change? And what about the claim that there are no accidents in God?