then such a negation is unsound, for there are no two things whatsoever without a shared element in which they participate and a distinctive element by which each is set apart from the other; they resemble one another from one angle and differ from another.
Life, for instance, is an attribute common to both Creator and creature. Allah, the Exalted, says, “Put your trust in the Ever-Living who never dies” (Qur’an 25:58), and He says, “He brings forth the living from the dead and brings forth the dead from the living” (Qur’an 30:19). Yet the Creator’s life is His alone: a life perfect in every respect, preceded by no non-existence and followed by no annihilation. The creature’s life, by contrast, is deficient—preceded by nothingness and destined to vanish. Allah, the Exalted, says, “Everyone upon it will perish, yet the Face of your Lord, Possessor of majesty and honor, will remain” (Qur’an 55:26-27).
The shared element—mere life as an abstract notion—is universal, belonging exclusively to neither of them. What is particular to each and makes it unique, however, is not shared. Accordingly, there is no objection to sharing in this generic sense; the objection arises only if one is said to share with the other in what is uniquely His.
Persisting in the demand to negate every resemblance whatsoever leads to pure negation (taʿṭīl). Suppose one denies for Allah the attribute of existence on the pretext that the creature has existence and that affirming it for the Creator would constitute likening Him to the creature. That denial would force one to conclude that the Creator is non-existent. Worse still, by that faulty logic he would fall into another likeness: equating the Creator with the non-existent, since both would then share non-existence. According to his own principle, he has likened Allah to what does not exist. If, on the other hand, he were to deny both existence and non-existence for Allah, he would stumble into a third, even graver likeness: likening Him to impossibilities, for existence and non-existence are mutually exclusive opposites whose simultaneous absence is as impossible as their simultaneous presence.
Someone might object: “If a thing shares with another in one respect, then whatever is possible for that other in that respect must likewise be possible for it; whatever is impossible for the other must be impossible for it; and whatever is necessary for the other must be necessary for it.”