are many, but those who have followed these thinkers’ path are among the furthest from perfection.

[Al-Āmidī’s Presentation of the Later Thinkers’ Method of Establishing the Necessary Existent]

Our purpose here is to discuss these later thinkers’ approach to establishing the Necessary Existent.

Al-Āmidī presented this argument in Abkār al-Afkār and raised an objection to some of its premises in Rumūz al-Kunūz. We have already mentioned his objection and his answer.

In presenting this argument, he said:

“Considering the totality is different from considering each of its individual members, for the reality of the totality differs from the reality of each individual member. The totality, then, exists and must be either necessary in itself or contingent. It cannot be necessary, as explained above. If it is contingent, it must have a determining cause, which must be either within it or outside it.

If that cause is within it, then the determining cause of the totality is also the determining cause of its individual members,