a reality peculiar to it, distinct from everything else, without any determining cause separate from it having assigned that reality to it.

To anyone who says, “The necessarily existent is absolute existence, with absoluteness as a condition or without any condition,” the reply is:

“This claim, although its falsity is self-evident—as explained elsewhere—is contradictory. It also entails that the necessarily existent is distinguished from everything else by something peculiar to it.”

For the absolute does not exist as an absolute in external reality; it exists only with some qualification.

If one says, “A necessary existent,” one has qualified it by necessity, so it is no longer absolute. If one says, “It is not necessary,” one has qualified it by the negation of necessity, so it is not absolute. If one claims that there is an existent that is neither necessary nor non-necessary, one must deny both sides of a contradiction—the most plainly impossible thing according to the mind’s immediate judgment.

Moreover, he qualifies it as being the principle of other things, a subject of intellection, an object of intellection, and intellect, as well as a lover, a beloved, and love, and by other qualifying and specifying features that distinguish it from everything else. It therefore cannot be absolute existence.