an agent, or whatever depends on knowledge, depends on a determining cause, while whatever depends on none of these does not, this would be a coherent and intelligible statement.

By contrast, to say that whatever depends on an agent does not depend on a determining cause, while whatever has no need of an agent depends on a determining cause, reverses the truth. Thus, the position of the Mu‘tazilite Jahmī Qadarīs—denying that acts depend on a determining cause while affirming that the essence depends on one—turns realities upside down.

Still more unsound is the position of the philosophers who affirm diverse effects, many of which come into existence, and say that their determining cause is mere simple existence. They then describe it with attributes that distinguish it from all other existing things, yet maintain that such distinctiveness necessarily requires a determining cause separate from it. Moreover, knowledge is broader in scope than power, and power is broader in scope than governance.

The philosophizers denied all distinctive characteristics, going so far as to affirm an absolute, abstract existence. They then attributed to it necessary implications that entail distinctive characteristics, such as its being necessary existence, which distinguishes it from contingent existence. They made it the thinker, the object of thought, and intellect itself; the lover, the beloved, and love itself; and an object of delight, along with other such descriptions that distinguish it from inanimate things lacking these attributes.

They said: “The world, with its distinctive attributes and measures, emanated from Him without anything necessitating that determination.” Is there any contradiction greater than this in all existence?