from created beings?’ The scholars of the school likewise differed in their answers to this question. Some said that He has no uniquely distinctive attribute, nor is it possible for Him to have one, because His essence and attributes distinguish Him from the essences and attributes of created beings: His essence has no limits in time or space and admits of no division, either in actuality or in imagination, unlike created essences; it has no limits in time or space and admits of no division, either in actuality or in imagination, unlike created essences. His attributes are unlimited in their relation to their objects. If the purpose is to establish a uniquely distinctive attribute by which He is distinguished, that distinction has already been established by what we have mentioned ن. Thus, there is no uniquely distinctive attribute beyond what we already know.

Others said: No; rather, He has a uniquely distinctive attribute of divinity that we cannot apprehend. Any two things with intelligible realities are distinguished by their respective uniquely distinctive attributes. Everything we have mentioned—the absence of limits or an end, the indivisibility of the essence, and the unlimited relation of the attributes to their objects—is a mode of description expressed through negative attributes. Yet one thing is not distinguished from another through negation. There must be an affirmative attribute by which the distinction is established; otherwise, its reality would be eliminated altogether. Then, if it is established