an agent, it is independent of the agent together with its attributes. The logicians’ designation of some attributes as essential and others as accidental does not prevent this principle from applying equally to them.

The statement, “If an attribute beyond the eight were posited, it would be an attribute of either perfection or imperfection,” serves only to deny attributes beyond the eight. This does not undermine the objector; rather, it strengthens his counterargument. For affirming precisely eight attributes, rather than more or fewer, specifies a particular quantity and number. If everything possessing a particular specification requires a determining cause distinct from the thing possessing it, the question remains. If someone says, “These attributes, in this form, are inseparable from the essence and require no necessitating cause other than the essence,” he is told:

The same applies to the matter under dispute. Your claim that every entity’s possession of particular attributes and a particular measure requires a determining cause separate from it is therefore invalid.

[The second line of argument]

His argument concerning the most distinctive attribute is equally binding upon them, just as his argument concerning the attributes is equally binding upon them. The former is a counterargument based on the distinctive character of the reality itself; the latter is a counterargument based on its possession of certain attributes rather than others, and of a particular number of attributes rather than more.

Whether or not a most distinctive attribute is affirmed, there must be an essence that is, in itself, distinct from everything else.

[The third line of argument]

It may be said:

Those who affirm the attributes hold three well-known positions regarding attributes beyond the eight. The first is to affirm further attributes, such as pleasure, anger, the face, the two hands, and rising over. This is the position of Ibn Kullāb and al-Hārith