self-evidently known to be impossible.

They have two lines of argument. The first is that, considering the attribute and the subject possessing it, if each is independent of the other, both are necessary existents. If each needs the other, neither is a necessary existent. If one needs the other, the former is an effect and the latter is the Necessary Existent. Whichever is an effect requires a cause, which leads to the essence of the Necessary Existent being dependent on a cause.”

Abū Hāmid said:

“The last of these alternatives is the one we adopt. Yet you have no proof for rejecting the first alternative, for your demonstration succeeds only by denying multiplicity in the very question under discussion. How, then, can this question be based on that one?”

[Ibn Taymiyya’s commentary]

I say: This argument can be answered in several ways.

The first way

It may be said, regarding your statement, “Either”—it may be said, regarding your statement, “Either one of them needs the other, or it is independent of it”:

By ‘need,’ do you mean the dependence of an effect on its agent, or mutual dependence in general—that neither exists without the other—or a third category?