Is His existence, then, like the existence of created things, or unlike it? ن If the former, it follows that the Creator is like the created being. Whatever is possible, necessary, or impossible for one of two like things is also possible, necessary, or impossible for the other. It would therefore follow that one and the same thing is both necessarily existent and not necessarily existent, both brought into existence and not brought into existence—a conjunction of two contradictories.

If he says that His existence differs from the existence of created things, he has affirmed for Him an existence peculiar to Him, which no other shares; thus, no other is like Him. This is a particular, qualified existence, not absolute existence. These matters have been discussed at length elsewhere.

The point here is to consider whether everything distinguished by some characteristic requires something separate from itself to determine that characteristic. For the discussion concerned the second line of argument for the temporal origination of bodies, whose invalidity al-Āmidī, al-Urmawī, and others demonstrated. It rests on two premises: first, that bodies require something to determine their particular attributes; and second, that whatever has such a requirement has been brought into existence.

They have demonstrated the invalidity of the second premise, as previously explained.