[Ibn Taymiyyah’s Commentary]

I say:

One might respond: Regarding his statement, “If He were a substance like other substances,” if he means a substance resembling other substances with respect to what is necessary, possible, and impossible, this would not help his argument, for several reasons:

First, no rational person who understands the matter would say this, since it entails combining two contradictories, as explained above.

Second, if this requires Him to resemble every substance with respect to what is necessary, possible, and impossible, it does not follow that He bears no resemblance to a substance in some respects. Denying likeness across all these matters together requires only that likeness be absent in one of them. Thus, if He is assumed to differ from another in one of these matters, He would not resemble it in all of them together; but this does not exclude resemblance in another matter. Consequently, the statement, “He is a substance unlike other substances,” would not be correct, nor would the disagreement with its proponent be merely verbal. Rather, one must deny that He resembles created beings in anything peculiar to them.

Third, on this supposition, He would resemble them in one respect and differ from them in another. Nothing in his argument invalidates this; indeed, he has explicitly stated elsewhere that this is the truth.

[Al-Āmidī Cites an Argument of Those Who Maintain Eternity]

He said, in discussing the temporal origination of bodies, when he mentioned the argument of those who maintain