[Ibn Taymiyyah’s rebuttal on several grounds]

I say:

One might object: This argument, too, is unsound on several grounds.

The first ground

One may ask: Why could all those parts not exist necessarily?

As for his statement, “As will be established in proving His oneness,” he may be answered:

What you set out later concerning His oneness is the well-known approach of Ibn Sīnā and his followers among the philosophers. It consists of two arguments:

The first argument rests on the composite’s dependence upon its parts. This is the first argument you presented here. Thus, this second argument rests entirely upon the first, so only the first has actually been presented; and we may explain why it is unsound.

The second argument you presented concerning His oneness rests on the claim that necessity would become an effect. This is the same argument you presented for necessary existence not being something additional to the quiddity, lest it be caused by the quiddity.

Yet you yourself have refuted this argument, and the very reasoning by which you refuted it also invalidates the other.

It thus becomes clear that what you presented concerning His oneness comes down to a single argument, whose invalidity you have already established. You therefore refer us to what follows, some of which is repetitive; both are unsound.

Throughout his discussions, he repeatedly points out the invalidity of this approach. Indeed, when the philosophers—Ibn Sīnā’s followers and others—argued that bodies are contingent by means of this