Al-Āmidī says that “necessity of existence” is used equivocally. Al-Shahrastānī, al-Rāzī, and al-Rāzī’s followers had said this before him. This demonstrates the invalidity of the claim to which he referred when he said: “The parts cannot all be necessary, as will be established in the discussion of divine oneness.”

Among the most astonishing failings of those who oppose the Sunnah—and their weakening an argument when it supports truth, yet strengthening it when it supports falsehood—is that he invalidated the philosophers’ argument for divine oneness when they used it to establish that God is one. The conclusion is undoubtedly true, even if the argument is assumed to be weak. Yet he then invokes that very argument to deny what necessarily follows from Allah’s being above His creation—indeed, to support what entails negating His very essence. Thus he treats it as proof for what entails such negation, while invalidating it when it is used to establish divine oneness.

Furthermore, what he has said to invalidate this argument also invalidates the first argument. For if two intrinsically necessary beings are not impossible, then two parts, each intrinsically necessary, are all the more clearly not impossible.

Know that the two grounds on which they invalidated the argument were, first, denying that necessity is a positive reality, and second, presenting a counterargument. As for the counterargument, it does apply to these philosophers, and they have no escaping it.

The counterargument of al-Shahrastānī and al-Rāzī—and, I think,