bodies; otherwise, all bodies are alike insofar as they are bodies. The Necessary Existent is one and does not admit division in any of these ways.’

We reply: We have already refuted this argument of yours and shown that you have no proof for it except the claim that a composite whose parts depend on one another must have a cause. We have discussed this and explained that, if it is not implausible to suppose an existent without anyone to bring it into existence, neither is it implausible to suppose that it is composite, or to suppose multiple existents without anyone to bring them into existence. For you have based your denial of plurality and duality on the denial of composition, and your denial of composition on the denial of any essence distinct from existence. We have demolished this ultimate foundation and exposed the arbitrariness of your assertions concerning it.

If it is said: ‘A body without a soul cannot act; if it has a soul, its soul is its cause, and thus the body cannot be the First.’

We reply: Our souls are not the cause of our bodies’ existence, nor, according to you, is the celestial sphere’s soul alone the cause of its body’s existence. Rather, both exist through a cause other than themselves. If it is possible for both to have existed eternally, it is possible for them to have no cause.