necessity is a negative rather than a positive property, in which case the proof fails. The second objection is that this argument is invalidated by the existence of Allah, glorified be He, alongside contingent beings: both share what the designation ‘existence’ denotes, while each is distinguished from the other by its individuation. Thus, the unrestricted concept, in relation to the particularized existent, must either necessarily follow from it or necessarily entail it, be an accidental attribute of it or be the subject bearing it. Al-Rāzī raised a third objection: he denied that individuation is a positive property, just as he denied that necessity is a positive property.

[Ibn Taymiyyah’s commentary]

I say: As for their confronting the philosophers with contingent existence alongside the Necessary Existent, this is a binding objection that the philosophers cannot evade. It does not, however, resolve the specious argument. As for denying that necessity is a positive reality, this is a form of sophistry. If existence is a positive reality, how can its necessity—which is its assuredness, precluding the possibility of its opposite—be something privative? It is well known that the designation ‘existence’ applies more properly to the Necessary Existent than to contingent beings.

Furthermore, the division he presented applies whether the concept is said to be positive or negative. For if it is negative and shared, it cannot necessarily entail what is particular: what is shared, whether existential or privative, does not necessarily entail what is particular. Otherwise, wherever the shared, unrestricted, general concept existed, every one of its particular instances would exist. Nor can it necessarily follow from what is particular unless necessity is an effect and a necessary consequence of something else; and he has already explained why this is impossible.

Al-Rāzī raised another objection, on the basis of one of his two views—that existence is additional to quiddity—namely, that quiddity could be the cause of existence. He stated that there is nothing objectionable in