endowed with attributes inseparable from His essence, and can only be distinct from His creatures, reason requires such existence; we do not deem it impossible for Him. Reason also establishes that what they posit—absolute existence conditioned on being absolute, or existence stripped of all positive determinations—has neither reality nor essence, whether it is existence as such or existence stripped of positive determinations. It cannot be realized outside the mind. It exists only in minds, not in actual entities.

This is the One of which they said:
“Only one proceeds from it.”
It cannot be realized outside the mind. Likewise, the simple unity from which species are composed exists only in minds.

When the theologians who affirm the attributes say, “His existence is identical with His reality or essence,” or, “His existence is not something additional to His essence,” they do not mean what the Jahmī philosopher means when he says that He is absolute existence, for absolute existence has no reality outside the mind.

Rather, they mean what they mean when they say, “The reality of a human being is his existence outside the mind, and the reality of blackness is the blackness existing outside the mind,” and similar statements. Their meaning is that, for something existing outside the mind and possessing a reality peculiar to itself, its actual existence outside the mind is that particular reality. Thus, its existence peculiar to itself is its reality peculiar to itself, just as absolute existence is a general universal, and absolute reality is a general universal. The very reality of a human being, a body, or anything else is not