the other, without preceding it. Muslims maintain that knowledge and power are conditional upon life, and both are attributes inseparable from Allah Most High; neither can precede the other in existence.

If this is so, and the necessary being is assumed to have a reality distinct from necessity, why could its necessary existence not be conditional upon that reality, which is likewise conditional upon it, without its necessary existence being preceded by the existence of anything else? This is like what they say concerning the existence of a contingent being: if you say that its existence is additional to its essence, its essence is inseparable from its existence, just as its existence is inseparable from its essence.

This is an answer they cannot evade. It addresses the mutual inseparability of the essence and the attributes, assuming that one is distinct from the other.

[Al-Rāzī’s failure to distinguish a cause from a condition]

Abū ‘Abd Allāh al-Rāzī offered an answer in which he did not distinguish a cause from a condition. He said:

“Your contention, ‘If the essence were the cause of its own existence, it would precede itself in existence, since a cause precedes its effect in existence,’ is disputed. We do not concede that a cause must precede its effect in existence. As for the assertion that it precedes it in essence, if this means that it is causally effective, that is conceded. If, however, it means that it cannot act upon it until after it exists, that is disputed. Our position is that what causes Allah Most High’s existence is His very essence, without reference to any prior existence. If precedence is intended to mean something beyond causal efficacy, that is inconceivable.”