can be answered, on the assumption that existence is distinct from the essence, as follows: the term “dependence” may mean an effect’s dependence on its cause, or something conditioned depending on its condition. Even if it is said to have a third meaning, if you assert that what the name denotes must depend on an efficient cause, this will not be conceded. For the realization of the common element in what distinguishes it does not entail that the distinguishing factor is the agent that originates the common element. If, instead, you mean that it cannot exist without something that is a condition of its existence, why do you claim that this is impossible?

His statement, “It will not be necessary in itself,” is then false. For if the essence is assumed to be distinct from existence, saying that something is “necessary in itself” requires both existence and essence to be realized together. Neither precedes the other, and neither is independent of the other. Thus, if the essence is assumed to be identical with existence, necessity of existence in itself comes to entail the inseparability of necessary existence and the essence characterized by it. Nothing exists through itself except in this manner. All of this rests on the assumption that there are two things.

On this assumption, there are two positions. The first is that the existence inseparable from the essence is itself particular, just as the essence is particular to it. This is the position transmitted from Abū Hāshim and others like him. Some of those who affirm the divine attributes may also hold this view, as is found in the writings of Abū Hāmid and Ibn al-Zāghūnī.

The second is that existence is common in external reality, while the essence is what is particular and distinguishes one existence from another.

This is the position that al-Rāzī attributes to Abū Hāshim and others, but he misrepresents them, just as he misrepresented al-Ashʿarī and Abū al-Husayn