The composition meant by these thinkers is broader than that meant by the others. They claim that there are five kinds of composition that must be denied of the Necessary Existent. They say that He has no reality other than absolute existence, for if He had any other reality, He would be composed of that reality.

They affirm existence as absolute existence conditioned on absoluteness, conditioned on negation, or without any condition, although every rational person knows that this exists only in the mind, not in external reality.

They say that He has no positive attribute—neither knowledge nor power—for if He did, He would be composed of the attributes themselves.

Then they say: He is the one who understands, the object of understanding, and intellect itself; the lover, the beloved, and love itself. He experiences pleasure and joy, and is the object of pleasure and joy. All of this, they say, is one and the same thing. Thus they identify the attribute with the one possessing it, and one attribute with another.

Clearly, this is even more contradictory than the Christians’ position. They also say that He and anything else cannot fall under a common category, lest He be composed of a general and a specific attribute, as a species is composed of genus and differentia, or of a distinctive property and a common accident.

Yet they themselves say that existing beings are divided into necessary and contingent, and that the Necessary Existent is distinguished from the contingent by what is peculiar to Him. They also say that He is not above the world, because if He were, He would have two sides and would therefore be a body composed of indivisible parts, or of matter and form.

Then the followers of these groups devise rational arguments in support of their respective leaders’ positions