and the strength Allah has placed in them; in these respects they have no need of him. Thus, all they needed from him was his act inhering in him, and nothing more.

The Originator of the world, however, originates its entities, attributes, and motions. He therefore has no counterpart, for nothing is like Him—whether in His essence, His attributes, or His acts.

As for his account of a created being that produces a motion inhering in something else, which cannot subsist without that motion, while the created being continually produces it: this is not something observed among agents. Although the example he gives to illustrate his position and theirs is not an exact correspondence—and nothing observable acts as the Lord Most High acts, nor is any act like His—their position is closer to the truth than his, because what they describe exists in the world and comes closer to an agent in the fullest sense.

Thus, his statement:

“An agent who brings his effect into existence and preserves it is nobler and more fully an agent than one who brings his effect into existence but needs another agent to preserve it after it has been brought into existence”

is correct. Yet it does not correspond to the position of his fellow philosophers, for they did not affirm that He produces the substance of the world and its attributes. At most, they made Him the agent producing motion; then they made Him its agent only by virtue of His being