from others, this is something these thinkers do not recognize. Rather, they hold that these principles have known stations in relation to the First Principle, and that their existence can be fully realized only through their respective stations in relation to Him. As the Exalted says:

“There is not one of us but has a known station.”

They also hold that the connection between these principles is what makes some of them effects of others, and all of them effects of the First Principle. In that existence, ‘agent and effect’ and ‘Creator and creature’ signify only this meaning and what we have said concerning the dependence of every existent upon the One. This differs from what is understood here by ‘agent and effect’ and ‘maker and what is made.’

If you were to imagine a commander with many subordinates, who in turn had other subordinates, with the former having no existence except through accepting commands and obeying the commander, and those beneath them having no existence except through them, it would necessarily follow that the first commander was the one who gave all beings that by virtue of which they became existent. It would also follow that, if a thing’s existence consists in its being subject to command, it can have no existence except through the first commander. This is the meaning that the philosophers consider the revealed laws to have expressed through creation, origination, and the imposition of duties.”