exist apart from concrete entities.”

These thinkers also supposed that existing concrete entities are accompanied by universals distinct from them. This too is an error, for they have established all these universal notions only in minds, not in concrete entities. This has been discussed at length elsewhere.

The point here is that the intellects separate from matter which they affirm are of the same kind as these universals. Hence they explicitly state that knowledge is the knower. Even concerning the Necessary Existent, they say that He is knowledge, that He is the knower, and that knowledge is power. Thus they identify the very essence described by an attribute with that attribute, and identify one attribute with another, as has been discussed at length elsewhere.

They then established the Necessary Existent through the argument from motion, maintaining that motion must have a mover. In their view, the mover is the object of love: one loves to resemble it, but does not love its essence, since voluntary motion necessarily requires this. They claimed that there must be a mover that does not move. The invalidity of this has been demonstrated elsewhere in this book.