existence outside the mind. Even supposing it existed, it would encompass whatever falls under it as a genus or a common accident does. The world, on condition of its exclusion from every positive determination, is existence restricted by nonexistence and the negation of existence. This is further removed from existence than what is restricted by the negation of existence and nonexistence, for what is restricted by the absence of existence and nonexistence is closer to nonexistence and impossibility than what is restricted by the negation of existence and nonexistence.

Moreover, this absolute exists only through the existence of particular entities. It cannot conceivably be their originator or their cause; at most, it could be an attribute of theirs or a part of them. Necessary existence would thus be an attribute or a part of contingent beings. Yet whatever is a part or an attribute of something contingent has even greater reason to be contingent. They must therefore either deny its existence or make it dependent on created things, while created things have no need of it.

At other times, they make its relation to contingent beings like that of matter within form, or form within matter, and the like, as Ibn Sab‘īn and others like him maintain.

At still other times, they affirm nothing distinct from existing things. Rather, it is identical with them, and they are its parts and portions, as al-Tilimsānī and others like him sometimes maintain. This is precisely the position of the outright eternalists, who regard this perceptible thing as necessarily existent in itself.

However, the method Ibn Sīnā and his followers use to refute this position rests on his principle concerning the oneness of the Necessary Existent and the denial of His attributes. This is a weak method, whose invalidity has been demonstrated elsewhere.

Thus, those who call themselves theistic philosophers cannot refute