If, then, you deny that, before things exist, He knows that they will exist, and that, after they exist, He knows that they have come into existence, this poses an even greater difficulty for you.

If you identify this knowledge with His very knowledge of what He intends to do, then their treating knowledge of a thing before it comes into being as one and the same would be more reasonable.

As for his statement:

“Change occurring in knowledge when the existent thing changes is a condition of knowledge caused by the existent thing—that is, temporally originated knowledge.”

The response to him is:

This is weak for two reasons.

First, the proof you have presented makes no such distinction.

Second, the same applies to a servant’s knowledge of what he intends to do: it precedes the existence of the thing known, yet it changes. Thus, it is not caused by the existent thing. It therefore becomes clear that whether knowledge is a cause of existence or follows upon it does not preclude the change mentioned.

The knowledge of the Lord, blessed and exalted is He, cannot be acquired from any existing thing, for His knowledge is necessarily entailed by His essence. A servant’s knowledge depends upon a cause that brings it about and upon the object known, which is either the Lord Most High or some of His creatures. The Lord’s knowledge, however, necessarily belongs to Him, since His essence necessarily entails knowledge. What He knows is either His own holy self or the things He knew before creating them.

This question—how His attributes relate to created things after they come into existence, as in the case of knowledge, hearing, sight, and the like—is a major question.

All agree that new relations and connections arise which do not subsist in the Lord’s essence,